I'm preaching to the choir on this one, but...

Arg. I dread DHs days off. I thought it was because of him and SD combined, but SD is fine when he's not there (usually). It's him.

Why did I have to realize this in the checkout line at wal mart? 80% because we chose the end of a long day of him scolding her over the same things to go. 20% because I've been working really hard to build up my bullshit tolerance to last all summer and then he had to undermine me in public. Not that anyone gives a shit what other people are doing in public (I sure don't), but ..

She was doing everything possible to get negative attention and he was constantly reprimanding her. All day. And all he was doing was getting stressed out at her over it. All day. Because the reprimanding wasn't doing anything. Nothing more happened. She just sat there and stressed him out slowly from daybreak until that evening. It was getting on my nerves to the point I was like, look, girlie, do you really want to get yelled at all day by your dad? Is that the kind of attention you want? "No," she says. The shenanigans continue. She's grabbing at like everything. I ask her to stop and she puts her hands on her hips and gives me this glare. I tell her that when we get home she's going to have a time-out in her room. She puts her head down and starts crying! Are you kidding me? He yells at her all day and I say THAT and she cries. Boom. Now there's something she doesn't like. DH chimes in. "time outs don't work." Oh, don't make me piss myself. No, no, you're right, I say, what you're doing is obviously the thing that works. We didn't argue at the store more than that, but later on, he was butt hurt, and she wanted to go on a bike ride, so he took her (and then it pissed off DD2 that she didn't get to go outside, too, and she yelled at me while I made delicious food for dinner).

If it were my son, I would have done the same exact thing (the time out, not the bike ride). I'm supposed to treat my skid the same as my bio kids, right? I'm the one who takes care of her most of the time, right? She lives under the same roof as my 'real' kids and I, right? Why in the hell WOULD I hold her to a different standard?

Conclusion: she's always going to act this way if DH continues doing what he's doing because she knows that no matter how much of an asshole she acts like, at the end of the day, she'll still get to do whatever the hell she wanted, and the worst thing that happens is that he scolds her. And obviously she can handle that.

I didn't want to think or admit it before, because who wants to admit that shit? But, I think I'm living with a Disney dad. I could be wrong, I'm not sure what "Disney Dad" actually entails, although I find it quite hilarious.