I know this is petty on my part, but every time DH gets a glimps of how skids really are and his eyes clear up a bit it makes me feel good. More so that he sees I'm not just being the Evil Stepmonster they like to make me out to be.
This one instant happened while the skids were with us ALL FREAKING SUMMER. This was the time I said nope, I'm done trying.
I had taken a leave of absence from work because DH couldn't afford to put his kids in daycare. Since I had the time available to me I figured why not, it would be a good time for me to bond with his children and maybe they'd stop acting like little shits if they felt closer to me. Boy was I wrong.
SS9 has some mental issues, he takes a lot of medication. Ok, now I'm going to cut the crap. I have no clue if it is the medication or not but he wets the bed, the couch, or where ever he is when he falls asleep or is watching tv at night and doesn't want to get up. His BM says it's all the meds fault but who knows with this kid.
Any way, we had all four, all summer. About two weeks into it, after many arguments and blow ups about how they act and talk and treat each other and my BS's I decided that everyone was going to be off tv, computer, or any other electronic device for a few hours and clean up after themselves. I went back to check on progress and it smelled like a portapotty in all their room and was wafting to my kids rooms as well.
When I asked what the hell SD and SS7 blamed SS9. They saw him peeing on the bed, on the chair, on the floor in the bathroom. I was morified. I called DH and told him he had two choices here, potty train his 9 year old tonight or get him the hell out of this house and let him pee all over his BM's house cause I'm not putting up with this.
DH gets home, takes SS9 to the side, he starts yelling, screaming, (SS9 not DH) and throwing his usual I'm 9 but I'm going to show you a 2 year old fits. DH grounded him and made him where pull ups to bed. SS9 wasn't happy about it but no was happy about the urine smell that was now in the living room.
Part of his punishment was he was going to scrub the pee smell off the bathroom floor. He scrubbed it three times. The smell didn't go away. I even watched him the third time around to make sure he wasn't just pushing the scrubber back and fourth for a few minutes then say he was done. No, he put alot of elbow greese into this, and still a strong smell.
I starting looking around and guess what I found?
In the clothes hamper, in the towel closet, and it the cabinet under the sink were pull ups, at least two to three per place. No SS9's pull ups either. They were pink with disney princess on them. I was even more mortified. I sent all the kids outside to play and checked the bedrooms. Two in the skids room, one to two in each of my kids room. SD had been putting on pull ups and peeing in them and hiding them all over and then her and SS7 blamed SS9.
Once DH got home, I again sent all the kids to play outside and took him around and showed him each one. As I did, he felt absolutely horrible for punishing SS9.
He asked SD and SS7 to come inside and asked them again. Are they sure SS9 was peeing all over everything. They both said yes. SD added that she didn't want him in the same room with her any more. So, to make a long story not overly long, he showed her all the pink princess pull ups. She just stood there, then got her pouty face on and started crying. Well, DH wasn't falling for it this time. SD and SS7 were now grounded for a week. They both got spankings, and both had to stand infront of all the other kids and give SS9 an apology. It's funny, now when either tell him anything, he has trouble believing it. Oh, and yes they did try to blame me for the pull ups, but it just wasn't working this time.