Hello everyone, this is my first time on, be gental please. To begin, I am the stepmother of a 3 year old. Well soon to be step mother, her father and I are engaged. All of my life Ive been what they call a "worry wart" I worry about everything, it's just kind of who I am. this trait, of course, dosnt help the stress of the situation, which I will explain to you now---no make a long story semi-short, my fiancée and I had to pick up his daughter from her grandmothers house one night because cps had been told she was intoxicated. This is the grandmother she's lived with and has been raised by since she was about a year old ( we are talking the mother of my fiancées ex) she has had my SD in her care because my SD's mother has had drug and alcohol problems before, during and after her pregnancy. Now, my SD's mother still has custody of her but was not allowed to keep her overnight or be alone with her via CPS. Not that she had any intention of seeing her daughter fur more then 5 minutes a day anyway. Getting back to what I was saying. My fiancée and I picked her up that night that the grandmother was confronted by tv awe worker (whole allowed us to take her home) and we've had her ever since. But as time went by and the tedious task of working with CPS we've finally gotten to file for full custody ( after several attempts to help my SD's mother by the case worker then became restless with her excuses, resulting in the biological mother to completely start ignoring CPS, not a good idea on her part) before I continue, and to make it a bit more clear of what we are dealing with, let me describe the mother. Although her and my fiancée have been apart for many years, she still try's control him emotionally telling him " your hurting my daughter by not letting her be with me" and "I'm going to get her back so she can be where she NEEDS to be" and this does get to him, the thought of loosing his daughter again does unspeakable things to him and not only as a person but a girlfriend makes me furious. By no means is he stupid, he knows she says these things to get to him, ontop of saying she going to come visit and not showing up, then having to ease his daughters crying and trying to explain "why mommy didn't come to see you like she said/promised she would" it's unbearable. So in a nutshell that is my situation. But it's not all that I came to talk about. Through the love and cherish that I feel for my SD there is a dark side to the situation. Behavior is what we have the most problem with. Before if she wanted somthing and was told no, would throw the biggest fit until she got it, and everytime she got what she wanted, there was no dicipline whatsoever. I'm very familiar with fit throwing but I beleive that if the answer is no, it's no, and if she does somthing bad that requires punishment then is should be followed through to teach a lesson. Like any other parent I hate punishing her but if it has to be done then is has to, she cant stay up past her bedtime, she can't hit, she can't hit the animals specifically and she can't eat sweets before dinner, just normal stuff that we learnd as children ourselves, fundamentals, that wear ignores before. It just seems out of control sometimes, screaming at the top of her lungs, hitting the walls, giving me nasty looks, the ever so popular "I don't want to" now I know this sounds normal, and you're probably thinking " duh she's 3" but it's the complete lack of willing to comply, we had an incident were we want to the mall and we said if she was good she could have a brownie when we get home, good enough terms right? After a fit throwing and yelling at her father about her car seat and kicking it was evident she wasn't getting a brownie. When we got home an relayed this to her when she asked, explaining why she wasn't getting one she freaked and we had a 4 hour long battle trying to get her in bed. She'd keep getting up, kicked her father twice, she did receive a spanking after several minutes if screaming at the top of her lungs " no! Give me one now!" But nothing seemed to faze her. This is just one incident were the bad attitude had driven us both crazy. Don't get me wrong in any way. I love this baby girl as if she were my own and ive fone more for her in this periode of time then her mother ever has, emotionally abs financially, the poor baby's teeth were LITERALLY rotting out of her mouth because the grandmother gave get FULL BABY BOTTLES of chocolate milk, at three years old mind you, every night to shut her up, we had to get those pulled and the red tog the hikes in her teeth capped. So a lot has went in for this baby girl to make sure she is safe and healthy. All I ask is some friendy words of advice, because im not mommy I'm just " 'manda" and " 'manda" only how's how to do so mutch. Thank you for reading all of this and taking the time to listen