Hi all, I haven't been on in awhile but wanted to share with you the latest.

For years I put up with OSD treating me like a "charity bed & breakfast,lunch & dinner"!

For the first time in my 13 year marriage I feel I have won a major battle AND have the support of my dh.

back history - Every time OSD would come over, I am not only busy cooking and cleaning but stripping beds each morning, washing the bedding, putting fresh bedding back on the beds and then the next morning starting it all over again. Each morning OSD would simply act as if the sgkids had an accident. So when she left after a 4 day visit a couple months ago, I decided I had had enough. Talked with my dh and he assured me he would back me. On that last visit DH had witnessed me stripping the beds ALL 4 DAYS! OSD found that on her next visit I had laid out pull-ups for the kids to wear. She tried to push back but I was FIRM. The boys sgs9, sgs7, sgs3 will wear pull-ups while sleeping over in my home.

Fast forward to the last visit for Thanksgiving. OSD went through the usual back-n-forth bull with my dh that she does every year regarding the day I celebrate any holiday. She even had the same bs statement of "well I can't be at two places at once!" That's a whole other story. Anyway, a bit out of character for her, she comes over UN-announced. She lives 3 hours away and my dh just happened to call her the day before Thanksgiving and she tells him she is 45 min out & on her way to our house and will visit with us awhile and then leave & spend the nite at her bm's, then come back over to our house the next day and actually have Thanksgiving dinner with us at noon (as she had supposedly talked her mom into having a late dinner the evening of Thanksgiving) and then leave and go back to bm's to have Thanksgiving dinner that night and spend the nite again with her mom. DH calls me to relay what is going on. I was out shopping with my bio daughter. It is actually somewhat funny. My dh can't see it and I didn't point it out to him, but it seemed to me that OSD was punishing us because I wont allow the sgkis to pee pee my beds any longer, so she makes sure she comes to our house to show us that "They will not spend the nite!"

Okay, so when I get home OSD is there and they are all playing outside on our trampoline. My dh is holding the baby while OSD and the other 3 kids are playing. As I stand there next to my dh and my daughter I realize I had forgotten something at the grocery store. I quietly mention to my daughter that I had forgotten to get cream. Although it really wasn't a big deal my daughter asked me if I wanted her to run to the store and get some. I told her no, that we might go to the store after my dh leaves for work. DH works nights.

Later OSD comes in the house and tells me she overheard me tell my daughter that I needed cream and that she did not mind going to the store and would bring it in the morning. First I found it interesting that she had even heard me as she was playing on the trampoline. My dh was standing next to me and he didn't hear me. Anyway, I know my dh would not want his daughter going to the store with four kids to get cream. I indicated to her that it wasn't a big deal but she insisted. I left it at that.

Since my dh works nights, he likes to take a little nap before work but OSD was hanging around to the point my dh was not only not going to get a nap but needed to get ready to leave for work. DH says "hey, I gotta get ready for work" and he walks away. I needed to get some baking done that night in order to get ready for the next days dinner but I am waiting for OSD to leave and find out that she is waiting for her mom to get home from her job.

OSD leaves around the same time as my dh but not before sgs7 asked to spend the night. I was kind but told him no as my bio daughter was staying to help me do some baking and I really just wanted to be alone with her. OSD tells me she will be over the next morning around 10 or 11.

The next day I am busy cooking the Thanksgiving meal and everything is ready to sit down and eat when my dh gets a text from osd around noon saying that she is looking for cream and can not find any and will be over just as soon as she finds some. My dh is then angry at ME that his precious daughter is out with four kids trying to find cream. Yep! I feel set up. Later we find out that she was not only shopping for cream for me but cream and other ingredients for a dish for her bm. She actually put a sack full of the ingredients she had purchased for her mother, in my fridge. Although my dh never apologized for snapping at me, he later made a comment that OSD was late because she was shopping for HER mom and put the blame of being late to our dinner on us.

The story does not end there. A couple days later, my dh calls me on his way home from work and said there was an interesting exhibit in town that would be around for a couple weeks that he would like to take all the grand-kids(bio & steps)to. Said he called osd thinking she was home (3 hrs away) wanting to schedule a time in the future to take the kids and finds that she is still at her moms and would like to be taken to the exhibit that day. It is Saturday morning and I go to church that day and so can not attend. So dh ends up taking OSD and her four kids and then she wants to spend the night at our house. That evening, dh leaves for work and OSD and the sgkids are left with me. About an hour after my dh leaves for work OSD tells sgs9 & sgs7 to get their pj's on and get ready for bed. I then say "OSD, did you bring pull-ups or do I need to get some out?" Of course she had NOT brought any so I get up and head to my bedroom closet to get some. As I walk by her, sgs7 says "but mom, I thought you said I did not have to wear a pull-up!" She goes into her soft voice bs of "well sometimes we" I am now out of sight at this point and osd's tune totally changed and she snapped at sgs7 for saying anything in front of me. I come back and hand the two older kids a pull-up. (she actually had one for the 3 year old)

My plan is every single time they are spending the night I will ask "OSD! Did you bring pull-ups?"

Anyway, thanks for listening. It seems it is a never ending story when you are a stepmom.