Yesterday was a garden party style birthday celebration for SO's niece and nephew at the grandparents place. I didn't want to go due to all the drama that takes place when the SD's visit his family (PAS from BM, who hates his family and isolated him from them for years). SO promised me there'd be no drama. Sure. Okay.

SD17 did her usual thing from the start, offside complaints about the food, trying to dominate the conversations, pulling her dad away from the family over and over again. I hardly saw him the entire day. I had plunked my a$$ down on a lounger in the prettiest part of the garden with cheese and craft hard cider. At one point SD17 sits next to me and starts mocking the party favours. "Who gets THAT kind of chocolate?  And the candy sucks."

Her aunt, the mom of the two birthday cousins, hears this and loses it. "Nothing is ever good enough for you!  I spent so much money trying to get the candy right this year, and you still had to complain about it!  You've done this every year, ruined MY kids birthday parties because it's not what YOU want!  I'm sick of it!"

SD17 bawls and screams and runs off to hide in SO's car and call her mother. I open another beer. I can hear her screaming in the car with the doors closed. The grandparents sit down with me and say they wish she would learn from this but she never does, that she's been raised with no manners, and she is who she is now at her age.

When SO was getting ready to drop them back to their moms, SD17 complained about having to change out of the pants I'd loaned her when she'd gotten cold (she threw a nice dig in as well when I did: "huh, these are big on me. I thought we were the same size".  Girl, they're a medium, the same size you wear).  I got my pants back, and the skids eventually went back to their moms after demanding snacks and watching tv for an hour.

I told SO that what she said to her aunt today is the same thing I've been dealing with from her for years. He tried to say she doesn't know what she's saying and she doesn't mean it - she just has no filter and it slips out.  She doesn't mean to be mean. Same excuses as always. I said, "and does her mom say things to be mean?"  He couldn't defend it.

Like her aunt, I'm sick of it. I'm sick of hearing how I'm second best to mommy, that my clothes are inappropriate, that I'm cocky and accident prone (from a serious bicycle accident I had years ago before I met them and BM found out via SD17 what my injuries were).  All said while laughing so she can say "but I was only joking!"

She is who she is now.