Absolutely, without a doubt SUCKED. And I have 30 more days of this?!

OK, technically, I have until July 5th, when I'm going to Michigan for 6 days. After that, I'll only have to deal with SD for another 5 days before she goes home (Yes, she leaves on the 16th, but, I'm planning on saying goodbye the night before because someone decided a 7AM flight was the best idea ever). And I bet my return from Michigan will largely be the same as when I went to Wisconsin one summer while she stayed with SO - she was so "awesome" and "spectacular" while I was gone and then turned into a snot-ass little brat the day I came home.

SD kept to herself all day, sitting in the arm chair, writing. She got dressed and fed herself and our only interactions before SO woke up centered around her saying good morning (to which I responded because I'm not a rude snot-ass brat) and me having to remind her to turn lights off when she leaves a room. She got a little snotty the second time I had to ask her to turn lights off when she leaves a room, but, other than that, I got to sit around and read a book all day. It was nice, but, I wasn't exactly comfortable in my own house and that's not fair.

She had a fantastic day though, according to what she told SO.

That is, her day was 'fantastic' until we had a long sit-down with her about how her behavior last night was not acceptable. Or, at least, that's what I was hoping SO would say, but, rather, he kept giving her excuse after excuse as to why it was totally OK for her to be rude and snotty to me and not thank me for helping her out. He kept saying ish like "Oh, you just forgot your manners and that happens and it is OK." In what world is it OK for your child to not thank someone for helping them and THEN to keep on being rude and bratty towards them the entire evening?!

The conversation turned into a really long and drawn out one because I kept having to pull him aside to tell him to knock it off because I'm better than calling him out plainly in front of SD.

How does he really expect her to treat me with any iota of respect or dignity if he tells her that it is OK to "forget her manners" when the issue wasn't just that she didn't say thank you, it was that PLUS her rude behavior towards me the rest of the evening, after she got what she wanted out of me. That doesn't exactly jive with "forgetting her manners." And, even if it was just her not saying thank you? Uhm, don't excuse the behavior by saying "Oh, it's OK" because then the kid is probably going to think that I'm forcing you to have this conversation with her since clearly you have made yourself OK with her being rude and ungrateful.

He went on and on, talking about largely unrelated issues with her - how he did everything for her and wants to do everything for her, and wants to make her happy all the time, the dynamic between himself and her mother - and some related issues - how it is different here than at home with GUBM, how the dynamic between SO and GUBM when SO would try to parent SD contributed to her snotty, brat-ass entitlement (my words, not his). And then, for some reason, he went on about how he only has a few close friends because that's how he likes it, and listed all of his close friends. And, for some reason, I didn't wind up on that list. He talked about all of his close friends growing up, his close friends from his young adult days, and then started talking about something else. Uhm, hello?! Am I not your friend? Because you sure aren't my friend right now, SO. He even went as far as mentioning his one ex-friend who "stole" his brother's wife away. Yea, he thought it was totally appropriate to tell his kid that his ex-friend was a jerk, that he was disgruntled about having his own kids, and that he stole his brother's wife...but he doesn't automatically include me in his list of close friends? Uhm. Yea.

At one point, he made SD thank me properly for helping her yesterday and, once she did, she started bawling. Why? Was thanking me that much of an issue? He blathered on about how he doesn't want to see her sad and that it's OK to cry and blah-blah-blah. He didn't even think to ask why that reaction happened until later, when her answer was "I don't know. The conversation upset me." Well, SD, what about the conversation upset you? "I don't know." Great. He was also content with not addressing the fact that she had been rude to me last night and hurt my feelings but for a brief moment in the conversation, and he was also content without doling out any consequences for the behavior. I pulled him aside as quickly as I could when I realized what was going on and told him that a) he needs to do SOMETHING to show her that last night was COMPLETELY unacceptable if he wants to keep working weekends while she is here and b) he needs to STOP diminishing her culpability in the whole situation.

We decided that her bedtime would be moved up a half hour tonight because of her rude behavior last night. Not really a great punishment, but, whatever. I would have preferred an hour earlier because, honestly, it's punishing ME to have her sulk around me all night. But, again, whatever. I told him in addendum to that, that, if SD gets it in her head in the next week to ask to play my Xbox, she better not even bother because the answer is going to be an automatic "no" because simply thanking me today for taking her to the store is not apologizing to me for being rude all night. It does not erase the fact that she was kind of a cretin yesterday and got snotty with me today. It also does not make things all better automatically. And, that, until the rapport gets built between us, she needs to just NOT ask because I am NOT willing to let her use any of my things until she can prove to me that she can treat me as well as she treats her father while she is in our house.

When SO doled out the consequence to her? He told her it was because she didn't do any of her chores today!!! WTF?!?! I had to make some kind of noise and head gesture with him when he was telling her this because, honestly, that's not what he told ME the consequence was for. And if she doesn't link the consequence to being a rude little witch towards me, then what is going to stop her from doing it in the future?? NOTHING. If he can't stand up for me to his own kid, then what hope do I have of surviving the next 30 days in tact?

Of course, when he mentions her being rude to me, she starts crying again. Oh. My. God! YOU WERE RUDE, SD, OWN IT! I've done NOTHING mean to this child to deserve her to be treating me like she did last night, in fact, I went above my call of duty for her by taking her to the store. I could have easily sat her down with some construction paper and colored pencils and said "make your dad some cards", but, no, I offered to take her to the store so she could get him something. When, really, it didn't matter if I took her to buy something or if she made him a card because he would have LOVED anything he gave her because he thinks she farts rainbows and sunshine.

And, clearly, being disengaged from her is not having any sort of effect on her. She LOVED being "ignored" all day because it gave her an excuse to do whatever the hell she wanted - like write and eat whatever she wanted - and not do what she didn't want to do - like, oh, shower, or put on deodorant and brush her teeth (ewwwww).

And, the long ridiculous talk had ZERO effect on her whatsoever, less so than me doing my own thing and 'ignoring' her today. She was sweet as f*cking pie to SO all evening and put on a good front towards me during dinner (like, she said 'please' and 'thank you' when asking for something, offered to clear our plates, that kind of bull), but, the moment he went to shower? She took off and hid in her bedroom. Once she realized I was no longer in the living room, she came out, but, when she heard me coming back in? Back into her bedroom she went. SO had to force her to come out into the living room when he left for work, even though I told him not to bother because I was not only on the phone with my friend, but, I didn't want to see the mope face all night until her bedtime.

And, when I sent her off to bed? "oh, ok, well, goodnight I guess" *wave* and sulks off to her bedroom.

I told SO later tonight that he and I need to have a serious sit-down-and-process session tomorrow because this is ridiculous. The long, ridiculous talk didn't help matters because SD is being weird towards me still. He says that he thinks that's a good idea because he wants to make sure everyone is happy and comfortable. I told him I just want everyone to be comfortable, especially because his big push this afternoon was that SD is happy and I'm comfortable. No. Forget that. Comfortable is good enough for me? It's good enough for SD. Stop putting her on a god damned pedestal. She is NOT perfect, she is a brat and an entitled one at that. Recognize the behavior that you yourself witnessed last night as problematic and understand that, if it continues, I will be gone SO fast. I have people I can stay with here in PGH while she's here. And I sure as hell am NOT going to be the one hanging out with her on weekends anymore, not if this crap continues.

And, I can't really believe I'm saying this because GUBM is a giant piece of garbage loser, but, I'm sure that at least PART of the bull that GUBM unleashes on SD is because of her acting like this. Like, it really would NOT surprise me to find out that SD treats her mother as poorly as she treated me, and that's sad because then I'm relegated down to the level of GUBM in her mind. Ew.