Just need to vent

[foolio]

Please don't attack me anyone for what I'm about to post. I just need to get this out my system.

Spent the whole weekend with DP and his D age 9).

Getting on fine all day Friday and Friday night. She's very messy and untidy but I'm trying to lead by example, and trying to remember that the rules in our house are very different from the rules in her mum's house. Bought her her own special laundry basket, helped tidy her room etc. on the Saturday morning.

Came back from my gran's on Sunday afternoon to find DP and SD had gone to a party and they'd BOTH left their dirty underwear strewn across the hall.

I could kill him. He's leading by example too but he's leading her into bad habits.

The underwear is still there. I have said I will wash whatever is in a laundry basket but I am not a skivvy and I'm not picking up after either of them. DP of course then attacked me, how dare I speak to her like that etc etc, this is her home and I have no right to speak to her like that.

If I'd left my underwear for SD to find in that way I can only imagine what DP would have to say about that.

Please don't think I'm blaming SD for this. I know who's responsible.

Rant over.

You vent, pet - step parenting is really, really difficult. Let me pass you a large glass of wine. Have a lovely big gulp.

Good. Now I can tell you that you might have beena teensy bit OTT. Parenting is pants. cleaning pants, finding pants, buying pants, asking them to put their pants away. Many times. Then finding them, clearly unworn, back in the laundry basket.

And if you knew who was responsible, then who should you have had a quiet word with?

Speak to DP quietly on your own. Explain that you have to have consistent rules and he needs to set by example.

Tanga - thanks for your message (loving your name, by the way, how apt). You're right, I should have spoken to DP and not SD.

I'm afraid the red mist descended. Sundays are never good for me. I've got my gran to look after (she's 90, my mum died a few years ago and I'm an only child) and that's usually enough to tip me over the edge.