DH has primary custody of SS13 with BM having every other weekend. There are some changes to the standard schedule that we will be experiencing for the first time, based on current court orders: easter, mother's day, fathers' day, SS's school trip, summer with two weeks on/off.

So hubby had me draft a letter (upon my suggestion, as I'm a planner - hey with three bios, a step and a baby on the way, I HAVE to be) that outlined all of the upcoming court ordered adjustments in the standard schedule, an offer of a replacement weekend visit since SS's school trip takes place on her scheduled visitation weekend, and the proposed schedule for the summer basically stating that the two weeks will begin during her scheduled Friday pick up and exchanges will occur every other Friday at the same location.

Nothing in there is out of line, however I'm pretty sure she won't like that we "told" her when summer visits will begin, however, it's very logical to begin them with her usually scheduled first visit of the summer. Then after her third visit with mom, he is back with us for one week before he starts school and the every other weekend visits will start back up when school begins and the standard cadence resumes.

One thing I KNOW she's not going to be happy with is the part where we alert her that SS starts football in July and that he has practice 3 nights a week and, "I trust that you will be taking him, per the court order".

The letter also states to let him know if she has any questions or if something doesn't work for him.

Even though court is over and the custody case is closed, he wants to continue to show his responsibility and that he continues to offer additional time and she refuses. He is also concerned that she will not be taking him to his practices and games (as she never has in the past and now there is an actual court order), so if we do decide to open the case back up to take some of her time away AND ask for child support, we have everything documented.

Since he has a restraining order against her, we figure that this is the best way to communicate with her - rather than her preferred method of texting.

What do you think? Good move? Bad move?

(I hate that everything we do has to be considered a "move" but it really is. We ALWAYS have to stay one step ahead of her or we'll end up with tacks in the tires or sugar in the gas tanks again.