Weekend confusion

My kids just spent their first weekend with just my ex-husband's girlfriend.  It was his weekend, he was away on business and I had plans to go away with a girlfriend.  Deeeeeeep breath in, hyperrrrrrventilate out.  Now she is actually a lovely woman: warm, friendly, positive and likes the kids.  They like her too so it's all good from an 'on paper' perspective.  And I have long accepted that I have no control over what happens when they're with Daddy, barring outrageous scenarios that I don't even let my brain start creating.  So the problems arose when my girlfriend cancelled our trip at the last minute.  What do I do?  Ex is on a mine site in Brazil (aka sketchy connectivity) and it's his weekend and I have a cold and dammit, it's not up to me to be there.  But then she's heavily pregnant with twins (don't even get me started as he was Mr. "NO MORE BABIES!" with a fist pump accompaniment when we were married) and probably not excited about not getting to sleep, relax, etc.  Plus she can't get my son to his 3x/wknd hockey.  Which also irritates me.  Not that she can't do it in her state but that my ex couldn't find anyone that would and wouldn't ask the coach about carpooling because then they'd have to get up early.  Um, WHAT?!  That's what commitment is about, moron!  I dug in my heels on that one and he verbally bitch-slapped me and I vented to friends who, of course, all agreed that I'm right (obviously because I *AM*!) and then I ate chocolate until I felt a bit more zen.  So when my plans fell through I weighed my options and thought about how the girlfriend would likely be caught in the middle and decided to go forward with the weekend as planned for the kids.  It can't always be up to me to drop everything because he has work, because he'll always have work.  He could be unemployed and he'd find some beans to count somewhere.  Dude's got a serious work addiction and if our marriage ending didn't fix it then it's no longer my responsibility nor in my best interest to enable him.  In other words, "I don't care about your work.  It's your weekend, make it happen".  I do feel a little guilty because his workaholism supports me right now but I gave up a lot to support getting him to where he can afford to support me.  Ha.

So the girlfriend needed to stop by my house before school to pick up the kids' backpacks.  Being the nicey-nice dummy I am, I felt panic when I saw the huge snowfall we got overnight.  I kept myself from texting her and offering to pick up the kids from their mansion house but the guilt overrode me and I got my ass outside and started madly shovelling so she wouldn't fall.  I'll be damned if I'm going to take the blame for her getting her belly stuck in a snowbank because she wiped out on my property.  And of course I shovelled my elderly neighbours' steps & front paths too, even the one that hates me.  I'm sure she'll say I did it wrong.  Thankfully I don't know Italian so when she's mumbling I won't understand anyway.  The car arrived in the driveway 10 minutes late and the nice girl in me faded away and the little bitch rose to take her place.  She'd taken my daughter to pottery and handed me the box full of her stuff - half of which was smashed to bits from rolling around in the box.  Oops, rookie move not having something soft inside the box.  I brought the kids' backpacks down and she handed me packed lunches.  Except I'd already packed their lunches and she looked a bit crushed by that.  So I suggested we put both lunches in and the kids could pick & choose what they wanted to eat.  Everyone seemed ok with that.  When I hugged my daughter, she whispered "I'm only going to eat your lunch mommy" and I whispered back "For once there's a treat in it.  Two bite brownies!".  Her smile could've rivalled the Cheshire cat's.  I put my fingers to my lips and said "shh" and she gave me another kiss.  Then off they went to school.

Five minutes later I got a text from the girlfriend saying Gavin only had 1 mitten.  Sure enough, it was sitting on the driveway next to where the car had been parked.  I could tell because the driveway was beautifully shovelled.  I assured her that I'd bring Gavin his mitt at recess.  I don't take pleasure in other people's embarrassment but for once it was nice to see someone struggle a little more than me.  Actually I think it was probably a little bit of that mixed with a little bit of insecurity fading.  It's not easy to be the one who doesn't have a partner or a shiny new mansion house.  Who doesn't have 2 new siblings on the way to get excited about.  Who has to crack the whip about homework and listen to whining  when babysitters come so I can go out to swim for 2 hours once a week.  It was nice to finally feel like the one who had my shit together and that the fairly simple life we have is good enough for my kids.  Well ok, and a couple of two-bite brownies seem to go a long way too.