negotiating play times

If you are a detail oriented person, when it comes to reading other people's blogs that is, you might remember that I noted something fishy about voldemort's original email regarding trombone lessons.  The whole email felt like a distraction for her to be able to find out what our summer plans are, whether we are traveling or not, and generally find out when she can harass us.  She wanted to know when, of our full vacation weeks with Buttercup, we would be in town, and when we would be gone.

Side note:  the custody agreement says that if you plan to travel with Buttercup, you must keep the other parent apprised of your itinerary and whereabouts and contact info.  They have always made a big stink about this, asking for detailed plans of our vacation time, and then failed to tell us their vacation travel plans.

Not 24 hours after we got the initial trombone lesson email, I got a call from Bellatrix, the mother of Buttercup's good friend, Little C.  (Read here, here, and here for other stories of Little C).  Bellatrix is an abrupt, rushed, tense, and generally unsettled person.  Reports from Buttercup of time at their household involves lots of yelling.  Mostly Bellatrix and her husband yelling at each other, but the kids never far from the fray.  Bellatrix's husband is a nice enough guy.  He's a stay at home dad, who doesn't really want to spend time with his family (from the surface viewpoint).   He has always directed his playdate planning to me, as he seems to get it that the King is out of the house working most days, and I know what's going on at home.  I have never had real issues with the Bellatrix until recently. When we spent many phone conversations in discord over softball carpool plans.  Oh, and one other thing, Bellatrix is good friends with voldemort.


So Bellatrix calls me and leaves a message.  She wants to set up play times for the summer for Buttercup and Little C, and needs to know when we will be in town, when we will not, and generally just wants to know our summer plans for Buttercup.   Ok, the fish is really starting to stink now.

After a few back and forths and missed calls, I finally spoke with Bellatrix's husband.  He wanted to make some plans for this week, as he knew Buttercup was with us.  I got off the phone with him and thought through it.  It was just too odd.  These are people who call at the last minute and make plans, switch plans, and show up late.  It was too unlike them, from what I know, for them to be so concerned about our summer plans.  So, armed with my new stepmommy super-powers, I called him back, and flat out asked why they were so concerned about our summer schedule.  He happily explained that he and Bellatrix had meetings, appointments, etc, many days of the summer, and were aggressively trying to make plans for their kids to be out of the house. Little C was not going to many camps, and they had made it clear to her that she had better keep herself busy each and every day, or they would be signing her up asap.  I really have no reason to doubt him, as I said, he has always been rather sensitive to our family situation.

I wanted to believe him, to trust them, to feel safe in negotiating play times (for heaven's sake) with Buttercup's friends.  But then, a few days later, I had another talk with Bellatrix....