Back from vacation and it was WONDERFUL! I did miss H very much though and I know the boys missed him and he missed us very much too!

I DON'T WANT to go on vacation withOUT H, but what am I do if he never seems to have any money? I just am not willing to foot the bill for an entire vacation for him, so I already told him that I wanted to take the kids on a Disney Cruise in December 2011 so he would have more than a year to plan and save to pay for himself and SD, but H just said "you go ahead and take the boys & have fun - I'm not getting on a ship." Okay, I will! Ugh!

Anyway, I spent a lot of time with SS19 on this vacation. He lives in CA where we used to live and that is where we went on vacation so my boys got to spend some quality time with their big brother which was good - especially since BS1 was only a month old when SS19 moved away. It is not a big shocker really that I was able to spend this much time with SS19 - I've always admitted here that he's NOT a "bad" kid and that H was really the problem with his parenting style - I get along perfectly fine with SS now that he no longer lives in my home and I'm sure I will feel the same way about SD stb12 when her visits are over too. Other than that, it has actually always been different with SS vs. SD anyway. When SD was little she was cute, sweet, and innocent, but now that she's grown into a lazy, selfish teenager (very NORMAL indeed!) that appeal has worn and now I just see the exceptions that are made for her simply because she's a girl and because she doesn't live with H, which was not the case with SS who was obviously a boy and he did live with H, although the selfish and lazy part did still apply - BIG TIME!

SS and I actually talked and he did confirm what H told me, that his treatment of BS6 probably has more to do with the fact that BS6 is a boy and lives with us than BS6 not being H's biological child, because H said he treated SS the same way (harshly) at that age and SS confirmed this. Now I still do NOT agree with this, but that DOES change my approach a bit in that I can stop viewing this as H treating MY child differently and start finding ways to help H simply treat all of the children fairly as the counselor suggested.

As for SD, well, it looks like what I suspected might happen is coming to fruition. Now that SD stb 12 is getting older she seems less interested in visiting with H, and has instead opted to make plans with friends that live near her with BM and go to her school during H's weekends. I also suspect that her realizing that as long as I'm around she will not be able to get away with as much as she would if H were still single has something to do with it too. Anyway, the BAD part of this is that it's hard to plan activities now (with or withOUT SD) because I don't know what weekends she will actually be coming, but in the grand scheme of things that is definitely a better problem than feeling powerless around a pre-teen in my own home!

GREAT NEWS: The night before we left for vacation H & I had a date night out for our 2nd Anniversary! I treated us to a nice (EXPENSIVE) dinner and then we actually went out to a bar and had a few drinks (but didn't dance). We had a GREAT time and believe it or not this was our FIRST time doing this in our entire 5+ year relationship (yes, you heard right FIRST time!) which I told the counselor I felt was really one of our big problems because we both came in with kids (& in my case a very young, fatherless child) and so we never had an opportunity to nuture our own relationship as a couple. We both agreed that we should try to do a date night at least once a month and I have decided that I will find the resources and stay on top of it to make sure it happens and keep it fresh and interesting because that is not H's thing and I understand that - I'm so EXCITED!!!

Finally, I just picked up my reserved copy of Stepmonster from the library today - can't wait to dive in! Hopefully it will live up to all of the hype I've read on here and on Amazon's comments. We'll see...

By the way, did anyone else catch the segment on Blended Families on Good Morning America yesterday? H & I watched it together but didn't discuss it afterward. Personally, I thought it was pretty typical of what you would expect, so all the more reason why I am looking forward to reading Stepmonster!