I will shoot terri an email and get her to log on and respond. last i heard, rickys mouth was wired shut for 6 weeks but he did get to come home. she has had her hands full with ricky being in the hospital, her father having surgery, and if i could throw a little humor in here...forgive me terri...the tree they put up kept falling over during the night with all the ornaments and the water all over the floor. it was a very hectic exhausting holiday for her. deb

Hi, Nbee - I think you should just give it some time. Think of the changes in his life; he's only 3, and his world has been disrupted. You didn't say how long your boyfriend has been divorced, but this little guy has experienced Dad leaving, going back and forth from Mom's to Dad's and vice-versa, and having a new person living at Dad's house. Did you spend time letting the kids get to know you and accept you before you moved in? 5 months is short (IMO) to move in with someone and expect little ones to "get it" and accept you. Fortunately the 5 year old does; I hope that continues. It's great that you care and are trying to form a relationship with the 3 year old, but don't force it. Remember, too, that you're only 5 months into this relationship with your boyfriend (don't know how long you've lived with him). Think of the additional upheaval on the kids should your relationship go bad and you move out. If they come to love you, that'll be yet another loss for them. I wish you the best. Just go easy, understand his life, and give him time. Suzieque

"I don't know what the reasoning behind that statement was?" There is a lot of reasoning behind waiting a year after you get married. First of all, sometimes non existent parents find out you are remarried and all of a sudden, they pop out of the woodwork and want to reclaim their family/child. It isn't about the child, it's about their insecurity and having some other man/woman raising 'their' child. Then there is the issue of second marriages having a higher divorce rate than first marriages and adoption, unlike marriage, cannot be reversed. It is a legal obligation until the child reaches majority and you cannot divorce an adopted child. angelnetta, you need to speak to an attorney about adoption, not seek advice from the internet. I'll share my honest opinion, it seems that there is a lot of instability in your situation. Now, I don't know it all from your short post but your ex ran off with your friend before your baby was born and you've all moved to different states and he moves around so much you can't track him and nobody has ever put a dad on the birth record. and now you are getting married to a guy that was there when your baby was born... after you say your ex left just a week prior? That's a lot going on in two years time. This is just my opinion but an attorney would know for sure. You should establish the father with DNA testing and then proceed with terminating his rights and then proceed with adoption. If you shortcut it, saying you don't know who the dad is (and I don't know if you can even do that) then the real dad may someday pop up, ask for DNA test and toss any adoption out of the window. See an attorney.

@ justmetoo----His now 21 year old son assaulted me, not the one that lives with us now. His mother does feed him stories and has for years let them in on the finances and done everything in her power to cause trouble and discontent. To be honest, in my opinion, this all went off the rails with this particular child when WE bought him a car. After my husband and I did this he kept the ca for about 2 months and decided that he didn't want it anymore. I had a truck that we were not using so SS came to me and said he wanted to buy it because, a. he wanted a truck, b. it would teach him what it was like to have financial responsibility. I should have seen through that right there, because I don't know many kids that would say that. I was honestly against it because I saw nothing but trouble, but after all the hounding I got from my husband and SS, I gave in just to shut them up. I stipulated that there would be rules, the vehicle would not be his until he paid it in full, it could not be driven out of the local area further than 50 miles, and since it was in my name and under my insurance he was not to haul all his friends around and he had to let us know where he was going. Keep in mind at the time he was 16, so I don't think I was being to unreasonable. That was fine for about 2 months and suddenly he stopped paying (payments were $50/month), breaking curfew, rude, sassy, etc. He wants to put the vehicle under his mothers insurance, because she doesn't have to know where he goes. Then he decides he doesn't want this vehicle and he wants to sell it and buy something else. Now I have no way of knowing what my husband and his son discussed or concocted, and they are famous for making little deals and leaving me out of the loop. (That's another issue) So, I agreed to allow him to sell it with the stipulation that he only keep what was leftover from what he owed us because I just wanted to be rid of the situation.. Well you would have thought I was asking for his first born, because suddenly he doesn't understand why he has to pay for something that had been given to me in the first place and why did I not just give him the vehicle. So he sells it and when my husband does not turn over the full amount to him, he says, "Mom told me you would not give me what you owed me!" HAHA BINGO! So I told my husband, BM is obviously planting seeds in his head, which you can't reason with this woman she is a nut job, we have tried. He gets a new car with his mother and adds it to his insurance and in even more attitude, he came over one night to fight with my husband about this entire transaction. Do I know if my husband has lied to him? No, I do not, however that is no excuse to talk to your father that way. In my opinion, bottom line SS is mad because he did not get what he wanted from us. This is the same child that asked his Dad to change the custody agreement so that he could stay with us more because he did not like living at his mothers house because everyone fights there all the time, per him. My husband even gave him $400 to register his new car that he got with his BM with the understanding that he would pay it back because he is working. This was 6 months ago and the boy has yet to make any attempt to give us anything, in fact he told his Dad in the past few weeks, "I don't have any F*&^ing money, so why would I give you any? I'm not paying you back." NICE! My husband left his son OVER $300 for lunch, food, etc whilst he has been away, gives him money to eat when the SS is at work, school, to go out with his friends....but the boy has a job, he is already in college. I feel that we have done so much for him and all he does in expect more and disrespect more. He will walk right past me in my home and look right through me and not say a word. I feel that I have done more for him in the 5 years I have been married than his own mother does for him. Its just a mess and it makes me very sad because it was NOT always like this. We used to do things as a family, have dinner together, go on trips and now I can't stand the sight of him.