Thanksgiving thoughts

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a good day filled with family, friends and gratitude. As for me, I have many things to give thanks for. I am grateful for my job, my vehicle that actually made it across the country despite its 219,000+ miles, my friends who cheer me on, and my significant other, now across the country, who supports me wholeheartedly. I am especially grateful for my three sons, whom I now live close enough to see much more often. Just today, I met with one of my older sons and got to reconnect with him.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Aiden. I have sent Aiden's mother two copies of three messages--one each on Tuesday, Wednesday, and today--asking to see Aiden this weekend. Each message was sent to her to both her e-mail and her OurFamilyWizard account, which tracks when each message is viewed.  As of this posting, she has not responded at all to the messages, not even to say, "Not a chance, buddy." In fact, she has not even opened the three OurFamilyWizard messages concerning visits, even though she did open (on Wednesday at about 9:30 p.m.) the two messages concerning phone calls that were sent after the first two messages about visits.

As I said in my previous post, I suspect she will deny me any time with Aiden until we have court on December 20; perhaps she will cite the 30-day notice provision of the court order of ten months ago (though she waived that provision for my 2-week stay in October/November, and my recent move to California was precipitated by a job offer less than 30 days ago); or perhaps she will not give me any reason at all.

I had asked Aiden's mother to have Aiden call me today, Thanksgiving Day, in addition to the twice-weekly scheduled calls. Here is the complete transcript of today's 8-second call:

Rick (R): Happy Thanksgiving!
Aiden (A): Happy Thanksgiving!
[disconnected]

I'm guessing that Aiden's mother will tell her friends that she complied with my request and had Aiden call on Thanksgiving to wish his dad "Happy Thanksgiving"---without mentioning that those were the only two words that Aiden said to me.

At least I got two words from Aiden...last year, Aiden's mom completely ignored my request to speak to Aiden on Thanksgiving.  I hope that by next Thanksgiving, one of the things that I can give thanks for is having a meaningful relationship with Aiden developed over a year of regular, good-quality and quantity contact with my son. Is that too much for a father to ask?

California, Here I Come!

I saw Aiden for three excellent visits over Labor Day (three hours, four hours, and six hours) and TEN visits (four or five hours each) over two weeks between October 29 and November 11. Now, I hope I will be able to see him on a regular basis. Because I love my son and want to be a regular, consistent part of his life, I'm leaving my home, my friends, and my significant other to move to California; I will be arriving before Thanksgiving.

I have asked Aiden's mother for a one-night overnight visit on Thanksgiving weekend, and two-night weekend visits every other weekend thereafter. Her reply to this was, "[The mediator] was helpful in facalitating [sic] discussions. I wonder if we could have her help us with this disscussion [sic]--." (FYI, the mediator's local agency in NY serves NY residents, which I am not any longer.) I suspect she will not agree to this schedule, because the current court order stipulates far less visit time. It's possible she will withhold Aiden from me entirely until court on December 20, saying that I did not give her the requisite 30 days' notice. (Because of my job situation, I could not give that much notice for the October/November stay in California, yet she agreed to visits then---although only under much pressure from the court mediator and Aiden's attorney.) Will she deny visits altogether, or limit them severely, if there is no one to compel her to do otherwise?

My question is, why would she deny or limit visits? Aiden has been completely happy during all of the time he's spent with me, never once crying or complaining of any physical problem. Why would she not want our son to see me frequently and develop a strong bond with me, while at the same time giving herself a much-deserved break from caring for a young child? Isn't this a win-win-win situation for me, Aiden, and Aiden's mom? According to my own and Aiden's attorneys, every other weekend is a pretty standard visit schedule. Aiden himself wants to spend time with me--listen to how excited he is during these phone calls when I ask him about seeing me:

November 20 call-"I'm excited!"

November 17 call--"Could you come more?"

Of course, the calls end suddenly, shortly after he expresses his excitement at seeing me.

The current court order for very brief visits, on only two of every three days of my trips to California, was made almost a year ago. Because the court has postponed our case thirteen times, I have had to take Aiden's mom to court in order to see him for more than the court ordered time for every single trip I have made to see Aiden. Now that I will be living in California and available on weekends to see Aiden consistently, I'm hoping she will agree to my proposed schedule of visits without my having to take her to court. For Aiden's sake, that would be really great...but I'm not holding my breath.

Phony phone records

On Nov 9th, Aiden's mom and I had a court hearing concerning the Temporary Restraining Order she filed against me on Aug 26th, when I was again in California. I won't go into it here, but suffice it to say she made many allegations against me that I was ultimately able to prove were totally fabricated.

After I left California on September 1st, she filed four more police reports (in addition to the two she had already filed) saying that I had been harassing her by phone, while the TRO was in effect.

Her allegations are untrue, and simply do not make any sense. Why on earth would I "stalk" and "harass" her when I've been trying so desperately to have more contact with Aiden? In particular, why would I harass her by phone in direct violation of the TRO, while at the same time spending literally thousands of dollars in travel costs and attorney fees, trying to get the court to see me as a good dad and grant me more visitation time with my son? I would certainly not jeopardize my chances of seeing Aiden by doing things like that; it's just not logical.

In court, Aiden's mom presented a Verizon cell phone bill as "proof" of my harassing calls. I've attached it here. The thing is, all it proved was that she was lying to the judge.

In her phone bill, she chose not to include the columns (seen in my bill) that show where the call originated from, and its destination. Without this information, there's no way to tell which calls are incoming, and which are outgoing. She has marked "Rick" next to all the calls she says were from me, harassing her. Calls from me, on Tuesdays at 5:30 PM and Saturdays at 7:00 PM Pacific, are my scheduled call times with Aiden. These appear on my phone bill for 9/25 and 9/28 as calls to Alamitos, CA. Because she didn't answer those calls, they don't appear on her bill.

One of the ways she falsified the bill was to mark calls as being from me, even though they were calls she made to me . If you look at my own cell phone bill (here) on 9/25 (highlighted in pink), you see two calls clearly marked "Incoming CL" at 10:29 AND 10:35 (Eastern). Look on her bill: the pink-highlighted calls at 7:29 and 7:35 (Pacific) she has marked as calls I made to her--strange, as they were incoming to my phone.

But the most damning evidence is all the calls she attributes to me that have the listed phone number of 000-000-0086. Those calls (8 on this page, 47 over the billing period record she submitted!) are most certainly NOT from me, because they are calls she made to her own voice mail (marked in yellow) to retrieve her messages. If you look on my phone bill (also from Verizon), you can clearly see that calls to that number (dialed as *86) are calls to voice mail (also in yellow), as they are marked "Voice Mail CL".

Saying in court that those calls were from me, when she obviously knew they were not, is perjury. It's proof that she will do and say almost anything to keep me out of Aiden's life (her original TRO requested that I have no contact with Aiden as well as her).

In court, the judge saw that she was obviously lying about the phone calls (and about other allegations that I was able to solidly debunk), and the TRO was completely dropped.

I'm thankful for that...but her behavior scares me. She actually told a friend that she looked forward to seeing me arrested. Exaggerating stories about your ex is one thing; knowingly presenting false evidence in court, and filing police reports and restraining orders based on these lies and outright fabrications, is something entirely different.

I'm an adult, so I can handle whatever she throws my way. But Aiden is being raised by a mother who believes that lies serve as well as the truth to accomplish her ends. I hope this is one lesson he does not learn from her.

Playing Games

I had my scheduled call with Aiden last night. To his mother's credit, she answered my question about how Aiden is recovering from his illness--though she did not volunteer any information until I asked and still will not allow me to contact his doctor directly for more information.  

However, when Aiden came to the phone, he immediately said he could not speak to me because he was playing Candyland (a game I got him for his birthday).  The entire phone call lasted under two minutes.  

My calls to Aiden are prearranged;  I call every Tuesday at 5:30 PM and every Saturday at 7:00 PM Pacific time.  There was no reason for Aiden's mom to start playing a game with him just before my call, knowing full well that I would be calling.  She could have played with him another time during the day, or held off until after my call.  Or she could have had him call me back after he was done playing, as I requested in an e-mail I sent her after the aborted call.  She even could have encouraged him to take a break from the game for a few minutes to speak with me, though of course he wouldn't have wanted to.

Instead, she chose to play games with me, by deliberately setting up the call so Aiden would not want to talk, and then failing to grant my reasonable request for a call back later.  These games where she answers my call, but then pulls Aiden away from an activity or actively encourages him to hang up may satisfy her desire to keep Aiden from speaking to me, but at what cost to Aiden? Building a relationship with the father who wants to be an involved and important part of his life is certainly more important for Aiden than playing a game.  Aiden should not be a pawn in her games; he's a little boy who needs his dad.