I just got linked here from another forum, and I am so excited to learn that this website exists.

I'm expecting my first, but I have two step kids who I love more than anything. Seriously, when my friends tell me "You're going to be shocked that you can love someone as much as you'll love your daughter" I want to smack them. I would do anything for my kids, they are my world and come before anything. And it's breaking my heart because right now it seems like our youngest, a six year old boy, is struggling. He was with us full time this last summer, but his mom has him during the week during the school year. So we only have them friday night to sunday afternoon (his older sister is not biologically my SO's, and has court mandated visition with her emotionally abusive biological father on sunday afternoons...her mother is fighting to change this now)...Anyways, because our time is so limited, and SO's work schedule only really leaves him with Friday and Saturday and then Sunday mornings with them, we all feel the stress. We had them for spring break, which was great, but I've noticed some new behavior issues with our six year old. He recently started hitting and kicking, throwing himself on the floor and having FULL ON temper tantrums when he gets in trouble. I'm the only one I've seen successfully get him to stop, and then discipline him (with time outs) acoordingly...but I hate spending so much of my time with him doing it, I honestly started crying yesterday when I realized our time was over for the week, and I feel like so much of it was spent with him in time out. I saw his biological mother grab him by the back of the neck twice to get him to stop misbehaving, and we're getting together Wednesday night to discuss how we all want to start confronting the new issues, and some old ones. I'm starting to develope this awful guilt complex though. I feel like our pregnancy is causing some of this. I don't make a huge deal about the baby when they're here, and we've done things like painted his room because the babies room got painted. But all of his behavior has totally changed. He is the sweetest boy with the biggest heart, and I hate to think that I'm making him sad.

So my question is, how do I talk about all of us consistantly disciplining and handling things the same way so that there's no confusion for the kids and the adults without making anyone feel like I'm stepping on toes? I know that their mother is hurt when she feels like I'm in mommy territory, and the last thing I want to do is make her feel like I'm trying to take control. I just want all of us to work together to make sure we're all doing our best to make the kids happy and healthy.

Also, any tips on how to talk to a six year old boy about the baby, or how not to, so that the jealousy and fears of no longer being the baby aren't an issue.

Thanks guys. There's more to the story, of course, there's a boyfriend living with mom who has just recently started doing anything besides sitting on the couch playing video games and smoking weed, there's issues between my SO and his ex, that I have made very clear I will not get involved in because of the kids, and because it's none of my bussiness, and also, the older daughter(eleven) is not actually biologically my SO's, but she never even met her biological father until she was six and my SO tried to adopt her. She wants nothing to do with her biological father, and I don't think he really cares about her except to spite my SO and his ex, which is heartbreaking, too. But because of this, we don't want to try for full custody and seperate them unless it becomes absolutely necessary that he(the six year old) is here with us. But I feel like splitting the two of them up at this point would be selfish.

Seriously though, I feel like we have the most complicated family tree ever.