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I'm in Maryland...Gar rett County/Deep Creek Lake area, the far western part of the state that many Marylanders don't even know is part of Maryland, LOL.  I just started back to school, but might be able to get together with some BPOers!!

NN - my stepson's mom pulled that same kind of crap.  She took her guilt trips so far that she threatened suicide a few times, and twice she lied to him and told him she had cancer so he'd "better love her more while he still could!!" (she claimed ovarian cancer and lip cancer....both of which miraculously cleared up with no medical intervention.. ..what an idiot...). 

It used to be almost impossible to challenge a biological mother's rights, but the family courts are changing.  Our custody battle was a rather amazing example of this.  We were given Emergency Temporary Custody of my SS after he told us about his mother driving him around while drunk...all we did was call our attorney, they contacted the courts, and 4 days later we had the order.  It was VERY stressful....w e had to pick him up for our regular mid-week evening visit like everything was normal but we all knew he was not going back to his mom (not easy for an 11 year old to pull off)....then the courts served her with the change of custody papers after we left.  She was drunk when they did and tried to attack the process server (which he later testified about...didn't help her case!). 

We went to court a few days later, and the judge upheld the change of custody until both my husband and his ex had alcohol evaluations and my stepson could talk to his Guardian ad Litem (an attorney who specifically represents the child...most states appoint them) and he could hear from character witnesses and make the best decision.  This dragged on for a couple months, and it was tough.  She had visitation, and seemed to use it to mentally abuse her son as much as possible.  He got to the point that he didn't want to go see her at all.  She called our house and screamed and ranted and raved....I still have many voicemail recordings of her drunken threats.  She constantly called her attorney with lies about us.  She even called the cops at 2 a.m. and had them come check on my SS because she claimed she thought we had killed him....I was furious, I refused to wake him up and let them into his room to see him sleeping but told them if he woke up and saw them in his room it would terrify him and I would sue the whole department (like I said, nerves were frayed, lol). 

In the end, we were granted custody based on the many lies she told that we exposed and the testimony of my stepson (who thankfully was allowed to speak to the judge alone instead of in open court in front of his mother).  She was granted visitation.... but continued to act like a psycho and less than a year later were back in court to have her visitation suspended or supervised.  The judge allowed my stepson to decide whether or not he saw his mom.  He was not quite 13 when the court gave him this power....somet hing that would have been unheard of 15 years ago, but like I said the courts are changing. 

Sorry to hijack this thread, but I wanted to share our experience with you.  If you do go to court, you must be prepared for a very ugly fight.  You must be prepared to be your own private detective and track down every lie she tells.  This is where intense dislike for her really comes in handy, lol.  I was a dog with a bone about it.  She lied to the courts and said we were interferring with her telephone visitation.... I got our phone records to show that she was lying.  She claimed she never threatened us....I produced the voicemail recordings of it.  To say that she hates my guts would be a major understatement .  And to this day, if something happened to our home or our animals, I would immediately think she did it.  But my stepson is much better off, so it was worth all the stress and frustration and sleepless nights.  Good luck to you!

Like Kathy suggested, the girls actually do have a chore list.  We made it up together so we all agreed it was fair.  It's just getting them to do their chores is a daily struggle.  I know they are teenagers and I know this comes with the territory, but it still drives me batty. 

 

Oh, we have parallel lives!  I could have written that paragraph about my stepson!  And it drives me more than batty sometimes....i t makes me downright angry.  I have really come to think that I am just not cut out to deal with teenagers.  I don't have much patience for laziness, dishonesty, and sullen attitudes....t raits that they seem to posess in spades!  Sometimes I wonder how my parents kept from smothering me in my sleep when I was 16....lol... 

I would also think that maybe it is painful for him to jump in.  I usually have to lift Bodhi's big fuzzy butt  into my Endeavor, lol.....he just puts his front paws on the seat and looks at me like, "Give us a leg up, Mommy!" LOL!

I am SO not the person to give advice about this sort of thing....as you can tell by my incredibly long signature list, lol.  But I'm thinking it couldn't hurt to at least talk to Hubby about this dog.  It's like falling in love...sometim es "The One" comes along when you least expect it....so it would be worth finding out if this is the perfect dog for you.

Most of the animals in our brood came here under my husband's duress, lol.  Now that they are here he loves them and can't imagine life without them, but several of them came under the pretense of It's-Only-For-A-Few-Days-Until-I-Can-Find-Them-A-Good-Home.  Hey, it's not my fault that OUR home was the best home, lol....

I have a local rescue friend who also has alot of pets and she once told me that when it came to her husband she found it was "easier to ask for forgiveness than permission"! LOL!

See what I mean, I am a bad influence, lol.  That being said, though, my own hubby finally put a serious moratorium on pets after we got Bodhi, and I am being good....

Wow, can I relate to this. I am a very outgoing person...but I am also the only child of parents who had a VERY volatile relationship.  Through all the stress it was our Irish Setter, Ginger, who comforted me.  I can't count the number of times I hid in my room hugging her while my parents fought.  She was the only one I could count on.

Because of this, I have big trust issues with people....but none with animals.  They are so trusting themselves that it makes me feel safe trusting them.  I've never met a dog that was not completely honest and pure...even when they are getting ready to bite you, they always let you know where you stand, lol.  How a person can abuse a creature like that is beyond me.

Well, here's some TMI for ya....it's only 10:30 in the morning, and I have already cleaned up about 10 piles of poo!  I am pet-sitting for one of my regular clients, and his little female Cairn (Gitchi) has the trots.  I arrived this morning to find disgusting little presents all over the house.  I spent  about 40 minutes cleaning them all up.  I was pretty sure that the diarrhea was stress induced because the carbon monoxide detector batteries started to die during the night and it was beeping and freaking her out....but because she is older and I didn't want to take any chances, I kept a stool sample and took it to the vet for testing.

When I got to the vet I asked them to run it immediately and sat down in the lobby to wait for the results.  A few minutes later a woman came in with a Boxer....and it too had the trots.  It pooped all over the lobby!  The office was very busy, and other dogs were freaking out and trying to get to the poo to smell it (dogs are so gross, lol)....and then only one person came out to clean it up.  It was too much poo for one person with all those dogs stomping around, so I figured I might as well continue the trend of the morning and helped them, lol.

When I left the vet I came home to take care of my own dogs....and discovered that Rio, our geriatric Black Lab/Beagle mix, had pooped in three places in our basement! 

By now I am imagining I smell dog poo everywhere, lol.  And though Gitchi's lab results were clear, I've seen so many pooping dogs today it makes me wonder if there is something contagious going around. 

This does NOT bode well for the weekend.  I have 5 client dogs this weekend.  That's 7 visits a day, in addition to taking care of my own 6 dogs.  And our high temp on Sunday is supposed to be only 7 degrees.  I'm going to be spending alot of time freezing my keester off walking little diarrhea dogs! LOL!!

I swear, this weather is crazy....last week we had 8" of snow, then it warmed up to almost 70 degrees and it all melted....and now we are back down to 22 degrees and have 11" of snow and it is still coming down!  Fortunately, just about everyone in our home LOVES snow.  My husband and stepson are ski/snowboard nuts...I won't see them for the rest of the week because they will be out on the slopes.  The dogs love to play out in the yard in the big white drifts.  I just adore snow and cold weather in general.  Only the cats and pigs are not amused, lol.

I took Bodhi out to play with Stubby, our Corgi mix.  Poor Stubby.....Bod hi pummels him and practically body slams into the snow!  Normally he can get away from him because he has a lower center of gravity and can weave and turn in a way Bodhi can't follow....but with 11" of snow on the ground, the poor little lowrider can't move very fast!  I wish I could get some action shots of them, but they whip up so much snow all you can see is white mist!  Still, these are kinda cute....