I'm having a very hard time getting my head round the fact that my husband prefers to do housework himself than involve his only daughter. She has three brothers but he would rather wash used pots and pans, or carry out the trash and leave the kids to watch tv or stay in their rooms on their computers. I come from a background where everyone gets their hands dirty doing chores. I'm not here to change things overnight but I don't think I have to do ALL the work around the house, including cleaning up their mess, when I have four grown kids in the house.

I survived! I can't thank you all enough.

SD is back home with BM after a long emotionally draining week.

I firmly believe that there were no casualties this week because I was able to find great support here. I have been tearing up the blogs with posts about my week and I think it's time for one more just to say thank you to all you great folks on here who helped keep my spirits up and for all the encouragement.

I hope I can return the favor sometime.

Wow!!! He immasculated HB on facebook for all the world to see. Just because he got in trouble for running off after school with a friend(did not ask) HB is hurt. SS13 is grounded because of what happened. Beforehand he didn't want to go to BM house this weekend but since he messed up he went and then talked trash about HB on FB when at BM's living quarters(her mom and dads))he was grounded from all electronics at our house). Dear BM basically threw gas on that fire. SS13 ran the streets for two days by himself.(GPS his phone) What the heck is going on? PAS on BM part I think.

I was fairly horrified at the prospect of being at home with SD14 for 10 days but things have taken a dramatic turn for the better. On the day of her arrival DH and I spent an hour preparing to discuss things with her. We made a number of decisions including doubling the duration of her grounding, removing the PC from her bedroom and putting it in a public place for shared use, restricting internet access to 2 hours and permanently disabling internet access from her laptop so it can only be used for schoolwork, and insisting that she provide the login details for her FB and email accounts.

She found out her bf (the one she snuck into our house back in June) is moving in 2 weeks. Now she wants to have a long-distance relationship with this boy. What!!?? I can't wait to see how this pans out. I'm terrified she is going to turn to the boy that threatened to kill her...apparently "he's changed"...whatever. She has been sternly informed that a relationship with that boy will totally kill her social life because she will not be allowed to leave the house except to go to school. She swears that won't happen, but I don't believe her for a second.

So,looks like things have taken a new turn with SD22,a girl that i have barely been able to get to know(her choice),and who seems determined to get some kind of reaction from me.

So SS10 was playing video games (huge surprise) and started freaking out because he couldn't get through some part of it. DH told him to turn it off because it was becoming way too important to him (which I agree with) and he had a total tantrum/meltdown.

My MIL has been driving me crazy. Every time she sees me eating something sugary, or drinking a pop (neither of which I do very often anymore...they just don't sound good very often) she goes on and on about how bad the sugar is for the baby. About how, if I'm really worried that the baby is going to have ADHD like it's dad, that I have to stop eating sugar/candy and avoid everything with high fructose corn syrup. That the sugar/candy I'm eating are somehow going to magically give my kid ADHD.

I remember the day I met my now SD for the first time. She was 9 at the time, kind of shy but nice and accepting overall and pretty pleasant. I probably committed the biggest SM sin that could ever be done - i told that little sweetie that "if I do something you don't like or agree with, I need you to tell me." Now fortunately/unfortunately she's never said a word directly to me about things that I may have said or done that she disagreed with, but I thought about it just now - Do I really WANT her to tell me what she's REALLY thinking?

For every time I think I might rise above and forgive BM for what she did to SS9, something happens that I just can't.
This morning I held SS9 on my lap as he woke up - a ritual we have had every morning since he was 6 - and today he looked in my eyes and said "Please don't ever leave me." It broke my heart. Even now, on my lunch break I am hurting.