Spring Fresh Air/Break

What is it with Seth and showering on Spring Break? Every year it's a fight and since he has officially entered the status of preteen it's gotten worse this year because to say it bluntly, he stinks.

He stunk before but it was that dirt, wet dog and unbrushed teeth smell that little boys are so fond of, occasionally with the hint of dirty feet and chlorine.

This year he still has those traditional smells but has added the smell of body odor, moldy laundry and man fart to his bouquet. Basically he smells like straight up ass. His friends are showering as often as he is, so I don't think they can smell each other over the covers of sunscreen, Axe body spray, cigarette smoke (one of his friends parents and brother smoke inside their house) and fast food grease.

They are a disgusting bunch right now, none of them are allowed to sit on anything cloth inside my house. This is also one of the last Spring Breaks I will fight him to shower and brush his teeth (Summer will be fun too) he is growing up faster then I can even believe. It's like I blinked my eyes and 2 years passed, I took a nap and another 5 were gone, I took my eyes off him for one second and he started turning into a man.

He is a good kid and I love him, I am proud of who he is growing up to be and maybe when I am on my deathbed I will long for the smells of his youth, like I will long for the smells of my own.

But for now, does anyone know if I can Febreze a preteen?

Lies, Liars and Lying

Lilith lies.

Lilith lies about just about everything from what I've noticed. Lilith lies about big things, small petty things, she lies when we know the the truth or the truth is easily found out. She lies about things so she doesn't have to take responsibility for them, she lies about what she thinks people want to hear. She lies when it would be just as easy to tell the truth. She lies to herself and she lies so much I often wonder if she even knows she is lying anymore.

She lies to Adam constantly. It becomes difficult to know if anything in her world is ever real. I have had to come up with complex ways to find out the truth. Adam and I have a joke between ourselves "how do you know Lilith is lying? Her lips are moving" but in honesty it is hard to co-parent with someone who lies all the time.

Every single grandparent of hers has died at every single job she has ever had. She told us 4 times last year that she couldn't come get Seth because she was getting her car registered, then when she was arrested on the DUI one of the charges was expired tags. She lied to us for years about the abusive nature of her marriage to Sam. She lied about things Seth saw or heard while in her care. She lies now about her drinking.

She also white washed her and Adam's past together, which admittedly we all have a tendency to do and I don't expect her to tell Seth the true nature of her and Adam's relationship but to hear Seth talk about what his mom says, you would think that they had a wonderful relationship, still love each other deeply but just in a different way now and that Adam wanted to be with me, so they split up. I have been honest with Seth that his dad and mom were divorced before I came into the picture and that his mom was already living with someone else but I don't try to refute the rest of it. If it helps Seth to believe that his parents still love each other then fine, it doesn't change my place in this family. The truth is Adam and Lilith were very young when they met, Adam's parents were divorcing so he was in a but of a rebellious phase. Their relationship was, like all of Lilith's relationships, very volatile, they fought often, there was drinking and the such involved, there was infidelity and when Adam had enough he moved out and asked for a divorce.

Anyways. Lilith's ease at lying is a trait that I see Seth picking up and it really disturbs me. I know people lie, heck I lie, we all lie but for the most part I try to be an honest person and a real, genuine role model for Seth and Lulu. It bothers me to see and hear Seth lie like it is no big thing. I know part of it is his age, but also is watching his mother lie so easily about everything. It is a real problem for me, one without a clear answer.

Saying Goodbye

Funerals, memorials and goodbyes are for the living. I have had my share of having to deal with deaths in this past year. I want to take this opportunity to say goodbye and close this chapter publicly. To maintain privacy I am going to just leave this as one letter.

Friend,
You left us too soon and we are left with more questions then we will ever have answers. I am sorry that you didn't feel like you could come to me, Adam or anyone else, that you felt so alone, that you were hurting so badly that you felt like you had no other options. I wish you would have said something to me when I talked to you that last time. I would have done everything in my power to help you.

I don't know if you are even aware of the pain you left behind. I watched your mother cry at your funeral, as a new mother myself seeing those baby pictures of you, knowing the hopes, dreams and love she had for you. It was almost suffocating to bear witness to her grief. Parents aren't supposed to outlive their children. To see your siblings cry, to watch their pain so raw and unguarded. It felt obscene to watch but as we were all gathered together to remember you, I was a part of it. Adam came to your funeral, which should tell you how much you meant to him as a friend. I have watched Adam repress his grief about your death for months now.

To see your friends grieve, too see so many lives that you touched. You wouldn't have been able to say that no one cared. I don't know why you felt so alone and so desperate. Your choice of actions caused hurt on top of pain. You left questions that no one can ever answer, you left a scar on the collective psyche of those that loved you. While I understand that you were hurting and I don't want to seem like I don't care, you have to know that your actions were incredibly selfish. You involved and hurt innocent people while carrying out your final actions.

You left your spouse a shell of person, I watched and cried as I saw them hurt for so long until they physically gave up, became sick and finally passed because the thought of living without you caused them so much pain that they stopped fighting to live. Have you ever watched someone die from a broken heart? I have seen it two other times, both in elderly couples who passed within months of each other. To watch my young, vibrant friend go through that was incredibly painful. I tried to offer help, to find grief counselors, to be there and take care of them like you asked me too in your final message. If only I had recognized that you were saying goodbye in time.

I hope that have found the peace that you were so desperately looking for. I am sorry that you couldn't find it here on earth, I am sorry that some of us didn't even know you were hurting so badly. I hope you found your love and that you are able to find peace. I am sorry that you couldn't find anything to continue to fight and live for. It is such a different tragedy when someone is taken from us too early and when someone choses to leave us early.

You were a good friend, I think about all the time we sat together talking about life, talking about things of deepness and meaning. I think about all the times we sat and talked about nothing. The times that we laughed, the advice that was given, the quiet moments. I think about the times we watched you preform, about the talent you had and how that is all that will live on now that you are gone.

Goodbye my friends. I will miss you


If you or anyone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or ideations there is help out there.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255

http://www.suicidehotlines.com/

If you have lived through the suicide of a loved one or friend, you aren't alone and there is help and support for you as well.

http://www.allianceofhope.org/

Local support groups by state:
http://www.suicidology.org/suicide-support-group-directory

Dealing with Personality Disorders

Let me start off by saying I am not a mental health professional and at no time could I ever diagnose someone with a mental illness or a personality disorder. Also mental illness in and of itself does not make anyone a bad parent but learning how to deal with what someone is suffering through can be immensely helpful in custody situations.

We all deal with our own quirks and mental illnesses, I am prone to depression and live with ADHD-I.

Over the years of dealing with Lilith I have questioned my own sanity. I have also looked for an explanation of her behavior and why she makes the choices that she does, which far too often haven't taken Seth's well being into consideration in my humble opinion. Remember, I chose this life, I chose to give up a free and unattached life to be with a man who had a child and I have always strived to do what is best for that child.

Also in my family of origin I come from a blended family with a sibling that suffered Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) at the hands of their custodial parent. I am an armchair psychologist, like Adam is an armchair quarterback yelling plays at the screen. I am fascinated with mental health and what makes our minds tick. I have read and studied but I am no professional.

Lilith has never shared if she has been diagnosed with any mental illness or personality disorders with Adam or myself. You probably are thinking that of course she wouldn't have shared that with us but with the amount and types of details that she does share with us on a normal basis we would be surprised if she didn't tell us she had a mental illness or personality disorder. There is a history of mental illness in her family that we have been made aware of by Lilith and her sibling. Lilith's sibling also believes that Lilith is at minimum bipolar, which is very possible.

It is my unprofessional opinion that Lilith may have a borderline personality.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001931/

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/borderline-personality-disorder/what-is-borderline-personality-disorder.shtml

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder

What this means for us is that Lilith is very emotionally unstable. She has expressed inappropriate behaviors towards Adam on more then one occasion and she is inconsistent and unreliable. I have previously shared that Lilith has a problem with substance abuse, which only exacerbates the possible underlying personality disorder.

How do we deal? Here's the thing, crazy trumps everything. You have a full house suited? Great, they are crazy and win with a joker, a 5 and a magazine subscription card. You learn that "drawing a line in the sand" means nothing. You have to choose very carefully what battles you want to fight. You allow yourself to be stepped all over so that the kid isn't affected. In our life Lilith leans toward not wanting to deal with Seth or have him at times. If you deal with someone else who leans towards never allowing the child to leave and an enmeshed emotional relationship with their child, well hopefully I will have a guest blogger who can talk about PAS more at a later date

Thank you for understanding as I played catch up these last few weeks. I have spent a lot of time in reflection and we may have another custody change in the near future as we deal with Lilith getting a restricted license and then she should have the ability to transport Seth and Lilith is telling us she has a legitimate job so those should take some stress off Adam and I.

Having Seth full time is a mixed bag. He is helpful with chores around the house and there is no denying his love of Rachel, which is a blessing for me but he also makes messes, is stubborn and doesn't pick up after himself. Nothing moves in a linear manner in this world I am in, it doesn't even move in a pattern I can recognize. It seems just about the time I have things figured out or anything Lilith flips the switch on us but that is typical of mental illness.

First Time Mother, Second Time Parent

There is something else about our family situation that I feel bears an explanation but I also hope that it doesn't alienate any of my readers. I hope that you can understand why I haven't shared this from the beginning and I will try to explain why I didn't want it being discussed until you my lovely readers had begun to build an understanding of our situation and who we are. It isn't a secret, I have mentioned it before but I haven't given it any explanation.

I am speaking of course about RachelLulu.

My decision to not lead off with her was rooted in my desire to not be labeled a "mommy blogger" in any way. Also since my blog mainly focuses on my life in our custody situation, I never want to lose focus on that. There are a million mommy bloggers and I have nothing against them, it's just that there aren't a lot of stepmothers blogging openly about their lives and I hope to help even one person because I know I felt so alone when I came into this life.

Adam and I were married for 5 years, together for 7 when I found out I was pregnant. I had lived as a childless stepmom up until that point. I define this because it is a subset in the step parenting world that brings its own confusion, complications and condemnation. As I have been fortunate enough to be a part of a dynamic group of other childless stepmothers, I can share the main differences that a childless stepmother may go through versus a woman who is already a mother who becomes a step parent. If you don't have your own kids coming into the step parenting world the most often refrain you will hear is that you can't possibly understand why your significant other or the biological parent does certain things because you are not a mother. I think this is an unfair position, it's unfair because while becoming a mother did change my life the only thing it changed in my life as a stepmother was to make me realize that my feelings towards Seth were correct and that I was doing the right things by him with my decisions. But I have heard the "you're not a mother, you wouldn't understand" from countless sources over the last 10 years; Adam (once, he never made that mistake again) Lilith (anytime I pointed out that she was being a hypocrite, so exactly 3 times in 10 years) Sam (cause I gave a rats ass about what he thought) other of Lilith's boy toys, a couple of her friends (again with the not caring, sorry your dating a convicted pedophile, your opinion doesn't matter) Lilith's sister (who has since apologized after becoming a mother herself and realizing how selfish Lilith can be) well meaning friends who don't know our situation fully or spoke without thinking; Seth's preschool, kindergarten and second grade teachers, someone at the grocery store who had no idea about our situation at all but said I would never understand until I became a mother and people I went to church with 15 years ago who need to mind their own damn business and wonder why I don't go to church or talk to them anymore.

Some of the women I know are happily child-free, they do not want biological children, they are content with their lives and are happy with their choices. They just happened to meet and fall in love with a man who has kids. They often love their step children deeply but struggle because of their desires not to be a parent and finding themselves thrown into a parenting role when they may not have been prepared. It can cause resentment, it's maybe not "right" but it is honest and being honest with ourselves is the most important thing. Some people don't want to have kids and there is nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with them and I admire them for knowing what they want.

There are also women who do want children but are unable too because of infertility or other reasons. Some women desperately want a child of their own but maybe met a man who had a vasectomy after the birth of his children. Reversal is possible but expensive and not a guarantee. Again, they met a man with children and fell in love. For some of these women the sword is double edged because since they do want to be mothers they hope and strive for a good relationship with their stepchildren, not knowing what an emotional minefield they have gotten themselves into.

I fell into a group between these two, we call ourselves fence sitters. I always loved children but never felt that desperate ache to become a mother. When Adam and I learned that I was "sub-fertile" I didn't have the desire to pursue costly fertility treatments for something I wasn't sure I wanted passionately. Our fertility path wasn't easy and loses made me feel like I didn't want to get my hopes up for something that may never happen. I was scared. So I was the queen fence sitter. I wasn't "childless" but I wasn't "childfree" I didn't feel a tug inside me either direction.

It was to my great surprise then when I did become pregnant. Adam was supportive and excited. Seth was over the moon. I was cautiously happy and honestly scared out of my mind. Because of my involvement in the step parenting world, I have seen so many relationships fall apart when kids became a part of them, or at least that is what I interpreted things to be. I didn't want to mess up the life Adam and I had, things were good, we were happy, Seth was getting older and more independent.

My pregnancy was normal and I will save you from the details of the birth other then to say that I didn't know I could love someone so instantly. My relationship with Seth has grown over the last 10 years. I do believe that I love him as a parent loves their child and having Rachel has confirmed that for me. But I imagine my relationship with Seth is more how an adoptive parent feels then the instantaneous love that a mother feels for her child.

It's funny because Rachel is now older then Seth was when I met him, so I can compare the kinds of children they are and she is so much like her brother. She adores Seth and he adores Rachel. They may be around 10 years apart but there is no questioning their love for one another.

I get asked if Rachel is my first and I answer yes but it feels false because I have been around and through so much with Seth but Rachel is my first (and probably only) biological child. I can't discount all I have learned raising Seth and I know I am a better parent for it, but with Rachel, Adam and I don't have to share. Lilith's opinions don't matter. We never have to worry about her or check with her before we do something. Nothing is going to mess up our time with her and while I wouldn't be honest if I said that Lilith doesn't influence things with Rachel at all because Lilith's drama often effects our entire household, so of course Rachel is impacted by the decisions, often poor decisions that Lilith makes. This is an area of my life that Lilith isn't a part of and it is amazing.

So here I am a first time mother but a second time parent. And now you know a little more about RachelLulu.

Another Day, Another Drama.

I hate Lilith's drama.

Seriously. Lilith fought to pick Seth up Thursday, so Adam relented and let her pick him up after school after she said she wouldn't be driving and that he would be able to get him to school on Friday. I think she was lying about driving but I am not getting involved.

Lilith was upset because she hasn't seen Seth in almost 3 weeks (everyone in her house was apparently sick last weekend so he didn't go over for his visitation) and she wanted to see him, that was perfectly reasonable and fair that she would want to see him. No issues there at all.

My WTF comes in when Seth called Adam and I last night to say goodnight, he used Skype which means he had to be within wifi. Lilith doesn't have wifi. Seth was calling from Lilith's parents house. Lilith left Seth and Leah with her parents so she could go out for the night, and now wants Adam to pick up Seth today because she has a hangover and wants to take a nap instead of taking him to his game.

Why does Lilith throw a fit to see Seth and then dump him off on sitters for the weekend and ask Adam to get him early? Especially when she hasn't seen her son in almost 3 weeks? I hate that her selfishness makes Seth feel unwanted.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

I don't have a lot to complain about Lilith right now and that is because I have had no contact with her in more then 2 weeks. I got the flu which kept me from most social media and even since recovering I haven't been on Seth's Facebook to check anything, so it has been like Lilith isn't a part of my life.

She should have had visitation with Seth this weekend but her household was sick so she didn't have him and he stayed with us. I don't know what is going to happen this week. Lilith has apparently been driving even though her license is suspended because of her DUI. I know she wants to revert to the old custody arraignment of 50/50 but I don't think it is a good idea until she either regains her license or gains a restricted drivers license. I told Adam last night that I think it would be trouble to knowingly allow Lilith to drive Seth without a license but I have now left The situation with Adam and won't keep worrying about it. I can't promise that if Lilith is allowed to drive with Seth in the car and gets pulled over driving on a suspended license that I won't place a call to the social worker but telling the social worker anything is like tattling to a house cat. Useless. I have never met a CPS worker who was lazier and less involved then the one dealing with Lilith'a case.

Lilith has been in the middle of a case with CPS investigating her alcohol abuse. She was sent for a drug and alcohol screening, which she passed because she isn't drunk enough to drink immediately proceeding the test. During the investigation stage is when Lilith got her DUI. I called the social worker to make her aware of the situation, as she instructed me I was to do during the whole investigation. We allowed this social worker access to our home, Seth and RachelLulu's medical records, Seth's school records. Personal information about ourselves, anything that was needed to be transparent. We did what we were supposed too. The social worker called me back 3 days after my initial call to her about the DUI (which took place over the holidays) and told me that they would see what information they could investigate. We haven't heard from her since.

I was ready to fight but Adam felt a bit apathetic once Seth was safe with us full time. I have the social workers supervisors information and could have pursued the issue further but chose to step back. I wasn't trying to persecute Lilith and really I didn't care as long as Seth was safe. I just don't want to be standing here saying "I told you so" if Lilith is allowed to drive Seth while we know her license is suspended or if something else happens because of her alcohol abuse but like countless other stepparents I am left biting my tongue because really it isn't my battle to fight. I can't fight more then my husband, Seth's biological parent, if he doesn't feel like the intervention is warranted then I am left with no choice but to back away.

Oh! And you may ask how we know that Lilith is driving on a suspended license and hasn't gotten a restricted license yet? Because again, she told Adam. He didn't ask, he didn't pursue the information. She volunteered it but because of knowing the truth I don't feel like we can just act like we don't know and pretend we don't know.

Good times.