Being a Father

I got a text (sms) off my ex the other day telling me my son is going away on Sunday for a week. I am to pick him next Saturday afternoon and bring him back on Sunday. No questions were asked. It was just information that is all. Normally when he is with me it is Friday night to Monday morning. In that time I get to be a father, a friend, a confident, a playment, a discipliner, an educator, a hugger, a punch ball and a stuffed toy. There is no time for any thing else. I am followed everywhere as If I am about to dissappear in a puff of smoke. I asked him directly if he would like a week with me and a week with his mam. His answer was a big YES.
He is a good boy, he struggles with his English, he struggles with concentration, he is very untidy and falls over a lot because he goes to bed to late so he is constantly tired. Sometimes when we get him, he is falling asleep in his dinner at 8pm. I mean that literally.
This week the lawyer rang, my ex doesn't want to agree to alternate weeks. So I am being offered a Wednesday plus weekends. I didn't think about that offer, I said no straight out. The Lawyer was disappointed. Now it will be a long drawn out battle. I need to explain some things to him. I didn't leave my home and family and friends and future, to live in a foreign country and see my boy for 2 or 3 days out of every 15. In the last month I have seen him one weekend, because as we try the every second weekend thing, his mother still suits herself and chops and changes her mind.
I am Irish and so is my son, by birth, and legally. We live in France. I could if I wanted just take him back, there is legal precident already in France for that, but I won't bring him back to Ireland. I wouldn't do that to him. It would not be being a good father. I could insist on turning the tables completely, I keep him all the time and his mother have him every second weekend. How far do you think I would get with that? ..I could even propose very long weekends like from Thursday night to Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Again I am inhibited because my mind doesn't think quickly enough in French and before I can think of any of the the lawyer is gone. I can't get in touch with him, as I don't have his number. Imagine that! I can ring his office only.
Yesterday I tried to get to talk to my boy, I rang his house, no answer. I sms his mother as we don't converse, she didn't reply. I rang his nounou, which is the childminder, he was shy speaking english in front of her and her family so we agreed to talk today. The land line doesn't answer, his mothers phone doesn't answer. I sent more sms, finally get an answer telling me to ring her mobile. I do, it's engaged.
Finally I get through, I get a hello how are you and the line goes dead.
It is hard being a Father when you never get to talk to or see your son. I wonder how bad I made things for my father by not ringing in the past...I am not blaming my nearly 8 year old boy don't worry. I am just thinking about my own father. ...Do you talk to your Dad? Do you tell him how happy you are he was there, or how angry you are that he was usless as a Dad? I hope my son knows when he is an adult that if it all goes wrong, I am doing as much as I can, short of storming up to his mothers house and forcing him out there, to be there for him, to show him I love him, to give him a future...Pity his mother can't see that.