The last couple weeks have been kind of rough for me, personally. My cat died last week and it was pretty traumatic for me. I had noticed he was sick the week prior and he was losing weight pretty quickly. Then he stopped eating and I knew it was bad. I took him to the vet and he had some ulcerations on his gums and we scheduled him for some labs the following week. He passed before I could get him in for the lab work, but my best guess is kidney failure. He was 9 years old. He was very healthy before that and it honestly happened so quickly I was barely ready for all of it. He was my best friend and companion and the closest thing I'll ever have to a kid of my own. 

The day he passed SD10 was with us. She had to get SO for me as he's hard of hearing and couldn't hear me yelling for him. It was also a transition day and SD had to go to BM's that night after dinner (around 630 usually). SO and I decided to bury my cat at my parents' house, as that was his favorite place in the world. My parents live about 20 minutes from us, so not terribly far. SO told SD we were going to my parents' house and either he would be back to take her to BM's or he would have someone come get her. Either way, he would text her ASAP and let her know. Well, come to find out SD decided to take this time to text 4 different people, "Daisy's cat died. They went to bury him. I'm home alone. Can you come pick me up?" SO told me about it later in the week and I was having a hard time stopping myself from being pissed off. He ended up coming back home with enough time to get her to her mom's. Honestly, he was gone less than an hour. I had told him to go back home while I stayed at my mom's house and waited for one of my siblings to give me a ride so that he could take SD to her mom's... Unbeknownst to me, she was texting people and freaking out about being home alone.

This summer we had SD stay home alone maybe one day a week. It seemed to go ok, but now, all of a sudden, she doesn't want to be home alone anymore. She'd rather go to daycare after school than wait the 1 1/2 hours until we get home from work. SO is totally fine with it and doesn't seem to mind, which I find weird since he's the one who was pushing for her to learn how to stay home by herself. 

Fast forward to last night when we were discussing Halloween and what SD was dressing up as at school today. She's got a frog onesie she's wearing and she told SO, "I want to have space buns, and freckles, oh and I think MAYBE some fake nails." SO asked her how she was planning to get all that done before school. SD looked in my direction. I just stared at her waiting for the question... Finally she said, "Daisy, can you help me get ready tomorrow?" I said, "Yeah, sure. Next time though you need to ask me with a little more notice." This isn't the first time SD had this expectation that I'll just drop whatever I've got going on to help her with something. This morning, as I was getting ready I decided I wasn't going to help her unless she asked me again this morning. Maybe that's petty of me but I'm tired of her poor planning being my problem or making me late for work. The last time was school picture day when she said, "I need you to do my hair for pictures," about 2 minutes before I had to be out the door. (She decided on getting retakes because she didn't like the way she looked in them, FYI. So you know... F me, I guess.) This morning, I walked out of our bedroom, said goodbye to SO and then SD walked out of her bedroom. She didn't have her hair done the way she wanted, no freckles or fake nails (I'm not sure where she thought she was getting those from as I do my own press on's occasionally but have never offered them to SD) and she was just dressed like any ole school day. I said goodbye to her as well and off I went to work. She didn't mention needing my help so I didn't bring it up. *shrugs*

Last night my SO said something to SD that made me feel some sort of way and I'm not sure how to bring it up, or even if I should, so maybe someone here can help me out... My SO was saying goodnight to SD and he said, "I like it better when you're here." It kind of stung because that made me feel like, "When it's just me and Daisy I hate it," but I know what he really meant was just that he was happy to have her home. He says stuff like that to her all the time, or he says she's his favorite person... which also urks me. I think it creates a hierarchy in our house that really shouldn't be there. Maybe I'm reading too much into that, though.

SO and I noted a few weeks ago that SD hasn't had a problem at bedtime lately and we think it's because she was only doing it for the attention. We think that because the second SO said he was going to have her talk to a counselor about it the problem "went away" and we no longer have SD begging for melatonin or crying that she's too afraid to sleep. Instead, I have her acting like an attention hog in about 5 different ways. The interrupting me and SO is back. She's physically started to insert herself into our conversations (like she'll be on the couch in the living room then she'll hear us talking in the kitchen and come sit down at the table and listen to us talk while she plays on her phone or whatever). SO and I usually just relocate our conversation to our bedroom, where she is not allowed. She has started to spend more time one on one with SO, which I'm totally good with, but it's in a way that she's openly excluding me. For example, she'll ask SO if he wants to go to the park but then she'll add, "You know, just you and me," when she thinks I'm not listening. I'm pretty conscience about how much time I spend with SO and SD so they get plenty of alone time together. When SD is with us, we usually all eat dinner together, and then I pick one night out of the three or four she's with us to spend with them watching a show or a movie or whatever. The other nights are for them. Kind of feels like I can't win on that one.