Susan: There is a lot of give and take with car pool, and I think it works best between good friends because it can be such a strain. It sounds like this car pool may not work out for you, in that case, don't take anything personally and just let it go. Car pools are wonderful and its fun to see your children interact with others (that can be enlightening, in fact). However, some down time alone in the car with your daughter could be a very good thing for your relationship with her. Another alternative is to ask your daughter if she has a close friend that she can car pool with, although it might be out of your way, it could work very well. Plus, it's a good idea to expand your group of friends who you can call upon to pick your daughter up in the event of an emergency or something else that prohibits you from getting her on any given afternoon. Maybe there is a third party you can include in your car pool? One successful car pool I know of requires (in a nice way) that the 5 moms get together once a month and discuss their daughters schedules together. If any girl needs to be to school early or stay late due to a test, they've agreed to send all of the girls early or keep them all late rather than disrupt the car pool. Our girls high school has laptops and wireless, so the girls are never at a loss for something to keep them busy. I also want to add that I am usually the one who is on the receiving end of car pools. I have a lot of children and am grateful that my friends don't count the driving they do for my children. I cannot possibly repay them by driving their children an equal amount. The key to car pool is recognizing that any party might need to change plans overnight and might not be able to notify you until it's time to leave the next morning. For example, in the case of the girl skipping her first class because it was a study hall, perhaps she was feeling sick, perhaps she needed to finish a project up in the morning, or maybe she just needed a good night sleep and her mom told her to sleep in. Not the most considerate way to tell you, but with teens you really need to go with the flow or you will go berserk. And I know that you know that, it just helps to remind myself of that fact. Driving these long distances to and from schools and other activities can make you crazy. Good luck, I hope the problem resolves itself quickly.

Thanks everyone, I was starting to think I was just here by myself, lol. This is getting addictive...I am trying to figure out why I have been hauling around that bookcase since college days. It's outta here.. Last week the "church lady" came by with a horse trailer and took the armoire and two French chairs, window treatments, all that fireplace equipment, some Christmas ornaments and myriad of other stuff. She was so excited she and her husband carried that heavy armoire down the steps by themselves. I have never seen a tiny woman carry that big of an object!! It was superhuman strength I guess when you want something that bad it pumps you up!! So I open the armoire and there is even stuff in there! OMG, I have always prided myself on being the anti-clutterer. It was some sort of denial. No wonder! It is all behind closed doors. So anyway, she took all of that stuff too and the fake ivy!!! There were pillows, yet even more Italian linens and some tassels from who knows what. They would have taken more stuff but it started pouring down rain. I told her about the drop leaf table in the basement that needs fixing and she said her husband could fix it and the two matching chairs. In the meantime I finished the kitchen cabinets and got rid of about 20 lids to tupperware/grocery store storage containers that have no bottoms probably my dogs chewed them up. Of course I almost got away with getting rid of more lids but my husband was there getting them back out of the garbage saying he might need those for something. I even cleaned out the "junk drawer" that everyone has, that scary kitchen drawer full of old curtain hardware, errant screws and picture hanging apparatus from days gone by. Even telephone hook up stuff that probably doesn't exit anymore to some fossilized princess phone. There was another cabinet with these special diet mixing devices that whir up fabulous healthy drinks that you never end up making and has been in the cabs since the '90's. Gone! Remember the lady with the horse trailer is the chef from church so she brought me dinner for that night. Some wonderful herb pork chops with these twice baked potato things that were heavenly, guess I better give away those tiny clothes because this isn't helping that cause and not to mention another whole batch of her special jalapeno pimento cheese. Nirvana!! I could get used to this. This might be moving along faster but I have to sneak and give some of this stuff away or my Archie Bunker husband is standing there saying you're giving that away? That's worth something and having a running repertoire going on the whole time with hands on hips watching things go by: YOU'RE GONNA NEED THAT@#$%!! He doesn't look like Archie more like Gerald McRaney but his personality is eerily similar these days. What's up with that? Do all men turn into Archie Bunker after about 25 years of marriage? FYI: I don't look a thing like Edith, not that there's anything wrong with it. Anyway, I have to schedule these sneak horse trailer hauling soirees when he's out of town. My neighbors are getting nervous seeing all of this Sanford and Son going on over here and think we might be moving, the height of all insults moving from the neighborhood. But I assured them I was just doing spring cleaning so all is well on "Wisteria Lane" for another week.

"Treating all kids with love and fairly -- which doesnt mean equally." That is the key to keeping jealousies and sibling rivalries down. My son does experience jealousy from his much older half brother and older nephew. However, there is major dysfunctionality in that family and in truth, DH has not necessarily treated them all fairly. My DS7 does get the lions share of affection, resources and so on. I agree with all above though, in healthy situations the older kids usually LOVE the idea of a baby brother or sister. Just be careful not to lean too hard later for babysitting as that will not be appreciated. My SD36 is still quite bitter that she had to babysit her younger brother, SS30 a great deal. You are wise to be thinking through these issues now. I certainly didn't and have paid the price! On BM, if she is jealous now, and the new baby gets more love, attention, toys clothes etc from you and your SO watch out! Especially if a new, nicer, larger house is added. That is your wild card. But, if she thinks her kids are being treated fairly when the baby comes, she should be OK. If she thinks the new baby has a silver spoon and hers have plastic, keep your flak jacket on!! This is a good time to get your potential skids college funds going. Sounds a bit much but all BMs want to know their kids are protected when the new baby or babies come along in a second marriage. Their fears are legitimate and universal. For all of the issues posted on this board, having a baby (or children later) in your life is a wonderful thing.

Justmetoo actually said it better than I could. I know & I have thought about how drama follows me & have wondered how that is. I LOVED the peace and quiet the entire week SD was gone... a boring life with no drama. I enjoyed the Easter party... even though I was surprised to see my son show up with DIL when he told me he was going out of town the day before. (Again, it felt like they are sneaking behind my back) I know it must be things I do that cause drama to follow me. If I had more time, I would figure it out... I may go back into counseling because I do agree with that. Just for the record.. no, I don't support them being together. I support them both having a relationship with their son ~ separately. They are horrible for each other and if they get together, I'm more likely to have DGS LONGER or forever. Their "marriage" happened because she broke up with him & he decided to "prove" his love for her by taking her in the middle of the night and marrying her. I got countless calls from him in the middle of the night to come get him, she threw him out at the beginning of the marriage. Then calls telling me not to come get him when I was in my car. Finally, after a couple of times, I told him he's married to her & work it out yourself when he called. She was hitting him. He did not want to leave. Within a couple of months, he told me she was pregnant and he had joined the Army. He came to see me one day after they had a fight. She called him repeatedly, telling him that she was going to abort DGS & he would do whatever she said. Just recently, he told me that she really wanted to abort their son but he insisted she continue the pregnancy. He says it was HER idea for him to join the military, not his. Then she used it against him and was angry that he "left" her. While she was pregnant, I took her to birthing classes... trying to be helpful & get along with her since she is going to be my DIL. The question came up, "what do you hope to get from the class?" and she answered, "get this out of me!" referring to the baby. She never rubbed her tummy & showed any excitement like most pregnant ladies and they moved into my house just before he was born because they were planning to move to Georgia. Her parents wanted nothing to do with it. He took her and DGS (just after he was born) to Georgia before he was deployed for 6 months. During that six months, there were several incidents of domestic violence, MP's arrested her & he was disciplined for her behavior. DGS was taken to the ER three times for "falling" when he wasn't even rolling over yet. They destroyed a moving truck when he moved her back just before his deployment (because the military kicked her off and banned her from the base). The truck's transmission was gone... I can only assume she grabbed the gear shift while he was driving. She used to have emotional outbursts over anything... and she has never been "loving" toward my son. They stayed with me for a week before he had to fly back to be deployed. We were going to look for housing for her. She beat him up (put nail marks across his face on one incident that he didn't report) but on Halloween, she got upset with him & started beating on him while he was driving. They had DGS in the car & witnesses called police. She was arrested. A few days later, she was out & they talked before he left. He insisted on her going to the airport so I agreed. After we dropped my son at the airport & returned to my house, where her car was... she told me to keep DGS so she can go look for a house on her own. I didn't see her for days. Weeks passed & I still had DGS so I found an apartment for her (because she said she couldn't take DGS until she had a place to take him) but even after she had the apartment, she left him with me. She had him a day or night here and there. On one of the night visits, she had brought home a guy & at some point during the night she left the apartment (either drunk or got drunk), rolled her car into a ditch and was arrested. She did not tell police she had a baby in her apartment with some guy she met. Fortunately, the guy called some of her friends to come stay with the baby so he could leave and I found out the next day that she was in jail & I went to get the baby. That's how I ended up with Guardianship. She has gotten better with DGS, the older he is but there is no real bond and she doesn't seem to mind the lack of bond. My son does. He wants a bond to exist but I believe it's his lack of maturity to think it's automatic... and doesn't seem to have a desire to put in any time toward it. But, DIL has so many problems... she has been in rehab so many times, she is bi polar, and she recently was diagnosed with an eating disorder.. which is why she had a meltdown over the cake pop. And the only thing I can say is that I made the cake pops because DGS asked me to and he loves them... and I didn't think it was fair for anyone to say no cake pop as they are being handed out to the rest of the kids. Would it kill him? no. Would he get over it? sure. But, the basket of candy he ate.. DIL unwrapped for him and sat with him as he ate didn't seem to bother her. It wasn't out of concern for his health... maybe a power struggle or an unrealistic fear because of her eating disorder and mental illness. Rational parents know a cake pop (not even two bites of cake) is going to cause a disease like diabetes. When she threw the fit, I did not respond to it... other parents seemed to ignore it & walk away. It wasn't given any energy and she ran to her car where my son followed to console her. The questions I posed were because I WANT to include them in events but I do not want to have her outbursts... jeez, one year she started crying hysterically when my son got a plate of food at Thanksgiving. She has mental issues & I get that, but I don't want to walk on eggshells when I plan an event. I got tired of SD causing drama with her grandma and the grief it cause me, so I don't have parties when SD is here anymore. No SD, no drama. With DIL, it's only events that are focused on DGS but those are events that also include kids he's in daycare with & their parents that I know. It's embarrassing. DIL may or may not have a meltdown at any given time over any given thing, which is why I backed off at the birthday party. I realize now that it was a mistake but it was also the first thing she's been to for him. I let lots go & roll off my back to keep the peace for DGS. DIL has given me lots of reasons to want nothing to do with her.. but I have let so much go. As JMT said, they are welcome to plan things for him but they barely spend time with him.. and yes, it bothers me to have my son live less than a mile from my work & not see his son more than a few hours a week. He came over last night & saw him for a couple of hours. Yet, he will drive three hours to see his wife.. and a little more insight into their "marriage". All the time he was gone in the military, there were guys in & out. One of her friends told me she was prostituting from the apartment. He had a girlfriend in Georgia that he dumped the day he moved back here. This "reconcilliation" came out of left field for me, when I envisioned my son coming back & being a dad to his son. DIL told me she wanted nothing to do with him and from the outside perspective, she appears to be torturing him... acts like they are reconcilling and then dumps him. She's done it several times in the last few weeks and he has been very emotional, depressed and suicidal. Then they get back & he's happy. IMO, she's playing games with him. She has emotional detachment problems (I think based on her childhood) and them being together is bad... not ever going to be good for DGS. (unless she deals with her mental issues and he grows up!)