As a parent you want to provide your children with opportunities you never had as child whether its better education, medical care, opportunities to play any number of sports, or travel experiences. A trip to Disney World is the iconic and once in a lifetime family vacation. What parent wouldn't want to take their kids on trip there? A trip of this magnitude takes on even more significance for a single parent and their children.
Of course during the planning stages I considered how my ex might react to my taking our kids on this trip. I envisioned their would be resentment, anger, and jealously. But I also felt she would see this as a great experience for the children and a once in a lifetime opportunity. As I weighed all the options I realized there was a window of opportunity that could close and if I wanted my children to have this experience I needed to take it. I waited to about two weeks before the trip before informing there mother. She seemed to understand what a great opportunity it was for the children but I should have known better.
On Christmas Day on 2014 I picked up my children from their mother's house and headed to the airport. We were flying out of an airport some distance from where we live in order to get a direct flight. So we spent the night at an airport hotel and flew out early the next morning. Daddy digest travel tip when flying with young children always get direct flight if possible. It makes trips so much more manageable. Now the trip was a complete surprise to the kids. I never told them where we were going. They never figured it out until we reach the magic kingdom. This was absolutely priceless! I certainly recommend doing this if your taking your children to Disney for the first time.
We spent the next six days there and the kids had an absolute blast. We were joined by my mother, brother, and sister. As a single parent this was helpful to help with some of the other details of the trip, but I ended up not spending that much time with my daughter as boys did boy things and girls did girl things. This little fact one would imagine could be very important down the road but I will address this later. We returned from Disney on January 1st, 2015 after a flight and almost four hour car ride that evening. We received a number of Skype calls from their mother that evening, had presents under the tree to open, and needed to get ready for bed. The timeline of events is another fact that should have been addressed, but as I stated before thats for another post.
The very next day I received a call from the children's mother wanting the kids for the weekend since her brother would be in town. I have always been flexible when it came to custodial periods and working around family visits. My ex was even accommodating stating that I would get the "weekend back" at a later date. This seemed very much unlike her but I thought regardless it would be the nice co-parenting thing to do. So I dropped the children off around 2:30 pm that afternoon. Of course their mother was unhappy that I was thirty minutes late. Normally weekends start at 2pm but I felt since I was suppose to have them anyway what was the rush? Was there any big deal to being 30 minutes late? I was doing her a favor after all.
The next couple of days went by as normal. I had nightly Skype conversations with the children. These conversations were fairly normal except for my daughter talking about going to Africa where my ex-wife's sister and her family live. I actually saw the children on January 7th at doctor's appointment. The children were their normal loving selves despite their mother trying to claim something was wrong with them. At the end of the appointment my daughter gave me a christmas gift, two ornaments that she had made in school.
On Friday, January 9th, 2015 I was scheduled to pick up the children that afternoon for a weekend but before I could do so two police officers showed up at my door. They stated they needed to speak about some child abuse allegations? I was immediately confused about what he meant and stated "What child abuse?" as I had no clue! They wouldn't really respond to my question. I pondered what child they could be referring to? So I then asked"What, my children?" As to say you have to be joking!
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