Yah that's bad.. Cat38, the next time you take him to the doctor and the doctor states the situation. tell him that bm will not give meds and has not taken her son for a second opinion. There are smokers in the house. Dr. can call child services and have her investigated since she is a RN. Which is alarming to say the least that she would not acknowledge the signs and symptoms. To top it off, you can't brain wash a doctor when he's run routine tests...lol..an rn should know this. My husband agrees, you call Child services immediately and get all the health records, letter for the doctor. And do not send the child back to a smoking environment. Also get the nurses association involved to investigate mother dear. Yes, it will get very ugly. But he'res the alternative. You do nothing. And God forbid your Ss passes in his sleep if its as dangerous as you describe. My husband said this to me ' he'll pass away in his sleep eh'...that is veyr dangerous. Is his breathing worse after he comes to your home from mom's??? does it get better when he stays longer at your place? I wish you all the best, I know your in a tough position, but your SS is sick and he needs help. I just cannot understand why a mother would allow her child to be on so much medication. If the third antibiotic didn't work on my child i'ld go to the emergency. This did happen to my son by the way. He had an eye infection, then an ear infection, then it came back...and then by the 4th week his eye was infected again. I took him to emergency and they said it was a flesh eating bacteria and he also had Septisemia. Straight IV antibiotics. It cost me 400 /day for the treatments for 10 days....thank God i had visa to place the costs and then my insurance gave me back the money and i repaid visa. It was scary.

Love, my DH drops DD off at school :) Don't get me wrong Mattie. My DH works very hard around the house. We just don't split every thing 50/50. He fixes toilets, computers, appliances. He waters the gardens. He does yard work. He trims trees and plants. BUT, when his DD comes over I do more of the everyday, routine maintenance for her, as well as my DD who lives with us. DH does take care of DD while I go to the gym, or takes her out so I can have me-time (without me asking). I feel we even things out pretty fairly. We both work and we work around each other so that we can get everything done. His schedule is more flexible and he can work at home more often so he is the one to stay home when we need delivery signatures, etc. It all works out, neither of us feel we are being taken advantage of. My point was not that the typical man is going to work and coming home while the typical woman is doing all the "woman jobs". What I perhaps did not say eloquently enough is that I feel, IMO, that women still do more of the child-stuff, and when a man remarries those duties become the SM's. Many SM's do not resent this and are happy to do it, but it is a very conflicting, fraught with emotional landmines position. Much like being a diplomat. In a war zone. With very few supplies.

KKNY I don't know what to make of you. Of course we don't make the skids 'spy' for us. They brought the subject of smoking up themselves, we usually don't ask about those things (BM's drinking, the smoking - while pregnant of course, and other negative trades). That is because we'd feel bad knowing that the girls would probably feel like defending their mom. So therefore we wait till they volunteer the information and then we might ask what they think about it, or how they feel. The therapist has given us really good advice on how to be supportive of them, and how to adress these kinds of issues without criticizing their mom. However we do ask the girls general questions to show an interest in their other family, which is important for them. Like about their little brother or what they were up to on the weekend? Is that allowed?? Ima already explained it very well. It's about the power of brainwashing,I guess you're not that familiar with it. Like Ima's SD saying it is raining when the sun is clearly shining (that was your post Ima, right?) Also what is the significant difference for you between Stepmom or SO? I'm FDH's SO and stepmom to the skids. They actually started calling me that without my encouragement, they think it's 'cool' and so that's fine with me. You always think that it's the SM's vs the BM's here, and I don't understand why? Surely you're not that shallow to assume all Stepmoms are on the same page and all BM's are on the other? Just because I'm Dutch doesn't mean that I'm on the same page as all other Dutch people, right?

All excellent points. I am not at all saying that things should always be equal and even. Like I said, we DO try to abide by the "fairness isn't everyone getting the same but everyone getting what he/she needs" mentality. But, and unless you do have two children the same age, this can be hard to understand---there IS a competitiveness between them. I think it is exacerbated by the fact that we are a stepfamily, so there is always that under current of "well, she is favored" or "he is favored." It's also simply because they are the same age so their interests/needs/wants are often quite similar. It would be easier in many ways if one were older. IE--if DD were twelve, for example, I highly doubt she'd care one iota that SS were getting a bunk bed. Her interests would be different and she'd be more concerned about getting this or that. But she is still at that age where she thinks bunk beds are super cool! As far as big gifts and such--for Christmas and birthdays, we DO match things up equally. They get a variety of different presents BUT if we know it is something they both want--they each get one. IE--each got a Nintendo DS for Christmas two yrs ago, each got a new bike another Christmas, etc. Those are the "big ticket" items that we keep even. There is just no way we could justify saying "oh, that's too bad that Santa brought SS a new bike and not you" or "that's too bad DD got a DS for her birthday but you didn't." Not only are they both 8 but their birthdays are only six weeks apart! Now--like Ima pointed out--there are other things not within our control, like DD goes to a private school, SS to public, SS with dad half the time, DD all the time. (It's funny, Ima, that you stated it like DD "doesn't get" to see her dad; I view it in a positive light, like she is fortunate she has DH as her full time dad, fortunate she has one stable home. I know at some point she will be curious about bio-dad but for now, I see it as a blessing that she doesn't see him.) I don't know. Some of this is MY own issue, I guess, too. I do feel like we *more often* bend over backwards to make sure that SS doesn't feel slighted and we *more often* take the approach that DD can suck it up. Not all the time, but I feel like it is like is more that way than it is the reverse. A lot of that IS because DD IS just generally more reselient to that stuff. And THAT is partly her personality, but also partly because I don't think she HAS a sense of being left out the way SS sometimes does--due to his going back and forth. SS is very jealous by nature, and I think some of it is the divided homes. For example--he WIGGED OUT a couple weeks ago b/c he talked to his mom on the phone, and she mentioned she had taken his 2 yr old sister to the dollar store. He loves the dollar store and he spent a good 30 mins sobbing at our house about how unfair it was. :( When he gets like that, there is just no consoling him, no pointing out all the fun things he does with us---like vacations and camps and circuses and pool trips, etc. He just get so emotional about these things. DH spoke with BM about it at length after that and both agreed it is a problem for SS but neither knows what to do about it. It's one of those sad things---he has two families but he only spends 50% of time with each--and he, as a result, is kind of always left out a bit. On the upside, he gets two of everything. I guess? Anyway, I guess that is maybe what is irritating ME more than anything. If it were DD getting the new bdrm set, SS would be devastated, no doubt, and DH even agreed with me about that. I think he would be really concerned about how SS would react in that case. BUT b/c we know that DD is pretty laidback about these things, it's like it just doesn't matter and DH isn't concerned. Kind of like the prodigal son story. Does that make sense? I am glad I vented this b/c I am now seeing it's really more MY issue and communication with DH than it is about the bedroom set.