I posted this wknd about how Crazy wants to buy or rent the house we used to rent that is now for sale, which is located 5 blocks away on the same exact street as the house we bought. When SD10 told my SO this, I think he panicked at the thought of her living so close, and also was frustrated because skids are just soooo on board with this idea, wanting to live in their old house again, that he definitely didn't handle it the way he should have. Apparently he told skids that Crazy "is an idiot", and the landlords wouldn't rent to her anyway, and she couldn't buy that house even if she wanted to. They pouted, SS13 got over it after a few hours and was fine, but SD stayed in her room all day. My SO finally went to talk to her, and apparently she somehow thought he said that SD was like her mom (an idiot), which was why she was all pouty. That's not what he said, but he did say something to the effect that he wants her to think for herself, because lately we have heard from teachers, family, and parent's of her friends that things that SD says sound like she is repeating things that Crazy says. I'm not even sure why he bothered mentioning it- I think SD is too young to understand what he's saying.

Anyway. They cleared up that misunderstanding and he assured her she isn't an idiot and isn't doing anything wrong, but now he has just been tiptoeing around her and been over-the-top nice to her, and he won't yell at her or make her do anything. We took skids bowling Sat night, and it was not fun whatsoever. SD was bored after the first game and stopped trying, wouldn't talk to anyone and just mumbled one-word answers if you talked to her. This has become a pattern in general lately, and I'm not sure if it's because that's what 10yr old girls do, or if it has to do with being influenced by Crazy. My SO said to me  "Do you have any cash? We could send her in the game room and just delete her off the last game and bowl the last game without her". I said, "I have a $20. But Um, how about she finish playing the game we already paid for"?. As in, I'm not giving her a red penny to reward her for being a brat when we tried to take them to do something fun. Luckily he didn't argue that, and we finished the game in misery. When we got home, we tried to watch a show we had DVR'd, and SD decided to sit in the living room doing anything but watch the show. She literally rolled around the floor like a toddler, trying to do splits and just being annoying for over an hour. Normally he would have told her to stop after 10 minutes, but Heaven forbid he yell at her after "the misunderstanding". After the millionth "thump" of her rolling on the floor, I was actually ready to scream and said quietly, Ookayyy.....And my SO finally told her to "chill out". She then went upstairs.He got a little quiet with me before bed and in the morning and said nothing was wrong, but I'm sure it had something to do with me not fawning over SD enough, because I basically ignored her the whole night when she got a 'tude. I didn't even care, I was done. I had tried to talk to her multiple times and gotten one-word answers every time. I'm not chasing a moody child. I think he realized he was being ridiculous, which is why he never told me what was wrong, and eventually he got over it.

Then yesterday, she wanted to go to her grandparents for the day. Great. It was a nice little break. My SO actually made SS load the dirty dishes into the dishwasher while she was gone (he almost never makes skids do chores on non-chore days, he lets them play video games or watch TV for 18hrs straight). SD came home, I made dinner, and my SO not only made SS wash the table after dinner, he made him unload the clean dishes, AND load the dirty dishes into the dishwasher again! SS whined and complained, and my SO actually yelled at him and told him he was about ready to not take him to the NBA game he got tix to the week of Thanksgiving. He yelled at him every time SS complained or sighed. On the one hand I was super proud of my SO for actually making him do extra chores, and not letting him whine about it. But to be fair, it was kind of crappy that SS got stuck with all of the chores, and SD was just off living her best life with not a care in the world. I did make her empty the bathroom trash, but that took 10 seconds. My SO never made her do one thing.

Fast forward to this morning- I walk downstairs and SD said to me in an obviously-fake raspy voice, "now do you see that I'm losing my voice"? SS said, "Oh please SD, you were just talking normal 5 minutes ago"!  I said, "Yeah it does sound pretty suspicious". She kept trying to convince me it was real, but really it just sounded fake. This is concerning on several different levels, since a) I do not appreciate being played, and b) her mom just eats it up when skids have even the tiniest hint of sickness and rushes them to urgent care every. single. time. So they know if they are sick, they get attention from her. They get nothing from my SO. It worries me she will start to exaggerate things to get attention. My SO came into the kitchen and I tell SD to tell him about it. She starts talking in her fake-raspy voice. SS said, She was talking fine earlier, she yelled something in a completely normal voice! My SO actually yelled at SS and told him to mind his own business, if SD wanted to fake losing her voice that was her business and who cares? WTF? SD said, "yeah I can yell ok, I just can't talk normal", and then proceeded to yell something normally. I said, "Ook, that sounded completely fine". It bothered me that my SO was yelling at SS for pointing out SD being fake, and my SO was defending her for faking it. I am not on board with encouraging this nonsense. I said to him privately, for the record, she was trying to tell me she was losing her voice, but it sounded fake. He said, "Oh well, It's the morning, it's dry in here, her voice probably is a little raspy". I just gave him a look that said that is complete bullsh*t, and said "Don't encourage it". This boggles the mind, because he is always ranting about how Crazy encourages them to be sick, and he absolutely hates it. He is just so worried about being on SD's good side right now, he will defend anything she does or says. They go by Crazy today, so we now have a week off, thank God. My SO has the memory of a goldfish, so I'm sure by the time they come by us again he will have forgotten that he's coddling SD and it will be back to business as usual. It's funny, most times SD is my bud and SS gets on my nerves more, but this week, SS and I bonded a bit more and he was totally fine, SD is the one that's all moody and being a PITA. SS even text me one morning when I wasn't downstairs in the morning at the time I usually am to make sure I was awake, which I thought was nice.

I've said it before, Step-life is the biggest fricking roller-coaster in the world! Super excited for my non-skid week and my almost-last week of work at my current job, where I plan on only coming in 3 out of the 5 days. I have so many sick days accumulated, it would be a shame for those to all go to waste   *blum3*