How much time do you get with the kids? If it is less than 40% and you feel you are drifting apart from your kids, why are you not negotiating for more time with them?
Get as much personal work done when you don't have the kids and when you do have them dedicate a LOT more time to them without distractions. That way even if you have them for only 40% of the time, you can effectively still spend 60-70% of the time you used to spend with them when they lived with you 100% of the time
Thanks for the response! I was just logging on for a long journal post (to follow):
Right now I am doing every other weekend Friday-Tuesday - so roughly 30%. And 50/50 for holidays and time off.
My situation was dicey just a month ago getting ANY time (without having to go to court).
I actually really love the time with my kids right now, it is higher quality time than I had before. No stress about having to give my W a break, do house chores, etc. Now, we have fun, and then when they leave I clean up the mess. The hardest part is not having 1:1 time with any one of the kids -- it's virtually impossible with the ages of my 3 to really spend time with any one of them individually. Even when the MR was better, this was a challenge.
It's mostly the long breaks between seeing them that hurts. It would be nice to have a weeknight during my off weeks, but that may be overly disruptive.
In the meantime, I think I should settle into this routine and see how well it is working, and consider if any changes would work better.
Kids are so amazingly resilient, moreso than their parents. D3 told me about two dreams she had this morning. The first dream was that she missed me and thought I was leaving her. She gave me a sad pouty face. I gave her a big hug and said "I would never do that, I love you!" and she smiled. I thought, man this is really a rough situation. Then I asked, "What was the second dream about?" And she yelled out happily "Pirates!!"
