I have never been on here before.Is anyone out there awake?

It's been almost a year since I was last here on StepTalk. I stopped posting because I was pregnant & dealing with endless stress from our situation with BM. I desperately needed to pretend that I wasn't dealing with the crap I had been dealing with in order to enjoy some of my pregnancy. And it worked...for maybe a month! Now I'm extremely busy with a 7-month-old, but I need to vent to someone other than my mom or husband once in a while. I think what I really need is the input/opinions/support.

My bf took his ex to court last week and she had to take a drug test. The results came back as "diluted". I wasn't sure what this meant exactly, so I asked one of the pharmacists that I work with and she said that the ex either drank a bunch of fluids before the test to try to make a negative result or she actually added water to the sample in the bathroom. There are a few other more scientific reasons whey the test could have came back diluted, but knowing what I know about this woman, I'm sure she has tried to make her results show negative.

Devil has been 15 for just about 2 months and I'm already praying for 16. Please tell me that 16 is better. Please tell me that my own two aren't going to be this insufferable at 15. Devil is the oldest and if I have to go through this three more times, someone might end up locked up. My friends IRL and I have a theory that any age evenly divisible by 3 is bad so maybe it is just for the year, right?

Why is it MY fault that SD11 forgot to take her saxaphone to school today??? Here's what happened. She stayed with us last night. She doesnt normally bring it with her to our house because the bus drops her off at BM's house instead of ours (different school district) and she pratices before DH picks her up (or so she says--you know how that goes!). I didn't even SEE the freaking thing last night or this morning. Today DH's alarm didn't go off and he woke up to MY alarm 90 minutes later AHHHHHHH.

Should I tell DH he and skids are gross?

SD16 normally burps at the dinner table. Even blows her breath at her father so he can smell it! DH muffles his burps saying, "oh gosh." Never excuse me.

SS22 just walked in the house and let out a huge burp. No excuse or anything. Three minutes later, DH calls and BURPS while we're on the phone! WTF!!?? I said, "your son just walked in and did the same thing." To which he says, "We're gross." And I reply, "Yup." He ended the conversation, obviously annoyed by my agreeing with his statement.

Are there any instances where an employer or insurance company would mail insurance cards directly to BM. Is this normally how it works in most states?

i've been thinking about my almost year on steptalk and what i have learned after reading all the blogs and posts. this morning it dawned on me-this idea of the fantasy world our dh/so/mil/bms create for these step children, and how they have so little reality in their lives. it mostly comes from us-the step parents. so many blogs about the extreme excessive praise given on a constant basis, creating this fantasy.

Ok…. not to call down any negative Karma justice on my own head or anything… but this made a pretty bad *giggle-snort* escape my lips before I could call it back today.

We had SD11 yesterday. She must have been in a good mood or the stars must have aligned because she came running up and hugged me as soon as she walked in. She was very loving and affectionate and paid more attention to ME than she did DH...which was a FIRST in almost 3 years. I even fussed at her slightly (she always tries to blame others on why her responsibilities weren't accomplished as they should have been--getting her notebook signed, turing in her HW in on time, etc. Wonder where THAT comes from LOL). Then 10 minutes later she was hugging on me and being super sweet again.