I understand that my posts probably seem a little bitchy, a little mean, but frankly this is my place to vent and if you don’t like it you don’t have to read it.

When I married my husband I knew that having step-kids wouldn’t be easy, but just because I complain about them doesn’t mean I don’t love them. I know that I notice their flaws easier than I’d notice my own kids, but it is something I will learn to live with.

I will probably post once a week, on a monday or a friday. So watch for the next installment.

Whenever the girls go to their mom’s house it brings up a whole new set of issues. On one hand it is GREAT that me and #1 and #2 get some time alone. I really miss the old days before he got custody; where it was just the three of us most of the time. But the cons outweigh the pros in this situation. When they go back to psycho bitch’s house they never ready for school on time, they never do their homework, they mess up even more in school, and then when we do get them back they are sad because she has told them she will die unless they stay at her house. What kind of BS is that? She tells them that, along with a bunch of other things, like daddy doesn’t love you anymore, and promises them the world. And they are too young to understand that they cna’t have everything that mommy offers them. There have been countless times where they come home excited about some toy they got, only to go back over there and come home sad because ‘mommy took the toys back but she said she’ll get us something else next month’. She has to return her kids toys to get money, how terrible is that?

#4 is always a crying mess for a few days after seeing her mom, because of all the bad things bio-mom said (like about her dying).

#3 is iffy, sometimes she is more than happy to come home and be with us, other times what her mom tells her gets to her.

#5 is a whole different story (isn’t she always?) She will have a whole different ‘ghetto’ attitude that we have to try and revert back to some what normal before she goes to school on Monday.

My SO’s though, his isn’t. Ever since we got custody of the girls in April, we have had report after report after report filed against us. CPS can’t give information on who reported, but it is more than obvious who calls. There have been crazy reports, such as; kids being beat, kids being cut with steak knives, hot sauce and salt being poured into cuts (CPS found no evidence, no scars, no nothing-because DUH it wasn’t happening), kids being locked in the closet (our closets don’t lock, lol), kids being starved (CPS showed up at dinner time and guess what, they were eating), and my all time favorite, making them finish their homework before they went outside to play. SERIOUSLY. For that complaint the worker just called us and let us know she wasn’t even investigating because it was so stupid.

I am pretty sure that he has 15 more years of this and I have 16. I HOPE that the coming years get better and the ex’s quit trying all these lame ways to try and get us in trouble or get us to lose the kids. It’s not going to happen. We aren’t doing anything wrong. And every time CPS is called, the case gets closed within two weeks.

I hope that eventually the courts and CPS see that they are making false allegations left and right and then questions their intent as well as investigates THEM. We will not stoop to their level and send out false allegations, because that is so childish but it isn’t fair that we have to put up with it.

It’s not like I ever get anyone to read this anyways, so it’s not like it matters that I went a month without saying anything.

I think my biggest gripe over the last month has been bio-mom. She will probably ALWAYS be my biggest gripe. Because she is something that will always be there, always affecting my life.

About 3 weeks ago, the girls went to her house. She got out of the hospital for a few days they kicked her out and she wanted to see the kids. Fine, they miss her, it was her weekend. Why not? We get a call on  Sunday  afternoon from his aunt saying that bio-mom was over there and she was taking her to the hospital and would bring the kids home later. When the kids get home they all have fevers and don’t feel good. My honey ends up taking the oldest to ER in the middle of the night because she has a 104 fever. The other two have 101 and 100.5 fevers. Turns out that she has an upper respiratory infection and chances are that the other two do as well. Guess who catches the bug? Yup, I do. I got sick initially three weeks ago, I still have a lingering cough. Anyways, wasn’t that nice of her to admit HERSELF into the hospital while her kids were sick? She got out two weeks ago and the kids have seen her a few times since then.

School

It has been going well for #4, she loves doing homework and finishes an ENTIRE WEEK’S WORTH IN ONE NIGHT and then GETS MAD when she doesn’t have any more to do.

For #5 it’s still a struggle. Even though I sit with her for hours some nights doing her homework, she still doesn’t turn it in, or she doesn’t bring stuff home. She brought home some math tests she took, and she got 8 WHOLE pages wrong. She did the same with an English test she took on a book she read. She doesn’t take her time to read the instructions or even try and do the work.

The girls go to their mom’s on Wednesday morning and my honey has been letting them stay a few extra nights during the week to catch up with their mom. The only problem with this is that the girls aren’t turning in their homework. Even when #4 finishes the work at our house, she doesn’t turn it in if she’s with her mom. And #5 doesn’t  do any homework on the nights she goes to her mom’s house. She has also picked up a habit of stealing.

On top of everything else that she does, now she steals. I was looking through her backpack yesterday to see if she had any more homework to do, I found my chapstick, some of my new makeup, $5, tictacs, toys, and markers. When I asked where she got everything, she said she got it from her mom’s house (she was there on Sunday, me and my honey checked their backpacks when they came home to make sure they brought back the right clothes and school materials and she didn’t have any of this in her backpack). And since the make up was something I bought a few days before I knew she was lying. The $4 honey had in his drawer next to the bed.

I have no idea what to do with this girl. She is the oldest, yet she is the one that gets in the most trouble and causes the most problems. When she isn’t around the other kids are amazing, but her negative influence gets the younger girls to act out. I sometimes get to the point when I want to tell my honey that I can’t take it anymore. That she is just a bad seed. But I can’t do that. Because I want to fix her. I want to turn her into a good kid and instill rules and give her a positive influence. I want to give her someone good to look up to because Lord knows looking up to her mom won’t do her any good. Her mom is addicted to pain medicine and is a typical welfare mom, who does nothing but wait for a check every month. That is no role model. I want to give this girl something that I lost when I was a little older than she is now. I want to give her a loving mom who teaches her the facts of life and helps her learn. But I feel like I just can’t do that with her.

With all of the other girls, I have been able to be a positive influence on them, I have been able to teach them things and get them to understand rules and life. The three younger kids are my babies, they come to me over my honey. When any of them have a problem it is me that they run to. Not like kids their age really have problems, but you know what I mean.

I just feel like #5 is going to be more than a handful. The last time they came home from their mom’s she was ‘jerking’ and ‘dropping it like it’s hot’ and shaking her butt. She came home wearing a SHORT jean skirt that showed her underwear every time she took a step. I asked her why she was wearing it and she said ‘Mommy said it’s cute and I like it’ who dresses their daughter like that? And when asked about the dancing, she said ‘Mommy showed me’ Are you fucking serious? I try and hold in everything I feel about bio-mom to the kids and to my honey. He has his own set of problems with her, but it’s like she is doing everything she can to corrupt the kids. So far only #5 is giving in to her ways, but I’m worried the other two will too. And then what happens when my daughter started to get influenced by their behavior?

It’s just one thing after another with bio-mom and I’m getting so tired of it. They have court next month and my honey has tried to get paperwork from the school showing that they don’t turn in their homework when they are with their mom, but the school has yet to give him anything. I do not want to have to deal with drama with bio-mom for the rest of the girl’s childhoods but it looks like that’s how it’s going to be.

I feel like I have enough drama with my ex and our custody issues and adding all the drama of #5 and their bio-mom is just the icing on the cake.

I wish that parents would notice that their acting up only affects their kids NEGATIVLY and that it can really mess a kid up. It’s bad enough when parents separate, but when one of them acts like a total asshole and tells the kids to say things to the other parent, or teaches them things they shouldn’t be doing it can mess then up for life. I hate that the kids are in this situation and I am doing my best to keep myself together for them. I do my best to make sure that my household is a stable and loving environment, but it is so hard to stay strong and be stable.

And then this is my court order with #2’s dad; Joint physical and joint legal. Mother has child from Monday pick up at daycare until Thursday drop off at daycare, Father has child from Thursday pick up from daycare until Monday drop off. Mother shall have 2^nd weekend from pickup on Friday to return to daycare on Monday. Father shall have child the third week from Monday pick up from daycare until Wednesday drop off at daycare. Mother shall get child from Wednesday pick up until Thursday drop off. And father shall have child from Thursday pick up till Monday drop off. Basically, I get 3 weeks and one weekend, and he gets three weekends and one week, except his weekends start on Thursday.

Now that you have that information; let me tell you how many times the step girls have seen their mom in the past 3 months. 2 days. What’s worse? She lives less than 50 yards from us. We live in apartment complexes that are right next to each other. One of the reasons why she hasn’t seen them is because she is always in and out of the hospital, we swear she’s addicted to the pain medicine, because when she does get out, three days later she goes back (kind of convenient that they say that’s when it really starts to wear off). She’s been in and out of hospital after hospital for the entire time I’ve known the man of the house. The hospital doesn’t allow people under 12 to visit, so the girls can only talk to her on the phone. But of course she would find some way to get inside their head, even over the phone. Whenever the oldest gets done talking to her, she’s instantly sick and thinks she’s going to die. When the middle one gets off the phone, she’s in tears saying how ‘Mommy said she misses us so much and she’s going to die because we can’t see her.’ The youngest doesn’t seem to phased either way after she gets off the phone. She’s three and a half, and her mom has been in and out of the hospital for more than half her life, so I know her ties with her mom aren’t as strong as the older girls.

The last time she seen them, our local hospital KICKED HER OUT, saying they could find nothing wrong with her. So she went to her Mom’s house for a few days and asked us to bring the girls. We did, on one condition, she had to bring them back. Of course she agreed, and then Sunday night comes along and she calls saying about how she’s back in another hospital (in a different county, because ours would no longer accept her) and we had to go pick the girls up. She left them at her mom’s house.

School has been in session for over a month now; #5 is having all the same problems from last year and then some. At least she does her homework now; except she wont turn it in. The teacher has found it in the trash, in her backpack, and she also loves to hide it in her sister’s backpack. It’s complete and if she would turn it in she would get an A. She’s also lying more now too, every day in class she has to write down her homework assignments, I will look at her homework log to see what she has to do, and when I ask her about the assignments, she says her teacher said just to write it down and that she doesn’t really have to do it. I am not stupid, and I wasn’t born yesterday. I also read the beginning of the year letter her teacher sent and happen to remember reading that whatever is wrote in her homework log has to be done and turned in the next day. Once #5 learned that I wasn’t going to fall for the whole ‘I don’t have to do that part’ thing she started ‘forgetting’ her spelling words, fluency pages, and books in class. What a coincidence. Don’t you think?

#4 is doing amazing is Kindergarten. She gets a homework packet every week, and guess what? She finishes the entire packet in a night. One night. One sitting. She’s so smart and it’s amazing the different in her wanting to learn and do her work compared to her older sister.

#3 was completely potty trained, until she went to see her mom for the two days. Now she has started having accidents again, which is completely understandable. It’s just a little nerve wrecking that every time we get them to the point where they are doing good, she pops up wanting to see them and undoes all of our work.

The man of the house had a talk with the girls last week, they have constantly been talking about how they can’t wait for mommy to get out of the hospital so mommy and daddy can get back together again. And how they dislike me and my daughter. It was a hard conversation for me to listen to. He explained that I’m who he wants to be with, and while he’s not going to be with mommy anymore that doesn’t mean they can’t see her. (She has told them that since he’s with me that we aren’t letting them see her). And that my daughter is only 2, and she has never had to share with sisters or deal with a big family, and to try and cut her some slack. I hope that after their talk that things get a little better with us.

I don’t have much time to write today, so I’ll give you a summary of what’s been happening.

The girls decided to tell me their one dream; that daddy will leave me and get back with mommy. They tell me this CONSTANTLY. All the time. It really breaks me down, and I don’t know how to react to it.

Me and #1 got in a fight, it was over something stupid and it escalated to more. He said that he knows that I don’t love his kids the way he loves mine, he says it’s so obvious that I treat them different. His words hurt me. Because I feel like I do so much for them. The argument didn’t last long, they never do, but like always the words that are said will be stuck in my head for a while. It sucks, and I wish he didn’t feel the way he does, but I can’t help it. I tried to explain to him that he is closer to my daughter because he has known her longer, and because she’s still young enough that it wasn’t hard for her. His kids are older, and they have had their mom in their ear about how terrible I am, and she has told them everything she can so they won’t like me. He has been in my daughter’s life for almost half of it, I’ve been in their life for almost half a year. As for treating them different, the only one that really gets treated different is the oldest, and that’s because she’s the oldest so she can’t get away with everything that the younger ones do. A 2 year old shouldn’t be held to the same standards as a 7 year old, right?

And really, that’s all.

Well, now some things have happened that haven’t happened before. Me, sweet innocent me, has become the topic of a child’s hate. #5 has started writing on every piece of paper that she can get her hands on that she hates me, and how terrible I am. I honestly do not know how to react. I feel like I do so much for her, stuff that her own mom never did and probably never would do with her. I feel like I go over and above to try and win her and her sisters over and it just blows up in my face.

Yesterday we went to pick them up some new shoes and a few more outfits for school. We get home and she complains that she doesn’t like the shoes that SHE picked out. We explain that she should have picked a pair she liked, and in the store she said she loved them.

She sits down with me at the table to do her homework. As usual it takes her an incredibly long time to complete her homework; she had 10 pages left that she didn’t complete in class, she left pages at school that she needed, and she was just all in all not trying to do her work. We have been getting notes home that she’s not turning in work (which is done, she just doesn’t turn it in) and acting up in class. Every day is a constant struggle with this girl, every time we sit down to do homework she has to act like she can’t do it, yet she can read and count when she’s playing. And it never fails, at least once a week while we’re going through the homework battle she says how she wishes she could go back to her mom’s.

(Back story on the mom, in case you missed some of it; #5 missed 3 WHOLE months of school [she lives like 100 yards from the school]while with her mom, she went almost a WHOLE year without turning in homework, EVERY day the school would try to contact her mom with no response. The school district finally went to her house to make her sign a contract saying that if #5 didn’t start to improve & go to school that she would be going to jail. She answered their contract with words a normal person had never heard before and told them to leave. Not only was #5 missing school, she never enrolled #4 in any kind of schooling either, even though she could have been in head start to prepare her for this year of kindergarten. #3 was 3 years old and not even one bit potty trained. And just by talking to her you can that she didn’t have enough interaction because her vocabulary and speech is not where it needs to be. When we first got the girls their bodies were covered in bits, blisters, and bruises. The day we picked them up none of them were wearing underwear, shoes, or socks. And as a little cherry to the top, she would beat the girls [when we first got them, when they got in trouble they always asked if we were going to whip them].  To make it even worse she has a medical condition that would put her in the hospital for months at a time, while she was in the hospital, she would leave the girls with their uncle, whom she claimed molested her as a child.)

I just don’t see why that bond between them is so strong. I don’t understand why even after everything she put them through, that they would rather be in a household like that than in mine. At least four nights a week we have a real home cooked dinner, they’ve said that their mom would let them eat PB&J sandwiches every night. They very rarely are spanked, where as she would beat them with a belt, a shoe, or a hairbrush.  Not only do I not understand it, it hurts. It hurts to know that I do everything in my power to make life for these kids as best as I can, and they’d rather just go back to living in hell.

Me &  #1 are getting ready to start the next chapter in our lives together and I want to have my nice big happy family, but with the feelings I have for the kids and the apparent feelings that they have for me, I’m not so sure how wonderful and happy my big family will be.

We just found out that their mom was released from the hospital  yesterday, after being in there for almost three months. This coming weekend is supposed to be one of her weekends, and I really do not want the kids to go. In the past three months they have came a long way, both physically and mentally, and my gut tells me that if they go visit their mom, that they will do like they always did and revert back to their old behavior. Then once we get them back, we will have to start the process all over again. And I have no doubt in my mind that when they tell mommy about my nice new pretty ring that shit will hit the fan. Much like it did when she found out that #3 was calling me mom.

If #2 ever got a stepmom; I can only pray that she would be like me, that she would be someone that was generally nice and treated her well. I’d be happy that she had someone to look after her and help her with her homework. Someone that would buy her clothes and play games with her. Why isn’t their mom happy like she should be? Why can’t she just accept that her relationship with #1 is over and that now she needs to concentrate on what’s best for the kids,  not on trying to bash me and #1 for trying to be the parents that she never allowed them to have.

Yesterday we had some running around to do, mainly getting him a new starter since his went out. While we were driving home, okay, he was driving I was just along for the ride he starts to tell me how he realizes how much I do for him and the girls and how lucky he is to have me. He goes in detail about how he sees what I do for the girls and he understands that at times it isn’t the easiest thing to do but that he appreciates me and the effort that I put into his girls. He says he knows that I love them and I would do anything for them. He also expressed how he knows taking on three more kids is hard work and he thanks me and loves me for being up to the challenge.

Did someone send him my blog link? Because I swear all of what he said sounded like he was just responding to my previous posts.

Yesterday wasn’t as good as I’d hope, and I feel like I’ve been saying that way too often lately.

Once we got home from running our errands we ate, the girls picked up some Happy Meals from Uncle McDonald and I grabbed my fav Cobb Salad from Staters. #1 went downstairs to try and install his starter and I was on dinner duty. I gave the girls all equal amounts of ketchup, approx  BBQ/Sweet ‘n Sour/Ranch sauce containers worth (we keep them and reuse them). #4 finishes her food so she gets her orange soda, house rule; no one gets their drinks until they’re done eating. #5 asks for water about 10x within the first 10 minutes of eating. I remind her of the rules and she gives me the look. I ignore it and tell the other two to finish eating if they want their drink. #3 finishes at almost the same time as I finished talking, she gets her drink and she’s happy. #5 gets up and starts to walk to the trash can. I ask her if she’s finished and she turns around and walks back to the table. A few minutes later she’s crying. ‘I don’t have any more ketchup.’ ‘Where’s your container so I can get you more?.’ ‘I threw it away because I didn’t think you’d give me more.’ Apparently I starve them and don’t let them get more ketchup. It was my first time hearing it so I’m sorry if I acted a little shocked. Another rule; if you throw away your ketchup holder you don’t get anymore. Our way of trying to teach them to reuse things. I tell her to finish her fries or she’s not getting her drink. She picks up 10 fries at once and tries to jam them all in her mouth. ‘Eat them one by one, you can chew them right and don’t get sick.’ Her tears intensify and she acts as if I’ve just burned her with an iron or something. (Not that I would know what a kid looks like if they get burned with an iron, but I have an imagination and it’s not pretty) ‘Fine, go get your pull-up on and get ready for bed.’ (She’s the only kid in the house that still pees at night, and there seems to be nothing we can find that will make her stop.) I clean up the kitchen and take #1 #5’s soda, and set it on our night stand. #5 gets done getting ready for bed and walks into our room and picks up her drink. ‘Put it down, if you want something to drink get some water.’ INSTANT CRYING. And not just any crying; full on my cat just got ran over crying. Because she can’t have a drink. Seriously? #1 goes in her room to deal with her. Crying ceases.

Very exciting news; they let #4 start school today. I can’t wait to get home and see how it went.

In other great news; #3 is fully potty trained. FULLY. She stays dry all night, and has only had two accidents in the last week. Pretty damn good for a 3.5 year old, I think. It’s actually amazing, since her 7 year old sister can’t seem to do the same.

#1 was already in a bad mood once me and #2 got home. It’s been a common occurrence lately, we’ve had the girls non-stop since early July, except for a weekend here or there where their aunt would take them. I think my system is still in a bit of shock from going from having them on the weekend to having them 24/7. I think that #1 thinks I should automatically be accustomed to having three more kids around the house, but I’m not. And I don’t think it’s something that I’ll be used to anytime soon.

As usual, it was my job to help #5 with her homework. This is something I have grown to dread! Tuesday it took her an hour to finish one side of one paper. She has 10 spelling words, and the only thing she had to do was answer a few questions. Her words are easy; dig, ran, bag, win, is, his, was, am, as, and I. The questions were easy; ‘If you add an H to is what word do you get?’ ‘This is the only word that has one letter.’ ‘What do you do with a shovel?’ ‘Jim and Jill ____ a race.’ ‘The apple is the same color __ the ball.’ I assumed that she would fly through these questions, not so. The first time she missed EVERY single answer. Seriously! And I asked her if she needed help, she said, ‘yes because I can’t read.’ Just ten minutes before we started doing homework she was reading directions off of the lasagna box to her dad. So I tell her that she can read and she starts to cry. It takes her more than ten tries to get the paper right. Last night it was a little better, though she still can’t seem to read simple words; ate, child, spell, sound, around (all words that are supposed to be known by the end of 1^st grade). She worked on her math homework last night, she swears up and down that she can’t add or subtract, which I know is a lie. But she is mad that I won’t let her use marbles to count, her teacher said specifically not to let them use their fingers or anything else to help them count. After math she was to read a passage about some dinosaur, which took her 15 minutes to get through 2 small paragraphs. Her problem was that she learned the passage as a song, and since she can’t remember the actual words to the song, she was always messing up the passage.

To make matters a little worse, she had an accident while we were doing homework. And what makes it worse? She never says anything when it happens until someone else notices it and asks her about it. And then she lies. How on earth do you lie about peeing on yourself when it’s so obvious? I don’t know!

Then this morning me and #1 got into an argument about clothes. We cannot afford to buy the kids all new clothes, so his aunt took them (his girls) and bought them a few outfits last weekend, I picked out clothes for them that their aunt bought. Well after he gets them dressed he notices that all the pants are way too short. And gets mad at me. What the hell? I didn’t buy the clothes and I would assume that since she said she had them try everything on that I didn’t need to double check. I was wrong about that. And then he made a comment about how I always pick out shirts for his girls that are stained. ALL OF THEIR SHIRTS ARE STAINED. What can I do about that? It’s not my fault that they seem to stain everything they own. I’m not the laundry person, he is. He does all that. And then he comments about how #2 has nice clothes and they aren’t stained. Okay, I haven’t bought her any clothes since Christmas because once we got the girls we couldn’t afford to buy them clothes and #2.  So now she is stuck wearing hand me downs from his girls, which are all stained, torn, etc. Do I complain about that? No, I don’t. I just figure we will get her more new clothes around Christmas time. And since they came to us with nothing, we had to get them clothes. And since he always forgets that when he sends them to their mom’s that she NEVER sends the clothes back, we are missing a lot of nice clothes and shoes that we really don’t have the cash to replace. But he always wants to say how I pick sides and how #2 is my favorite. Well I’m sorry if my biological daughter is my favorite, I can’t help that.

I hope that since #2 won’t be coming home tonight, I hope that things will be a little easier.

#1 had court on the 7th, nothing happened. Case was continued. So now we have to wait months to get any answer on Child Support and divorce finality.

Last week #4 and #5 were supposed to start school, but since we never got any of their medical records, immunization charts, or birth certificates from their wonderful mother, they didn’t start on time. It took a while for them to let #5 in, even though she went there last year. She finally got started on Wednesday and #3 and #4 went to their Aunt’s house, she took them to the doctor for shots and to get their check up (thankfully she works at a hospital so she has connections). They came back home on Friday and we had a kind of easy night.

Saturday was #1’s family reunion. We got into it over what they should wear. I was trying to be sensible and dress them in nice, but not too nice clothes since the FU was going to be at a park, which meant grass stains, dirt, sand, and since there would be food also a barrage of food stains. He wanted to put them in their best school clothes and swore that they wouldn’t ruin them. Do you want to guess who was right? The event was fine, until it was time to go home. #5 got mad and asked why we had to leave, whining that her cousins were still there, and that she never gets to do anything fun. Of course every family member in earshot of this started questioning us, as to why we never let her do anything. We explained that they go to the park at least twice a week, and once school started they would go more often. There is  a park down the street from our house, right next to their school. So then she started crying more and saying how mean we are. By this time I was irritated. She does this whenever we go ANYWHERE. My parents, his grandparents, the store, the park, their friend’s house, etc. Why is it so hard to understand that when we say it’s time to go, that it’s time to go? I packed the girls in my car and headed home, #1 stayed to help clean up and pack everything back in everyone’s cars. We get home and I start to get them ready for bed; as usual #5 has an attitude and doesn’t want to listen. I give her tv time to her sisters (she normally always picks what to watch before bed) and she can’t seem to understand why.

Sunday comes, #1 decides he’s going to take his car to his friend’s house to do some usual maintenance and that never goes as planned. While he’s gone I tell the girls to get the room cleaned up so we can go outside and do something fun, a few minutes later I hear #4 crying. I go in and ask what happened; apparently #5 hit her, I ask why, ‘Because I had to.’ ‘And just why did you have to hit your sister?’ ‘I don’t know’ ‘Okay, well since you aren’t allowed to hit in this house, you can get your butt in the corner.’ ‘Okay, whatever, who cares’. And then I did something that I swore I’d never ever do, but I just couldn’t help it. SMACK. As she was walking past me and said her smartass remark, I smacked her on the butt, just once. I’m not one for hitting or spanking, I do smack Mini’s hand occasionally, but it’s never anything severe. I didn’t tell #1 about it, not because I think he’ll get mad (he spanks them) but because I really feel bad about it. I let my anger take over and I did  something I always swore I’d never do. I’m ashamed of it, really I am.

After a huge ordeal with his car, a bad starter, and a tow-truck we’re all back home and getting everything ready for Monday. First was time to put away the clean clothes, each girl has their own drawer and then the big girls and the little girls each share a undies/socks/Pjs and a pants/shorts drawer. Not ten minutes after I finish putting all the clothes away, #3 and #4 come to me and tell me that #5 is playing in the drawers. She’s  decided that she doesn’t want to share ANY drawers with her sister and has rearranged everything. So I fix it and tell her to leave it alone. They aren’t supposed to get in the closet or in the dresser. Sunday they decided to break both of those rules. While #1 and I were watching tv we hear the closet opening and closing, he peeks into their room and they have toys out that they aren’t allowed to play with, and he questioned them about it. #3 said it wasn’t her (which normally she doesn’t do things she’s not supposed to do, unless her sisters [#5] do it first), then #4 was asked and she said #5 did it. Ask #5, ‘I don’t know. I didn’t do it. We didn’t do it. The toys have been out. I don’t know how.’ More blatant lies. Gotta love it. So since none of them would tell the truth/admit to anything they got in trouble. No tv before bed. I swear these kids act like TV is the most important thing in their life.

Yesterday #4 had to get a physical to go to school, #1 takes the copy of the physical to the school, ‘Sorry sir it’s on the wrong paper’, so #4 can’t go to school till it’s on the right paper and with only one car who knows how long that will take. #5 brought home homework, but claims it’s not due for two weeks. Seems really fishy to me, since last year she’d have 10 pages a week and she brought home 4 pages. I need to implement that all homework gets done before going to play, but with how easily #1 gets angry when the girls don’t listen/act like they don’t know how to do something, I don’t know how that will work. All last year I had to help #5 with her homework, and it always ended with her in tears because she didn’t want to read or because she didn’t want to have to memorize her math. I hope hope hope that this year goes a little smoother.