Thank you everyone!

Perna, it actually turned out i was not as overwhelmed by the kids as i may have suspected. Yay me for progress! .. I think.. it did help, of course, that the respective grandparents where all the kids live also did a lot of the 'care taking' .. i tried to do what i could but they are just so used to it that often they'd jump in without even thinking (not saying that's bad, just saying, 'how would that have gone if there weren't so many others there helping?'.. but in the same token, large groups of people/noise/stimulation freak me out, peak my anxiety, so i guess it's still a plus \)

Fool Zero, i'll give you an example of one of her backhanded insults from yesterday -

Her (talking to someone else about how my son is doing in school, while i'm standing right there) : He's come such a long way. The school is absolutely amazed at how much progress he's made since he's come to me, and they think it's because i put in so much effort to help him catch up. He's still not at grade level yet, but he's close, and he's improved dramatically from where he was (pause, glance in my direction, pause) before. And they absolutely credit it to my willingness to work diligently with him to help him learn.

Of course, if i were to have said anything, *I* would come across as aggressive, and she could deny all plausability and say, 'what are you talking about? I was just mentioning how he's doing so well' .. So i said nothing at all.

Thank you CyranO