We've increasingly noticed how little empathy, sympathy, thankfulness and gratitude the skids have -- over the past months. They are soooo spoiled, especially SD6...so when we won't give her things or we request that she have a good attitude first to prove her worthiness for something, she just gets worse.

This weekend we took SS3 and SD6 to my FDH's dad's. He has a farm with horses and a hot tub and a tree house and all kinds of fun stuff for kids to do. But they WHINED about EVERYTHING! It was so frustrating. They wanted to make cookies with grandma but grandma had to go to the store to get butter for them so they whined about that, then when she finally was ready to make cookies they whined because they wanted to go in the hot tub...then when they finally got to go in the hot tub they whined that they didn't get to make cookies yet. It was ridiculous. And the LOOKS? I wanted to smack that snotty little face so many times.

Okay, so FDH asks me if I think we should give the skids $5 each to buy something for their mom for Mother's Day. I kind of hesitated...and then I said, "Well you know she'd never do that for YOU." and he agreed but said that it needs to start somewhere, and said that's what his parents did every Mother's Day/Father's Day/Birthday. So I told him to go for it but probably not to expect the same in return.

So then the kids started to get out some craft stuff and FDH asked them to make something nice for their mom rather than going to buy something. They went gung-ho! They spent a lot of time on their little drawings and paintings and they were soo cute.

SD6 wrote on hers, "I thek yuo lik unikoowrns." and drew a unicorn. Then she wrote, "You ar the best mom in the worlb!" and she drew a little picture of BM.

SS3 basically painted scribbles and some shapes, mostly in black. FDH's step mom wrote on there for him, "I love you mom, happy mother's day!"

When we went to drop off the skids yesterday afternoon, the skids were soo excited to give their "gifts" to their mom. They handed them to her, and she literally barely looked at them and said sarcastically, "ohh thanks.." and put them down on the table. SD6 grabbed them again and showed it to her and said, "Mom, READ it!" and she read it, but made fun of the way she spelled unicorns and that she mixed up the D and B and she made fun of "worlb". Then she looked at SS3's and said, "Oh gee thanks, a black piece of paper."

She TOTALLY shot down her kids. Isn't that TERRIBLE? And you'd think she'd realize the skids did these things while they were with US, and that that was a nice gesture...nope! So FDH said to her, "Really??? THAT'S your reaction? No wonder the kids aren't thankful for anything and don't want to put effort into things...they just get shot down by you!"

Then she did this whole fakey, "Ohh thank you kids!!" and tried to hug them but of course they were already devastated and just trudged off into their room. Idiot.