Okay so here we go. First: disclaimer that I’m using “bio son” and “stepson” only to make storytelling easier without using their names. My husband and I each have a child from a previous marriage. My ex husband terminated his rights and we have a terrible relationship with my husbands ex-wife, who lives in TX. We are in CA. She lives to start fights over anything and everything. We had my stepson for 6 weeks this summer and my bio son spent 3 weeks with his grandparents out of state. While my stepson was here alone, we took him to Disney with my husbands parents. A few weeks later, we then planned to take my bio son and my parents. The plan was to drop my stepson off at the airport Friday morning, pick my bio son and parents up at the same airport Friday evening, then stay overnight and go to Disney Saturday because it’s all in LA. Keep in mind, we paid for all of this months ago and we have dropped at least $2-3,000 for the second trip with my bio son and parents (we are paying for everyone). Nothing is refundable, only transferable and my parents leave Sunday.

We get to the airport to drop off my stepson and they say the lady who booked it messed up and he can’t be on the last flight of the day. They have to rebook him and all flights are full so it couldn’t be that day. My husband and I are obviously stressed because this totally derails our plans. Here’s the kicker: They offer us some flights on Saturday and we turn them down. They would be directly in the middle of the day. The only other option is Monday which is the first day of stepsons school. Stepson’s mom loses her shit. She says we are prioritizing Disney over his well-being. Says we are irresponsible and “selfish pricks” or whatever. My thing is…I’m not trashing thousands of dollars and a vacation everyone was looking forward to so he doesn’t miss the first day. We bought him a Disney ticket and he just went with us again. She swore we did it on purpose and I’m like….why would we have taken him weeks earlier? Like does she really think I wanted to spend hundreds more on a whim? Negative.

We arrive on Monday as planned and the lady said the flight was cancelled and she needed to rebook us for Tuesday. So all in all, he missed 2 days of school. We communicated with the school and it was fine. We couldn’t control the cancellation. It’s a shitty situation but it just is what it is. She is nonstop calling us selfish, irresponsible, and bad parents for “prioritizing Disney over what is best for him”.