Oh man. I will be so happy when my littlest skid turns 18 and we can put all this drama behind us!

Both H and I have been trying to have as little contact with BM as possible and keeping things as low-drama as we can, but my little SS12 inadvertently created a huge problem yesterday!

Basically, BM just forgot to pick him up from school! He didn't even bother trying to call her and called me instead, in tears, and asked me to pick him up (this was on a day that we have no custody at all). When I got there, his face was all red from crying (very embarrassing for a 12 year old!) and he got into my car faster than i've ever seen. Being so upset gave him a bad stomachache AND a headache, so I popped him into pj's and set him up on the couch with a pillow, blanket and his favorite movie and gave him some kids tums and tylenol. He was feeling horrible for a while and just lying there, but finally the tylenol and tums kicked in and he started feeling better. It turned out that BM didn't even have the kids last night and pawned them off on a friend (a pill popper who has left the kids unattended on two recent occasions). Ms. Pills sent them to summer school with their dirty pjs in a bag and no breakfast! BM had packed lunches, which consisted of very old pizza and rancid and crumbly old wheat thins. SS112 had taken one bite of the pizza and couldn't have more (it might have been the cause of the stomachache?) so he was starving once his stomach felt okay enough to eat. I cooked him a healthy meal and let him eat on the couch as a treat. I had a friend coming over to hang out and watch movies with me (and her adorable little kids) and she also happens to be SS12's favorite friend of mine so it worked out well.

Anyway, this was all upsetting, but luckily I was not working and able to come to his rescue, but he was reeaaaaally upset with BM. I didn't say anything about her to him other than that I called her and left a message saying I had picked him up and for her to pick him up at our house when she could. He went on and on to me about how much he loves me and how he feels safe at our house (sad that a kid should even have to express a feeling of safety with their parents!!!) and that he loves how I take care of him when he's sick. I don't know if the tylenol made him loopy or what, or maybe just that it was only the two of us (until my friend got there) but he talked for about 45 mins straight about wishing I was his "only mom" and wanting to live with us all the time etc..!!!! I have never, ever, ever bashed BM to him or said anything even close to wanting to replace his mom or be the favorite or anything like that at all. He came up with all of this on his own and says that kind of stuff a lot. He was in this specific mood he gets in where he is extra emotional and expressive. He doesn't talk about feelings very much normally, so it all kind of came out like a dam bursting. He told me some secrets (typical 12 year old stuff-school, liking girls, wanting to shave like dad etc...) and was unusually open and talkative. He told me his favorite thing in the world is to hang out with me, just the two of us! He was really sweet and nice, but I felt bad the whole time, and was thinking how bad does a biological mother have to be for the step-mom to be the preferred one?!!! I have always assumed that the kids would always love her more and that I would be an important parental figure in their lives but never replace their mom emotionally or anything like that. I am more than happy to be their step-mom and I don't want to be their bio-mom! I feel so sorry for them, no kid should have such a crappy mom that all they talk about is wanting to live with the step-mom and have her as a mom instead. It's the stuff of bio-mom nightmares and the kids came up with all of it completely on their own with no encouragement from me or anyone else that I know of.

Okay, so here's where the drama started. Sigh. I kept my message to BM short and factual, but polite and she was surprisingly polite and apologetic (pigs can fly!) and actually thanked me for helping out (!!!!!!!). THEN about an hour later, after tiring of telling me how much he loved me, SS12 called his mom and left a message for her with all the same stuff!!! Nooooooooooooo!!! My friend was there and things were chaotic and noisy, so I was a little distracted and didn't jump in to do disaster control like I might have if had the chance to. Then to make it worse, he called her back almost immediately and that time she picked up and he proceeded to tell her the exact same thing and asked her not to pick him up because he wanted to stay with us this weekend! (we get them for Father's Day anyway, but oh my God). I heard her voice on the cell, all squeaky and angry and I watched his face fall and he was like, "Oh, sorry Mom, Oh sorry. Okay." and she hung up on him!!! He started crying and said, "my mom hung up on me! I can't believe it!" and I said, "well, maybe she has hurt feelings from what you said!" (being tactful is not his strong suit!). He then spent twenty minutes texting her and kept sighing and saying, "oh no" and then finally slammed his phone shut and said, "I hate my mom!" I didn't get into it with him then, but he told me that his mom thinks that I forced him to say all that and that she doesn't believe him. She told him I am "evil" and not to "believe my lies." !!! She just can't imagine that he was telling her his real opinions and feelings and her powers of denial are so insanely strong that she just can't face a reality in which her children don't automatically worship and adore her just because she gave birth to them. She takes horrible care of them and puts them last (putting sleazy two-week old boyfriends ahead of them) and pawns them off on other people as much as she can get away with (I can't tell you guys how many random people have come up to us and told us that they have babysat the kids, one girl even asked us if we would pay her because BM hadn't and wouldn't answer her phone calls!)

So, yeah, we went from calm and polite to insane drama in about half an hour! BM had told me that she would be there to pick him up in about three hours and surprise surprise she showed up half an hour later and banged on my door like the Gestapo. My little buddies (my BFFs kids) screamed and jumped because it scared them so much (they are two and four). I went to answer the door (SS had fallen asleep on the couch and amazingly her banging hadn't woken him) and she was so angry she was shaking and couldn't speak to me!!! I hate her guts, but I always keep calm, polite and neutral with her unless she is outrageously rude and then I tell her that I won't speak to her if she's rude and hang up or walk away. She didn't say anything, but actually tried to walk into my house!!!!! That's the first time ever!!! I told her she needed to stay outside while my BFF's kids yelled "bad dog! bad dog! very unhelpfully! (their mom puts the dog outside when he's chews stuff or pees on the floor etc... My friend burst out laughing which probably made BMs Rage-o-meter shoot through the roof. (on a side note, my BFF is exactly what BM would love to look like. She has the exact same build that I do, which is great cause we share all our clothes and shoes, but has the opposite coloring with long, beautiful blonde hair and giant, pretty blue eyes. She's totally stunning and does not look like she has had two children within a four year time period. She also happens to be extremely shy and sweet and is seriously the nicest person on the planet. She is like a sister to me and before my hysterectomy and H, we had big plans to get pregnant at the same time and live next door to each other and have our children get married, lol (I was going to have a girl and she was going to have a boy. Aah, the plans of the young and ridiculous...). Anyway, she looks like a model, but is extremely humble and would turn bright red if someone told her she is pretty. She's just a really wonderful, true blue person, a wonderful mom (one of her kids is autistic too, so she's a great resource) and an unbelievable friend. BM hates her guts just because she is my BFF and it really bugs her that the skids love her too. Anyway, I actually had to shut the door on BM to prevent her from coming in my house!!! I went and woke up SS and hugged him goodbye and as soon as he was out the door, BM grabbed him by the elbow and stormed off to her car and I could hear her reaming him out and he kept saying, "ow, mom, ow." It was absolutely horrible.

Amazingly, H didn't get a bitchy call from BM like he normally does when she mistakenly thinks I have tried to brainwash or hypnotize or whatever the skids! I told H all about it and he was pretty horrified! He knows SS's nature and that he is really blunt and still doesn't get how to be tactful and not hurt people's feelings. He is brutally honest, which I appreciate, but can make him a little harsh, especially for people who aren't experienced with his kind of autism.

So anyway, H called SS that night to talk to him and see if he was feeling better and apparently he was much better. He sounded a little down, but said he was okay and that he was looking forward to seeing us for Father's Day.

We haven't had any fallout from this incident, but I know it's coming. There really isn't anything BM can do other than being pissed off, but the timing is really bad considering the custody stuff. H and I talked about it for about two hours last night and we both agreed that there is nothing we can do and that SS has the right to express himself and that BM will just have to deal with it. SS12 is about to be a teenager and BM is in for some very rocky years ahead of her! SS5 is still too little to be aware of a lot of stuff SS12 is, but he seems to be heading in the same direction. At this point, he tells me how much he loves me constantly, but still feels love and affection for his mom too. BM has been in denial that SS12 is growing up and definitely favors SS5 and showers hims with loud affection when she sees him and pretty much ignores SS12. SS12 is old enough now that he is really separating himself from his mom and that does not fly well with her. She has always not been able to separate herself from them and couldn't understand that H was leaving HER not the kids. She saw them as one group, not individual people, and spent over a year telling the skids that their dad had abandoned "them" not just her. We had to do daily damage control and reassurance with that one, but fortunately the skids know what's up now and are fully aware of how much their dad loves them and wants to spend time with them. They know we have a lawyer and they know exactly the 50/50 schedule that we have requested and they not only want it, they want to be with us full time and only SS5 has said that he wants to see his mom every few days, but not sleep at her house.

So, there is really nothing we can do about this! We can talk to SS12 about not hurting people's feelings and try to see this from his moms perspective. We constantly try to get him to think about things from other people's perspectives because it doesn't come to him naturally. He isn't mean spirited at all, he just doesn't understand a lot of basic social skills that come naturally to other kids. I know he loves his mom, but they seem to be at a very bad place right now and I hate that I am getting dragged into it. SS12 could take a professional lie detector test and tell his mom his feelings and opinions and she still wouldn't believe it. She also doesn't understand that I DO NOT want to replace her and that I am not putting this stuff in the kids heads. I don't want drama! I want peace and to not have to see her or think about her. I seriously think she could see secret footage of me with the kids and would still think that I was somehow secretly plotting ways to brainwash the kids against her! She is totally insane.

Anyway, this was kind of a long vent, but I feel a lot better after getting it all out. Hopefully, this will die a natural death and not lead to more drama (I am learning that it doesn't take two to fight, it can most certainly be one sided if the person is crazy enough!).

I totally understand her being upset, I would be upset too, but maybe she should try thinking about her relationship with them and about why they might be having these feelings towards her? Maybe she should put them first for once and SHOW them that she loves them, not treat them like unwanted foster kids. The fact that she backed up her verbally abusive two week old boyfriend rather than her son is a huge tip-off about where her priorities are. She is desperately trying to find a man and is willing to put up with men who are sleazy, gross and mean to her kids. She has ranted about not giving up any of her time with the kids, but she packs the kids off to anyone who will take them overnight so that she can go to the bars or on "dates" with the sleazeballs she seems to favor. Every single weekend that she had the kids for the last two months, she has dropped them off at her mom's house (who lives three hours away). They don't like their grandmother (the apple didn't fall far from the tree!) but they like their grandfather and they have cable tv and let the kids sit like slugs in front of it all weekend. Basically they are being babysat by a Cable TV company! The one time we haven't had the kids overnight on one of our nights was because they were invited to a sleepover at my sisters house and they had a blast. They went because they were wanted and she devoted an entire weekend to them and made it extremely fun and thoroughly spoiled them. I don't understand BM and I don't understand her motives? She says she is devoted to her kids and her entire image and self-esteem is wrapped up in being a "mom" but she doesn't walk the walk and her actions show that she cares about being called a mom, but not actually BEING one.

Ugh, she makes me sick. Anyway, if there is more drama, I will probably need to vent more, but hopefully it will blow over. Here's hoping....