Re-title: Passing judgement without intending to! It's not usually in my make-up but it's hard not to!

I am a little hesitant to post this, for a few reasons. The big #1-I don't want anyone, even myself, to pass judgment on Patrice. I know some of you have been in her shoes, I am sure some of you have been in the shoes of (in my opinion) the problem, and I am sure some of you can't relate at all...but I just want to be able to vent this and then try to move on!

Patrice has an ex girlfriend, of 12 years. At year 8 Patrice decided to have a child. You either know him, or know about him, Tristan. He is now 5, Patrice and I have been together for 14 months now.

Even though Patrice was really the only parent during Tristan's first 4 years of life, after the ex left, Patrice felt it was in Tristan's best interest to grant some "visitation" so they could continue to build and nurture a relationship.

In the past 14 months, I have grown to love Tristan as my own. I take pride in his accomplishments, when he cries with true emotion about pain that he feels in his heart, I feel bad with him. I am excited to hear about his day, and when I have to miss out on a day without seeing him I miss him. I want him to grown, and learn, and be able to make mistakes so he knows right from wrong. I enjoy teaching him the little lessons in life. And I even enjoy challenging him to teach him to stand up for what he wants and believes in. This one is a hard one at times...I will give you an example...
Tristan as you saw a few blogs back, loves to get his toe-nails painted. He thinks it feels good, he loves the colors, he just plain likes it! The Ex is some what of a "chauvinist" and feels that girls have roles and boys have roles and they shouldn't deviate from those roles. Which is ironic because she acted like a male chauvinist pig while dating Patrice, but that is an entirely different blog in and of itself. Anyway...she took on the attitude of "no son of mine will wear pink or paint his toenails". Until Patrice let her know that he likes it and don't tease him about it. Well, he started karate about a month ago, and has to take his shoes and socks off during class. He freaked out because he didn't want anyone to "tease" him about his toe nails. This grated on my nerves, so I decided to give him an analogy (FYI analogies and 5 years olds work well-I know, your shocked!).
Me:"Bud, you know how you hate Pepperoni Pizza, you only like Cheese pizza...what if I told you that because I like pepperoni, that you are dumb for liking cheese and you can't have cheese pizza anymore, you can only have pepperoni?"
Tristan: "I'm not dumb, I don't like pepperoni, I like cheese, and I will eat it"
Me:"That is exactly what I wanted you to say buddy, and now when people tell you your dumb 'cause your toe nails are painted, what will you say?"
Tristan:"I will tell them they are dumb!"

Well, not the exact answer I wanted out of him, so we continued talking, and got him to the point that he was okay with his decission to get his pedi and things were fine for a few weeks.
Fast forward to a week that the Ex took him for the Thanksgiving holiday to her families. Shoes come off, there go socks, and even though I wasn't there, got the visual that her eyes widened and Tristan let us know that she peeled off the toe nail polish with her fingernails "SO HE WASN'T EMBARRASED IN FRONT OF HIS COUSINS AND UNCLES!" I am just a little irritated.

Anyway...in my opinion, and that is all that matters right? I am a damn good "step-mom" per say and feel like I always have Tristan's best interest in mind. And a lot of times I feel that the Ex doesn't. And that frustrates me!

Christmas is coming...I am so excited. Patrice and I have done some pretty special things for Trist, some of which are material, some of which are from the heart. We know he will enjoy the magic of such a special time of year!

The ex, although she doesn't have a full 50/50 custody split with Patrice has been given her alloted one weekend a month this coming weekend. She will take him friday morning until monday (Christmas Eve) at 3:00pm. Her normal weekend times are from friday at 5:00pm to sunday at 5:00pm. So she is getting an extra 31.5 hours more then she normally gets. She is taking him to Idaho for her family Christmas party and we felt that not only does he deserve to go, but it was a nice gesture to allow her to have a little extra time to enjoy the holidays with him.

HERE COMES MY BIG FRUSTRATION!

Patrice offered to let Ex come to our house Christmas morning with her Santa presents to get to watch Trist open Santa presents. Slight irritation, but I can understand why, so I go along with it. Ex throws a fit about having to come in the morning (she doesn't want to have to get up that early) and demands to get to sleep over night to "help set up Santa (which mind you we have ours, she has hers...so I don't want her help setting up my Santa stuff), and get to be there if he wakes up early, oh, and Tristan really wants her to sleep over" BULLSHIT! She just wants to 1-not have to get us so early to drive up, 2-irritate me, 'cause whenever she comes to Patrice's house she struts around the house like it's hers ('cause it was for 12 years) and 3-we wont even be home Christmas Eve night, we are going to Patrice's mom's for Christmas Eve dinner and presents and by the time we get home he will be asleep...SO...there is really no valid or good reason for her to stay over that has anything to do with Tristan, only selfish immature reasons that are just 'causing me grief!

As for the whole Tristan wants her to stay over, there was a night we were getting out all the Christmas decorations and the stockings got pulled out, I had purchased three new stocking holders last year, Tristan put up his stocking, my stocking, and Patrice's stocking. I said "what do you want to do with this one?" making reference to the Ex's stocking. Tristan says "she doesn't live here anymore, she can have it at her house". "PERFECT", I thought! I wont have to tell him, he already knows! But then the day after he had gone to spend time with her, he was dead set on her sleeping over and having her stocking there "'cause she will be sad if she can't sleep over". I WAS INFURIATED! Are you seriously manipulating a 5 year old to be able to get that leverage back in? Are you seriously focused on what's in Tristan's best interest? I think not! AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!

Well, the past week Patrice and I have been on edge. She hasn't given a definitive answer as to whether the Ex can sleep over and so I finally had to sit down and decide what's best for Heidi. It's been one of the hardest decisions I have had to make yet in our relationship...

After my ex left me, I was in therapy. I had to learn (and it was a very hard lesson to learn and I am still learning) that my life needed to be filled with me finding happiness. In my past, my happiness stemmed from pleasing others and making others happy. When those others had been fulfilled they moved on, and I was left lacking. I had to learn what it meant to find happiness even though it may be what I want and may go against what others want. I want to please Patrice, I want to make her happy, but I also know that I need to be happy too, and if something doesn't make me happy, and goes against what I believe in, I have to remove myself from the situation. THAT IS SO HARD!

So I told Patrice, for me, if the Ex is sleeping over, then I will just stay at my house, they can have Santa Christmas morning and then when the Ex leaves, I will come over and we can enjoy the rest of the day as a family. Because for me Christmas is about spending time with the people I love and I don't see any reason for me to put myself in a situation that is uncomfortable and just plain wrong to me. There is no reason in my mind that she has to sleep over night, and I also feel we are being overly gracious for allowing her to come and intrude on our Christmas morning after she is already getting him for an extra 31.5hours of our time during the weekend anyway!

So I have no idea what Patrice will decide. She feels like she is in the middle, in my opinion there shouldn't be a middle to be in. Is it really in Tristan's best interest to have chaos, turmoil, animosity, frustration, irritation looming in the house? I don't think so. And if I can be so selfish...CAN'T SHE SIDE WITH ME? Why can't it be about what we as a family want, screw her EX! Okay, I will try not to be selfish anymore...TRY, I said TRY!

I don't know, I am just so frustrated I want to tell her to go jump in the lake, but I also keep my mouth shut to keep the peace. I just feel that it's time the three of us sit down and decide what boundaries and what rules need to be in place because we all want what is best for Tristan, but the way things are going it's become more about grandstanding, or "one-uping" each other, seeing who can win, seeing who can be the better Disneyland parent and all this is just going to negatively impact Tristan and that is what I don't want to see.

The Ex feels I have no right to have an input. I feel I have more right then her, she is the one that left! I am here participating right now, she is just being his "buddy". It's not the greatest to have to be the disciplinarian...but I keep remind Patrice that even though the Ex gets to always have him for play time and we have him for not only play time, but learning time, and bath time, and sleeping time, and time out time, and grounding time, and breaking his arm time, and all the other times, he will grown and age and have far more respect for Patrice and I because we took the time to actually raise him to be a good upstanding member of society where as she was just there to buy him anything he wants and buddy around with him and buy his happiness!

BLAH! I am just so emotional about this all...it's really hard to be in my shoes, but I know it's hard to be in the shoes of the ex and of Patrice too...I just don't know all the answers, even though sometimes I claim to! :)

I guess that is it for now...don't really know what to do next.