SS13 asks over and over, "Is this baby sister's first time here"

The more SS13 relaxes and falls into place, the more I feel sorry for the kid.

Over the weekend DH and I took the kids to an amusement park. Me and my kids got season passes for the summer and visited several times (both before and after the baby was born) while SS was at his mom's house. He spent half of his time there.

He asked if it was baby sister's first time there. We responded with a no and tried to leave it at that. He went on and figures out it was while he was at BM's house. This was SS's first time to this park. I could tell he felt left out.

WE went out to dinner last night. He again asked if it was the baby's first time at that restaraunt. Again, we said no. We often go out when all the kids are at their other parents' home.

We try to downplay things that happen when kids are not home - both with my bios (we have SS more than my bios) and with SS (when he is with his mother).

But since the only thing his mom does with him is take him to G rated movies and to the local park, he doesn't do many fun things when he's with her. My DH and I will go out to dinner, go away for the weekend, etc when the kids are gone. When SS is gone during summer I do extra special things with my children - just us.

I feel bad that his own mother doesn't plan for him or provide him with interesting and fun activities, but I shouldn't feel guilty.

Even this upcoming weekend, one of our family friends' daughters will be celebrating a first birthday and it will be a big party. The kids are all supposed to be at their other parents' house. I asked my exH if I could pick up my kids for a few hours and bring them back after the party. He said yes. SS wants to go, so we told him to ask his mom and we'll come get him early. But since BM is high conflict, we know it won't actually happen, but we'll see. He has his call with her tonight and we'll see if he even wants to ask her. It's sad because he mostly just sits in the bedroom and plays video games when he is at her house.

How do you all do it? I've got a kid that now wants to be part of our family - me, DH, DD12, DS11, DS9 and our DD3Mo. He finally feels like part of the family (after the first few years where he just thought I was stealing his dad) but now he realizes what he's missing.

just wondering? I guess it's a good problem, but I want to fix it.

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When my SDs were very young I

When my SDs were very young I always felt bad if we did anything without them...sometimes we would skip big events that we always did with them if we couldn't bring them with us, causing our DD (DS wasn't born yet at that time period) to miss out on things. If I could go back in time, knowing then what I know now......I digress.

I think it's sweet of you to be aware of his feelings of belonging in his family. I don't think there's much you can do, or really even should do, about your SS not being able to go/do every thing you and bios or you and DH do. Like you said, you and your DH do stuff when your bios aren't home either, there's nothing wrong with that, it's life and you're living it. IMHO just caring for SS, and helping him feel part of the family in general, is great. He may get jealous from time to time, that sucks, but hey, life, as long as he doesn't start to act out against y'all. And when he's grown, he'll know his BM put little effort forth into his childhood, whether he admits it or not.

When we first moved in

When we first moved in together (read: DH and his kids moved into my house with my family) DH wanted to wait and have everything when SD6 was here.

Um, we already had established traditions and things we did. I put a stop to that crap in the first two years, especially because he tends to be really accommodating when it comes to making SD6 available to BM3 for holidays and stuff that their family is doing. I'm not having the other 6 kids waiting around for SD6 to have their fun. It's ridiculous. But in our case, BM3 DOES take SD6 to do stuff, so when she starts with that, I always tell her that my kids don't have another parent they go see to do fun things. Their family is here, so we do things regardless of who is here or not.

He did. And bm even got him

He did. And bm even got him to write a letter to the judge requesting additional weekends, even though she only wanted every other sat nights. Dh pushed her to take SS EOWe ad he has always wanted bm to be a mother to his son and he knew his son yearned for his mother. It's not necessarily the best environment for him but it is what it is. She's his mom, so...

it's a shame that the kid has

it's a shame that the kid has to suffer through not only divorce, but a bm like that. but, that's not your problem/not your fault. you're very nice to care about this, but I think it's better this way than the other (where you can't do anything without skids being there). all you can do is continue to offer. why doesn't your dh ask bm? 13 is still young enough to be in communication with the bm. if skid was older, i'd leave it all to him to deal with his mom.