Feeling defeated is legit

Oh good afternoon my fellow step parents! It's come to my attention that my blog is reaching a lot of people! Including some people who aren't very satisfied with what I'm writing about. Well, go pound sand because I genuinely don't care! This blog is about fellow step parents and what were all going through as a group. My history with my step children are on here and while I don't enjoy bashing other parents it's an opportunity for other step parents to validate their feelings. While my situation is very unique in having three separate moms to have to deal with, I'm still a step mom. Other step parents have so many issues and are always so scared to talk about them. While were in and out of court I try to curb most information for court purposes but once this is all taken care of and done I can reveal more information. As for right now were scheduled for court tomorrow on December 1st for what's called a compliance review. Basically to make sure everyone is completing services they're supposed to complete and hopefully reunite my family and make that complete again. We did have parent teacher conferences with Leighas teacher which was really eye opening to a few situations. The great news is she's brilliant as we originally planned :) She's on a first grade reading level and excelling in every academic way. Looks like me turning her into a robot worked ;) You know the whole "don't rot your brain with TV and junk food" and getting Leigha her leap reader when she was younger, reading to her every night, doing site words with her. I guess "turning her into a robot" turned her into a brilliant little kid. Who woulda thought! Children who love to learn really need to be worked on, Leigha absolutely loved educational things. She looked forward to cleaning her room, she loved her books every night, she would come home from school and put her giant headphones on and get her leap reader out. Because that's what she LOVED. Especially with her ADHD that we pretty much controlled with her diet and educational activities. With Leigha having the ADHD she really needed to hone in on things she loved to do. I bought her a workbook and everynight she would work on coloring the upper case and lower case letters and staying in the lines. She would stay focused for HOURS. If she wasn't doing that she was eating dinner or in her room playing with her dress ups and kitchen set, or reading with her leap reader. Things like that use kids imaginations, they open their worlds to all kinds of things. Watching a child learn and encouraging them and giving them positive reinforcement really gives them so much self esteem. Leigha never came out to tell us she "hated herself" or her life. She really enjoyed everything we gave her and did for her. I potty trained her when she was not even three and right away she was fantastic, even over night. So at the end of the day I've had to climb every wall and fight every hostile person to be able to stand my ground as a step mom and help raise these wonderful children. All I can do is stick by my faith and pray that God knows exactly what's going to happen and he won't let myself or my husband sink. These children are amazing and can do incredible things in the future. Everything is in His hands, so let it happen :) 

have a great night guys!

Kristen

The thing about freedom of speech

Man! this has been a while! I missed you guys! I have gotten emails recently asking about my step daughters and how everyones been since I've been gnarly busy trying to just live life. So here I am! The thing about my blog is I've tried to make it a daily update on life and problems with parenting, co parenting, whatevs. The great thing about my blog is as a journalist I'm covered under freedom of speech. Now don't get me wrong, using full names or identifying people using their names or anything like that isn't really up my ally. But if you know me and my life and the people surrounding my life you'll get the gist of it you know? My life is a huge rollercoaster right now and having a blog brings me and other step parents together into a group much like a family. At the end of the day co parenting is tough, especially when the other parent refuses to co parent. Spitefulness and manipulation doesn't hurt anyone but your child at the end of the day. Any real parent knows they want to rid the chaos from their childs life, not continue or add to it. That's crazy! So I will continue my blog and continue about my life with my wonderful step daughters and keep the updates coming! Nothing too detrimental has happened recently, just the norm. Ashley is fully potty trained (at least at our home)! yay for big girl underwear! I remember when I potty trained Leigha, she was probably a little younger than ashley is now. I took the pull ups, threw them out, and put her in big girl undewear. she was so incredibly smart we barely had to do it. She had two accidents and she was good to go! Even overnight wasn't an issue, at least not until a few years later ... moving on. So now that Ashley is fully potty trained it's a bridge we've crossed and now we can start talking about bringing our own little one into the world! Not yet guys don't get too excited! But now that life seems to be settling down and things are moving in a good direction I can think about carrying my own child and raising my own child with my husband. I can't wait to incorporate my step daughters and my biological child or children. I love having one big family, it's such an awesome idea. Brianna and Ashley love hanging out together, you can really tell there's a sister bond there. Were still praying God keeps blessing us and moving those mountains for us to bring Leigha back home and get her back to a normal environment. Prayers guys! thanks! Leigha hasn't been doing fantastic the past few weeks but anyone who knows me on a daily basis knows the details of this and we just keep praying that something happens and someones eyes are opened and they bring her back to a safe, loving environment with therapy that's going to actually work. Meanwhile were coming up on the holidays! I'm so excited for thanksgiving and the familiy and the love the holidays bring. I did pretty awesome this year and started shopping for everyone in June. The girls have been done for a few weeks now and so has michael, I also got my in laws finished so it's just my family. My niece has a birthday party today to celebrate her third birthday! so excited to bring ashley to her party later and celebrate. Well have Ashley the day after christmas to celebrate that with her and our other family members. We did recently move in the past few months so we'll be celebrating in our new home! I recently got a raise at work and that's really exciting. I've been at the same hospital for over two years now and I'm so happy i've made that my home. Even though someone thought they had some sort of ... pull to get my fired haha. We see how that worked out! two years and counting! good try bud. I'm so excited to start this new year and really see what it has to bring to us. So thanks for checking on me guys, there's a quick update on what's happening in our lives. I'll be sure to post a little more often now and I hope you all have a great thanksgiving!!

Kristen