So maybe this would be better off as a journal entry, but it's not like the board will be in-navigable because of this post anyway, so meh to that.

So a short setting first: I was dumped two years ago now, and have two kids together with the ex, 3½ and 6½. A year ago I met a new woman, Johanna (thank you Tinder!), and we moved in together in June.

The ex had so far kept the kids schedule a right mess, so that they quite often ask "when are we going to mum?" I have for almost a year now tried to get her to agree that they can live one week at a time with each of us, in the spring we met every month to plan a schedule, with little regards for what would be good for the kids. I have changed that but she still seems to be stuck there. At least now she had accepted 1 week at a time starting in December, but until then it is randomly mixed 3-6 days for the kids at each place, planned or by her and agreed by me on the condition that this would be the final messy schedule. I want as little contact with her as I can get away with because she quite often argues with (or yells at) me right in front of the children, which I had repeatedly stated they don't deserve, but this doesn't seem to register.

The younger child's daycare called this week, and said that she is quite often sad and looks for her parents. They thought things would be easier for her to handle with a simpler schedule, such as one week at a time, and wondered if we could change to that. I informed them that this would happen in December, but also that I would talk to the mother and try to get it earlier. She basically replied saying that they don't know why she gets sad, and that we shouldn't do anything (I think that it would upend her plans if we were to change the schedule, hence her reply).

Next weekend, my sister turns 30. Now she is disappointed because I haven't made sure the kids are with me this weekend (I didn't get a proper invitation to her celebration until this week). So she wants me to go pick up the kids from the ex so they can come to her party. I said I thought this was a bad idea, since their lives are messy enough as it is, and don't want to add more of this. She had a hard time accepting that, and this took a bunch of energy to sort out.

Okay, I am done with my rambling now. Did any of it make sense?