Venting here because god forbid I ever say anything negative to her dad about his sweet girl, unless I complain equally about my own daughter (they are less than a year apart).  Otherwise I’m just being unfair  ??

Am off work today and was hoping for a calm day in our clean house to prep for Thanksgiving before we have a house full tomorrow. DH is at work, and our other two kids are with friends. I’m here with the 14 yo SD. 

1.  As I mentioned, the house was clean. We have it professionally cleaned twice a month, and it was just done 2 days ago. I asked all 3 kids to please help keep it that way this week so there isn’t a mess to clean up before guests get here.  I really only meant the warning for SD, because she is so messy. This morning, SD sits at the kitchen counter eating cereal and watching videos on her iPad (which she does all waking hours). She left her bowl in the sink, cereal all over the sink, milk on the counter, and cereal all over the floor under her chair.  I asked her to clean it up and she half-assed it before disappearing into the bathroom she shares with my 15 yo daughter. 

2.  She spent an hour in the bathroom, watching videos while she did her hair and makeup. 15 yo needed to brush her teeth before she left and had to ask multiple times to get in there. Finally she leaves and the sink and counter are a mess. This is also the bathroom guests use, so I asked that it get cleaned up before more videos... it’s still messy 5 hours later. 

3.  She made a big show of asking if she could help me cook for Thanksgiving in front of her dad. I love cooking, it relaxes me, but doing it with her just makes me tense. I couldn’t say no because he was all “She’s a great cook, that would be fun for you guys”. No, it wouldn’t. I told her that she could get the green bean casserole put together (without the topping) so it was ready to go for tomorrow. I asked her twice today when she was going to do it, she said “right now” both times, then proceeded to watch another hour of videos. Finally I offered to do it and she came over to the kitchen with her headphones in. I told her that if she was going to cook, she needed to leave the phone and headphones in the living room. Big sigh and eye roll. I had set out all the ingredients and she said “I don’t want to use cream of mushroom soup, I hate mushrooms”. I told her that was the recipe that she eats every year. She kept arguing that it was cream of chicken, and that her mom uses cream of chicken. We had a couple cans of that, so I offered to let her mix them.  No, she just huffed that she would make it the “gross way”.  She pouted the whole time making it. Then I asked her to put salt and pepper in too. “I don’t like pepper, it’s too spicy”. Jesus take the wheel.  She finally got it in the baking dish and in the fridge.  She went back to videos and left the kitchen a mess.  At this point I am mentally exhausted.

4.  We had to go to a specialty store to pick something up.  I let her pick out something she really likes for dinner, and even after that she begged for candy and sweets the whole time like a 5 year old.  We got home and I told her we were on our own for lunch, so she made a frozen pizza.  She refuses to put anything in, or take anything out of the oven because she whines that she’s scared.  I did it for her because the fight with her/her dad isn’t worth it.  I am at the end of my tether now.  Her dad calls and asked if I took her out to lunch today!  Then he sounded all sad when I said no.  As I type this, she is in the den, which she has made a mess of, watching yet more videos.  The pizza mess was not fully cleaned up, of course.  

5.  Tomorrow she will no doubt come out and act all sweet in front of her dad, and beg to “help” me in the kitchen, which I will have to grit my teeth through. 

Ok, I’m done venting. Really need that glass of wine now.