We dropped the skids back with their mother last night after 6 LONG days of drama.  

Skids are both grounded at our house.  SD14 started an Instagram account in the spring, but neglected to tell her dad about it.  For 5.5 months.  At the same time that she was telling him that she *couldn't* contact him at all because BM blocked him in her phone and to call she had to use BM's phone.  And then we found her Insta account, by accident.

• DH: Did you look for me on Instagram?  
• SD: No.  I didn't even think about it.
• DH: You found and befriended your "boyfriend's" grandma, but not me?
• SD: Oh.

DH was so hurt.  It was the most awful thing to see.  It was truly that moment when you realize that your kid doesn't really care if you live or die.

Anyway, she has no electronics or internet for 5.5 months as a result--not to mention the change in her relationship with her dad.  He wasn't ever a Disney dad, but she was definitely Daddy's little girl.  Yeah.  Not so much now.

Oh!  (I was reminded by Simpleton's blog), and she's been having mystery headaches and joint pain for several months (never at our house) that has prompted her mother to take her to Primary Care, Orthopedics, Rheumatology, and finally Neurology to see what is wrong.  EVERYone and EVERY test say nothing at all is wrong, but BM got the Neurologist to prescribe the child antidepressants to prevent the headaches that she (BM) has determined to be migraines.  No headache journal was done, no CT scan was done, no other medicines were tried.  BM decided that she was sensitive to light and was seeing auras so she and the doctor, without consulting DH, made the decision.  "We decided it was the best course of action," she said in her message to DH.

I asked SD about the headaches.  Turns out, she gets them the class before lunch and they're gone by the time lunch is over.  BM is big on limiting food, so I asked if she was eating breakfast.  Yeah, like a bagel or some toast.  Could it be that you're hungry?  Oh.  Maybe?  She had already taken herself off the antidepressants by the time she got to us, so we told her to keep a journal of her pain and that we would give her medicine, if needed, which it never was.  (The joint pain, it turns out, was a lingering effect of the food poisoning BM gave her a couple of months ago and resolved on its own.)

SS9 is just a poopstorm.  His speech is horrible, he has (literally!) no friends at school or elsewhere, he's rude and disrespectful to everyone, including in school to the point that DH is in almost constant contact with his teacher.  We think he's got an undiagnosed developmental disorder, but BM thinks he's perfect, so the 2 psych evals, the developmental pediatrician, the guidance counselor, etc., none of them know what's going on, which apparently means there's nothing wrong.  He's on permanent restriction because he can't behave at school.

Anyway, in his boredom, SS, who treats everyone in our house like garbage, has taken to literally spying on everyone.  He literally eavesdrops, skulks around, etc.  It's like having the damned elf on the shelf in your house all the time.  It's maddening.

And they come back TOMORROW for their regular weekend.