I haven't been on here much lately. Well, that's not entirely true. I come on and read blog entries during breaks at work or whenever I'm just bored at home, but, I've been pretty busy this week between work and medical appointments/tests. Today's my first real day off.

Things have been quieting down here a bit with SD. She hasn't been quite as big of a troll as she was over the weekend. Now she's just more clueless than a rude snot-ass or anything. The clueless stuck-in-her-head behavior is nothing new with her. She's been this way as long as I've known her - same as with the snot-ass behavior - it's just less tolerable when you're stuck with the kid for an entire month instead of only having to be around her for a weekend.

For instance, she's recently taken to wearing Ed Hardy cologne. Well, she had no clue it was cologne, she didn't know because she just saw a cool design on the packaging and was like "Want!" and I'm sure her mom doled out the cash for it because she's oh-so-awesome that she'll spend money on SD's wants and whims but cry poverty to SO about being unable to pay for her cable or her rent. Well, this stuff smells putrid. And it aggravates my allergies to the extreme. And, lucky me, she not only has the spray cologne, but, she has a matching body wash. The first day she wore it, I asked her to not wear it around the house due to my allergies and suggested that perhaps she can wear it when she goes to camp instead - provided she puts it on outside if it's a morning I'm home or sprays it ever so lightly inside on the mornings I'm not home (yea, that might sound extreme, but, if you have allergies like I do, you'd understand).

She agreed and hasn't sprayed it on since. HOWEVER. She's been using the body wash even after three or four times of both SO and I asking her to not use it once we found out it existed (it's not like she doesn't have other body wash here) to avoid giving me a headache and aggravating my allergies. She just keeps using it. I'm about ready to throw the body wash away and play stupid when asked. I'd rather her douse herself in axe body spray and cat urine than keep using this wash or cologne in our house. Blech.

And lucky me, I got to be the one to break the news to her that it really was a cologne and not a perfume. She was convinced it was a perfume, but, it very obviously is not. Simply smelling it you can tell it wasn't designed for the ladies to wear. Also makes me wonder who thinks ladies are attracted to this stench, but, I digress. It's the "hearts and daggers" crap that comes in pink packaging for women and blue packaging for men - it's not like the manufacturer is trying to trick anyone with that very obvious packaging scheme. But, again, I digress. She has the blue bottles. I reassured her that it's not that she can't wear cologne as a young woman - heck, I wear old spice sometimes and used to wear Tommy when I was about her age - it's just that this cologne in particular is causing me a problem. And it's because of my allergies. Yes, it does smell bad, too, but, that's not the reason we've been asking her to avoid using the products.

She's also got all of these really disgusting and annoying habits. Like, when she eats, she sits there and shovels food into her mouth like she doesn't know where or when her next meal is coming from. She'll shove about 10 pieces of broccoli into her mouth before chewing and swallowing. Ew. And she doesn't like using utensils if she can help it - this is a 12 year old I'm talking about here, folks. She also has this really gross habit of noisily licking her fingers if she gets even the tiniest bit of anything on them when she eats. Something I can't stand is gross eating noises. I can't deal with them, and I can't remember a time when I've ever been able to deal with them, either. I made no qualms about it on her first day that I was going to ride her butt about her table manners because I don't accept grossness at the table. It's bad enough that I have to deal with a stomach that goes into full-throttle nausea anytime I eat or drink anything, but to have gross noises thrown in on top of that is just unbearable.

Then, every single time I say something, no matter how nicely I say it - without going into the uber-saccharine "Oh, SD, precious little bunny-kins, perfect child ever, I do believe you have forgotten your manners, oh glorious one" - she gets a pout face on her that is really just serving to piss me off anytime I say anything corrective towards her. It's not that she doesn't make this face when SO corrects her, but, she pulls it anytime I say anything corrective towards her. It's to the point where I'm almost ready to tell her that she just has to sit in a chair and face the corner this weekend so I don't have to deal with the face. I'm willing to bet that part of this is related to the fact that GUBM's demon-spawn boyfriend is probably just a buddy to her, doesn't try to be parental and just acts like a friend - something that most adults in her life do. Well, tough tahooties, SD. Your dad wants me to be less buddy and more "step". Gotta problem? Take it up with him.

Another one of her annoying habits is that she likes to sit on furniture any which way she pleases; something that only bugs me when she sits on my grandfather's arm chair. It has an ottoman with it and she often sits in such a way so that her butt is in the space between the chair and the ottoman. To me, that seems like it is putting a weird weight distribution onto the furniture and, truthfully, no matter how picky it might seem, I don't want her to hurt my grandfather's chair. He passed away last November and I was only able to bring home a few things of his, one of which was this arm chair. The first day I noticed it, I asked her nicely to not sit in it like that. I explained very briefly that it was my grandfather's chair (SD knows he passed away) and that it means a lot to me that I own his chair. Thus, I would appreciate if SD showed it a little respect.

Now, GUBM is a hoarder and probably has some lame excuse as to why she keeps everything because it belonged to this person or that person, and, SD has not suffered any great tragic losses in her life - luckily for her - so she's not going to fully understand when I say to her that she needs to be respectful of the things in my house that belonged to my grandfather, grandmother, or father. But would it kill SO to drive the point home with her even just a little bit? I'm tired of coming across SD sitting however she damn well pleases in my grandfather's chair and getting the pout-stink face from her for asking her to be more respectful of my belongings. It's MY chair! If you don't like it, SD, sit on the damn floor! Hm. I think that's what I'm going to say from now on when she gives me that stink face about sitting in that chair. "Oh, so sad, SD, you don't like that I'm asking you to respect my chair? Sit on the floor, then, because you're not welcome to sit on that chair until you stop pouting at me about my requests."

Then there's her not-so-lovely habit of immediately claiming innocence when she knows she did something she shouldn't have done - or, conversely, didn't do something she should have done. And, of course, these are not things that are serious. We're not talking like SD broke something precious or near and dear to my heart and then tried to cover it up or claimed she had nothing to do with it. We're not talking SD sneaking out of the apartment in the middle of the night or purposefully causing someone else physical harm. We're talking SD left the lights on in a room. Or. SD didn't flush the toilet after using the bathroom (ew). Or, SD put a water bottle into the dishwasher that didn't belong there. It's SO ANNOYING when she does that! Doesn't she understand that her dad will be more annoyed with her whole "I didn't do it/It wasn't me/I don't remember doing that, so, I didn't do it" responses than by her fessing up and saying "It was an accident/I'm sorry I forgot/I thought I did that, but, I guess I didn't"?? It got to the point today where SO had to tell her that she's not perfect because nobody is perfect and everyone makes mistakes now and then. She sat there and listened with tears in her eyes. Ugh, really, SD? You're going to mist up over your dad telling you that you aren't a perfect little polished turd? Grow the frick up.

I have to say though, the days I'm barely around her are FAR more tolerable than the days when I'm around her all the time. Like, yesterday. I went to work during the day and had to leave before she even woke up that morning. I had to pick her up from camp because SO messed up and left work late (jackass), but, I only had to spend, like, 3 hours with her because SO and I had our date night last night.