It’s been a minute since I’ve posted here, but I just need to vent. 

DH and I haven’t consistently had SD12 the last month because of spring break (our’s didn’t line up with her’s). We’ve noticed that when she’s with BM for extended periods, she acts even more like a turd when she’s with us. The few times we’ve had her since break has been over, she just sleeps on the couch because she’s so tired. She likes to brag about how late she stays up at night, even on school nights. 

Fastforward to the week leading up to Easter. According to the parenting guidelines (which BM doesn’t really follow) SD is to spend Easter weekend with DH. We decided a month ago to go spend Easter with my family since my sister’s youngest was getting baptized. We talked about it with SD and said we’d take her shopping, since she’s pretty much outgrown everything at our house and she doesn’t have decent dress clothes at BM’s. Anytime I see her she is either wearing her school uniform or the same joggers and hoodie. Well, BM tells DH on Thursday that she thought SD could stay with her on Sunday because BM works at 4:30-close and SD wanted to do some Easter stuff with her. WTF? BM also mentioned this after confirming with DH that we were going to visit my family on Easter. DH is just too nice that he couldn’t just say “it’s my year to have her for Easter and she will be coming with us.” And even after telling SD that she’s be with us, she still had it in the back of her mind that she was going to be with BM on Sunday.

We were also invited to DH’s brother’s house that same Saturday for a casual get together too. I mentioned to DH that SD would need something to wear besides sweatpants to their house. From the moment DH and SD got home Saturday, she was in a mood. She didn’t want to go shopping and didn’t see why her joggers and hoodie couldn’t be worn for the casual get together. We (DH, SD, me, and DD2) all went to Target to find some clothes. SD made no real attempt to look for clothes and said she didn’t like anything. DH convinced her to try some jeggings, which still complained about because she said she couldn’t move in jeans. He bought her some. We then went to Old Navy to try and find something worthy of church on Easter (for a girl that doesn’t like to dress up). Once again she was making no real attempt to look for anything and I was getting stressed because I couldn’t confine my DD2 to a shopping cart. I told DH to watch DD and I just started walking around picking things out. By the way, SD said she didn’t know what size she wore (clothing, bra, or shoe). By the time I met up with her and DH in the dressing room, she was almost done. We got her to try on the pant/shirt combo to make sure things really fit (because DH doesn’t really check things thoroughly). I go to find some shoes for her and she tries to say that she only wears Nike, Adidas, and something else. After trying on some shoes, she did her mumbling thing saying something about only wearing all these clothes once. Before that, she kept saying we didn’t need to buy her an outfit if she wasn’t going to be with us. Thank goodness everything in the store wa half price, but DH still spent $50 there. No thank you or anything from SD. 

She was a total turd on the way to the casual gathering, saying we don’t listen to her and all this other stuff. She said she wasn’t even upset about finding clothes but that she’s worried about her friend because she says she wants to kill herself. [Please don’t think I’m insensitive about this, this is not why she was being a turd.] Both DH and I are teachers and we’ve had a number of trainings about suicide prevention. So we ask her some questions, trying to get her to talk more about it. She gets upset and says she doesn’t want to say who the friend is, no, she or her friend hasn’t told any adults (counselors, parents, etc.), hasn’t called any hotlines and that he friend is in counseling but that it doesn’t work and there’s no point trying to get help because counselors can’t do anything. By the way, SD has said all these things about herself in the past and when we’ve tried to help her, she was not responsive or brushed it off that nothing was wrong. SD gets more frustrated and says that all her friends at school say they want to kill themselves. (What is going on?!? I know people would jokingly say “I could just die” or “kill me now” but SD didn’t clarify if they were serious or not.) She got more frustrated and cried for a minute saying that we try to get her mad. She then says she can’t trust anyone and that she’s been lied to her entire life. (Maybe by BM, but not us.) She then starts spewing all this stuff about her knowing the real reason DH and BM divorced and she saw proof and she talked to DH’s first Ex. I could feel my blood pressure rising. (By the way, DH told me on the way home Sunday that SD said she made all that stuff up about the divorce and talking to his first Ex. How are we supposed to trust her when she lies about things?)

Fast forward to Easter morning, DH wakes up SD who conveniently has a stomachache. She apparently also threw up. We decided to leave her at home. DH called BM to let her know the plan and to come get her. This was probably the longest amount of time that SD has been in our house alone. We left by 8am and BM (who told DH she would pick her up right away) didn’t pick her up until almost 1pm. Needless to say, we had an enjoyable Easter and we accidentally left her Easter basket at my parent’s house. We also decided to return the clothes DH bought her since she wasn’t going to wear them.

I hope I don’t come off heartless, but this girl is not nice. DH says this is not the way he raised her (which he was basically a single dad and a meal ticket for BM). Now something happened tonight that I feel bad about. I have a weakness for hot Cheetos and bought a bag when picking up dinner. After DH left to take SD back to BM, I couldn’t find the bag that I left on the table. DH texted SD but she didn’t know about it. Turns out DD2 put it in a basket with some toys under a table. I did say sorry. *blush*

If you’re still reading, thank you for taking the time to read my vent. 

[On top of all this, SD is currently getting 2 Fs and was in trouble at school for a couple different things. Which might not seem like a big deal to some, but she was getting pretty much all As and no behavior concerns.]