This is sort of a follow-up to my blog last week regarding SD5 and how we are seeing her struggle with all of her different houmes -- you can see it here: http://www.steptalk.org/node/33603 if you need a refresher.

Fiance and I talked about the situation over the weekend. I pointed out the behavior changes that have been going on with SD since she started kindergarten and have escalated dramatically over the last month. I voiced my concerns that she has SEVEN different places that she goes to on a weekly basis that all have different rules/authority figures/methods/etc (our house, BM's house, her bio dad's house, both sets of grandparents, plus day care and school). I explained that from an educational background, that is very stressful on a kid. I also told him that the last thing I want to do is to make SD5 feel like we don't WANT her anymore, and think that the answer might be to talk to SD and BM and make sure everyone knows that we want her to come "visit" us when she asks for permission to do so, but that it'd be in SD's best interest to have her stay with BM (the way it should really be, since SD isn't fiance's daughter anyway).

DF was very quiet through all of this. I said, "You don't agree with me, do you?" And his response was basically that he does see the stress this is causing for SD but that he also feels like we are the most stable people she has in her life, even though she's not with us very much. I TOTALLY agree with that sentiment as I feel the same. We are the only adult couple in SD's life for her to model a healthy relationship from. We are the only household that has rules and boundaries and teach the kids valuable things. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but we both feel we are the most beneficial people for her to be around, but the fact is that we are not her biological parents and we do not have any rights to her, legally. We have her only one night or two nights a week (alternating), so although we feel that we are a good model for her, she seems to need consistency more than anything right now, and as someone mentioned in my previous blog, we would be the easiest part of the equation to "cut out".

DF works in a way that he likes to ponder things. I planted the seed for him to think about, then I knew I had to just wait for him to register all the things I pointed out.

This morning, (we had SD last night) DF finally voiced his agreeance with me that SD is becoming increasingly crabby, more difficult and touchy. She flipped out last night at DF and at me this morning, for things that weren't even a big issue. I feel bad for her that she seems to always be crabby and the littlest things have been setting her off. I said to her this morning in a very calm voice, "Just take a deep breath. No one needs to feel this way this early in the morning." And it seemed to help her to realize how she was being but she still didnt' talk to me for the rest of the morning.

Anyway...I think we'll give it a few more weeks/visits to see if it's just a short phase. But I can see this heading towards the direction I previously predicted. We're going to have to tell BM that it would be in SD's best interest to have a more stable and consistent schedule....and pray that she agrees and doesn't simply alientate SD from us.