So finally getting around to posting about the weekend. I swear we sail through the school week fine but as soon as the weekend comes drama starts. Some of it is that SD8 is all about how much fun stuff we are going to do with her... She really loves spending time with us and that's nice cause I'm sure in a few years she won't. But she hasn't learned when to quit it cause dad & stepsoftly are tired and need to wind down. Is that a parenting thing rather than a stepparenting thing? Probably but I wouldn't know.

Sunday we did well, her dad left (as planned) before either of us woke up, to help his BIL with something. (Just trying to keep it vague, i know, paranoid, right?)
Anyway I get SD up and we go out for breakfast. Our day is pretty good. She complains about BM and I try to stay neutral and help her with her issue. She argues with her friend, I talk to her about how to be a good friend. She goes to a party, I remind her about being a good guest. We play in the park and have a blast. I feel like I am really getting the hang of the stepmom thing. Later she calls BM to tell her something cool that happened, which she can do whenever she wants, but dad's phone is dead so for the 1st time in 2 years she calls BM on my phone. I have avoided this happening before by not storing BM’s #… I don’t know exactly why but I really didn’t want her to have my phone # as an ‘alternate” for SD.

I was horrified at how she talked to her mom on the phone. Telling her the fun plans BM had made for their next weekend together were “stupid”, asking what presents she got her and how much they cost, being very rude, demanding and disrespectful. Her BM apparently played right into it because they were soon insulting one another in a really catty exchange that sounded like two high school girls, not a mom and an 8yo daughter. SD does not talk this way to her dad, ever. Although she slips up sometimes and forgets whose house she is at; on Sun we ate dinner out when dad got back and she asked to do several “fun” things after dinner, like bowling. FDH said no to all as he was very tired after doing a lot of heavy work all day, and that we could go to a movie, or go home. She said she wanted to go home, and FDH added, anyway, you need to clean your room before you go back to your mom’s. She said “No! I don’t want to, I want to do something fun.” About halfway through the sentence she realized she had told her dad “no” which is not allowed. She shut right up and dad kept his cool, saying in a low voice “let's go now before I shout at you in the restaurant”. Then we left and she got a lecture from FDH about doing what she is told when she is told to do it.

She pushes this kind of talk with me more than her dad, he thinks it is a “girl” thing bc she does it with her mom and with me. I’m sure there is something to that but I also think I need to demand the respect from her that she clearly can give. I don’t want her to put me in the same group as her mom who stoops down to her level and argues with her. I just was not raised with an authoritarian style of parenting like FDH does with her, and I would rather “talk” with her about bad behavior. The trouble is it quickly turns into an argument and I feel at fault for handling it wrong. Still -- never in the world would she ask me how much a present I got her cost, or call something I did for her "stupid." Not cause she has too much respect for me, but because she knows she would be in trouble from her dad for talking like that.

OK well this is so long, and I rambled on, I know, and I didn't even stick to one point. Thanks for reading this far if you did! Any ideas on if I am handling this all wrong? I really wanted to take her to task for speaking to her mom like that but since FDH didn't, I felt out of line. I don't know if FDH even heard her, but if I brought it up, it would feel to SD like it was just coming from me and not FDH... Like I was turning it into a problem and bringing down dad's wrath upon her.