Well, that's why you have us. So that you can bitch about her and not actually take it out on her or your stepson

What sj said. We're here.

A pox upon his fruit of the loom!

NICE!

Erin, I am sorry for crazy parental politics. So horrible when there's a kid in the balance.

Is that like the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie-woogie flu?

Symptoms include impromptu second-lining, a craving for po-boys, and total frustration with the lack of go-cups in a given municipality. Comorbidity with brassaholism often occurs.

Erin, absolutely atrocious. And I'm glad you have us to vent to.

You, Pix, were gracious and fabulous. Tino was a schmuck.

Indeed.

I hope something itchy invades his underwear drawer. All summer.

INDEED.

I am at the beach. With wifi in the hotel, woot!

I am at the beach. With wifi in the hotel, woot!

Yay!

Erin, that's completely infuriating.

Pix, I think "supercilious ass" pretty much sums it up. He is SUCH a Tino.

smonster, Frankie and I are having good times. Well, right now, he's having a nap, but he seems to be enjoying it quite a bit.

He does love a nap or ten. And then to sleep at night.

Also, my mother is looking at the pet rescue thingy she gets at the beach, and she's found about five dogs she want to adopt, and is trying to talk me into a Siamese.

Welcome back, Trudy!

I am glad there was some sort of compromise, Kristin. Sorry it was so stressful to you.

Erin, you are a rocking stepmom and I know that nothing that you vent here affects M, because you are awesome. His mom is really being awful and I am so sorry that you and D have to deal with it but you are being ADULTS and good parents.

Honestly, I say it a lot when this topic comes up but I cannot stress how amazing my parents were being divorced parents and remarrying and just being fucking adults.

Thanks for all the good words; I really need them tonight.

45 minutes late again. She started off my telling me I was was talking to her in a patronizing tone. Then she started yelling and was very antagonistic and hostile -- when I brought up therapy (since she seems to actually think M will turn out to be a weirdo, possibly suicidal teenager, no seriously) and I had been thinking ANYWAY that therapy was a Very Logical Step, she went ape-shit.

The problem is, apparently, so serious that only by D and I changing our ways and talking to M more will help, we all need to be on "the same page," which apparently means HER page, and since "problems I listed (ie, divorce, moving, etc, etc) stem back for 5 years, then I don't understand how DEEP-SEATED and URGENT this problem is.

Which, holy shit dumbass, if you belive your child's mental state is such that he may be suicidally depressed by high school, why the fuck are you flaring up about therapy? Got a sore tooth -- dentist. Flu? Doctor? Depression and repression? Therapist. WTFF is the big deal? he just needs someone impartial to talk to, he's not Jeffrey Dahmer.

She couldn't articulate the problem more, nor would she take responsibility. When we asked her what it would look like, to her, for us to be more involved parents, the solution was "call more."

She also rode my ass (or tried to) about how I've never once called M by myself. Riddle me this, rational people: if you were a new wife and stepmom, dealing with an often irrational woman, mother of your new stepson, who your husband has told you she has told him she has feelings of inadequacy or worry that M would like me better than he, would you not be mindful of possible boundary-pushing, and perhaps limit your phone calls in the first, let's say a YEAR, of marriage, to phone calls with your husband? Out of courtesy?

And when I told her my thinking on this, she flared up and was all "Now you're trying to blame me, Blah, Blah, when have I ever said, blaming me, blah, blah."

At this point I told her firmly but politely (but, I admit, with some heat) that if she continued yelling at me, then the conversation was over, and if she could simply listen to me, she would hear out how I was trying to be fucking polite and respectful of her position of mother. She wants me to call and email more? You got it, sister. Let's hope you can take it, because I am fucking awesome, and also? if M grows up to be weird and interested in "weird" stuff like Legos and Godzilla, then I don't give a flying fuck. You know who's going to make him feel shittiest about liking "weird" stuff? You. Not his classmates, although kids are brutal little beasts, but you.

Kids will be shitty to each other, no child gets a perfect life, and frankly, she creates drama to keep people's attention on her. And is irrational, melodramatic, and hyperbolic, and frankly, about 2 short steps from Munchausen's.

Jesus Christ. Thanks for listening to me yammer, because it was 2 hours of literal sound and fury signifying nothing. I am going to take a Xanax and go to bed; I am pissed and frustrated, because D and I are very logical solutions-based people, and she doesn't seem to want a solution, just fucking ER drama.

Get the fuck over yourself, and start dealing with things like a grown up. Your life choices lead you and your child and us here.

There's lots of other stuff that are nice and infuriating, but I have vented (most of) my spleen, which I needed.

STAB STAB STABBY

WTH Erin? She spent two hours yelling at you? Yipes. Is she a bit borderline?

Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound glib.