The evening did go relatively well. I ended up having to pick S16 up for the parents evening as H had taken a day's annual leave to spend time with OW and some of her relatives/friends who are visiting at the moment. H met us there as the college is in the city centre and that is where he had spent the day.
As we were driving there H rang S16 to ask him exactly where the college was! My H has lived in this city all of his life, worse still D18 went to the same college but he never once attended a parents evening the whole two years she was there. He was invited he just chose not to be there. He has only ever been there once before when D18 was having a look round with a view to applying for a place. This was a matter of a couple of weeks after he left. He must have felt really stupid and I hope sad and ashamed that he didn't know where it was.
We managed to spend an hour in each other's company without H directly speaking to me! I don't know if S16 has told his teachers our family situation but if he hasn't they wouldn't have been any the wiser b/c we sat and spoke to them all together and we both asked the questions we wanted to do. He just chose to only speak to S16 in between appointments. As I have been many times before I knew my way around and I also knew what happens at these events (it is the first one for S16) and so again I'm sure he must have felt pretty dumb.
I knew H didn't have his car in town with him b/c when I arrived to pick S16 up it was outside his flat. So when we had completed all of our appointments I offered both H and S16 a lift home. H pretended he hadn't heard me and proceeded to tell S16 that he had arranged to re-meet OW and her family/friends at the German Christmas Market that is currently being held in the City Centre. S16 accepted my lift home.
There was just one raised eyebrow moment. When I looked at S16s attendance record (due to his history of playing truant at his previous school) I noticed that he had 4 unauthorised absences and I tackled him about it. H started to tell me that it had all been sorted previously and so I just said 'if you knew he had not been turning up you should have kept me informed as you are supposed to do'. He looked like I had just slapped him round his face. He has clearly forgotten that we are BOTH S16s parents! In the end it turned out that he didn't actually know what he was talking about. He had been referring to when he took S16 to Czech Republic. He took him out of class for two days just prior to a school holiday. The school had originally classed this as unauthorised absence even though H had informed then b/c they don't condone holiday's during term time. When I pointed out that the absences I was talking about were not during that period he hadn't got anymore clue than I had. So much for his supposed superior parenting skills!
In the main S16 seems to be doing well although all of his teachers said that if he just applied himself a little better he would excell rather than just get by.
Me 43 XH 45 M 2.7.88 Divorce 7.10.09 Kids D20,S17 & D15
