The love for my children and my ex's family

Okay, so for those of you that don't know, I am VERY protective of my children.  And I have a huge urge to protect them from my Ex-husbands family.  Now, please don't read that I feel the need to protect them from my Ex-husband, because that is no longer the case.  He has grown so much in the last two years that I now appreciate him and have a love for him as a individual and best friend.  It is his FAMILY that I feel this urge to protect them from.

Now, not all his my ex's family is bad.  Their Uncle Paul, Uncle Nathan and Aunt Brandy are wonderful people.  Paul is a teenager and going through life, but he treats the kids like they are important, even going to Dustyn's school concert to cheer him on.  Uncle Nathan is currently in the Army stationed in Afghanistan at the moment fighting for the freedom of my children and everyone else, and Aunt Brandy is doing her best holding down the fort at home in North Carolina.

It is their Step-Grandma that I feel the biggest urge to protect them from, and then the Papa.  It really hurts the kids when their Papa promises them that he is going to have them come over and spend the night on the weekends, but never follows through because the Step decides that her grandkids are so much more important.  At christmas time, they give the kids dollar store gifts while they spend hundreds of dollars on her grandkids.  Their Facebook is plastered with pictures of HER kids and HER grandkids, but there is no pictures to be found of my children.  Where in all of this does it show them that they are important?  Why do they not add up on the list of being in their hearts?  Damien (my-ex) may be their Papa's only shot of having grandchildren, yet they are ignored.  When they do want to spend time with them it is to stop by to briefly trick or treat so they can see them in their costumes, but by doing so I would be making all of the effort to have them be seen.

I am at a point that I refuse to go around them because of lies that the STEP has spread about me, that are both hurtful and could damage my reputation beyond repair.  I have a chronic pain disease and I take nerve medications and muscle relaxer to lesson my daily pain from a 8 to a 5.  I do not take any narcotic or habit forming medications, but she has told many people that I lie to the doctors to get loaded.  WOW.  I was a drug and alcohol therapist for 7 years and I am petrified to being addicted to any substances.  The thought that I would have to struggle through life to get loaded makes my stomach churn.  Therefore, I only take Narcotics if it extremely necessary, and at that I do not have them readily available to me.  To spread these lies are hateful and hurtful and she does not have the ability to keep her mouth quiet or opinion to herself around my children.  They are very sensitive children that has already had to deal with the pain that their fathers addiction caused on them, and now that he is clean and sober they finally feel safe of that.  Then to have this hateful woman open her mouth with these lies around them...  I am sorry, I am the only one that can protect them from this.

I DO want their Papa to have a relationship with them though.  He is more than welcome to come here, spend time with them, take them to the park and what not.  He chooses to not do this however, not even posting pictures of them on his Facebook to show how proud he is of them.  This is hurtful and I just wish my kids paternal family would show they are just as proud of these three as they are of the STEP's grandkids.

Because ya know, THEY ARE IMPORTANT TOO.  THE MOST IMPORTANT LITTLE PEOPLE TO ME, THEIR FATHER AND THEIR DADDY!