I've learned a lot today. I called my sister and told I'm sorry for leaving her to take care of 5 children that aren't even hers and I thanked her for being good to them and asked her if it is at possible that she and I can try to have at least a semblance of a relationship again and she told me she's willing if I am... so there's one down and it's thanks to good advice from here soooooo, onto my next challenge.

SD9 lives with my husband and I full time. When I say full time I mean her BM moved 2 states away and only has her for the entire summer and half of Christmas. Otherwise I can honestly say that I don't have the problem of having to deal with a BM. SD9 is kind of a quiet timid child who talks so softly you can barely hear her and after spending the summer with her mother she seems to have developed a nervous tic where she does kind of a hum over and over. I have observed her and she doesn't realize she does it unless someone brings it to her attention. Also before she went to her mother's she seemed to have adjusted pretty well to my children being here EOW and my other BS4 to being here half the time. Since she has come back from her mother's it seems as though she doesn't want to spend ANY time here. My MIL (her BGMA) lives in the next building over and she wants to be there instead of here. She's honestly not a bad kid at all and my husband and I are alarmed at this change. We have asked her if there is something either of us have done to make her want to be at her GMA's all the time and she says no. I have asked her nicely and told her I wouldn't be upset if she feels upset with me and I'm honest when I say that. I asked if her if anything happened at her mom's that made her feel as though she shouldn't be here or that may have made her upset being here and she said not that she can remember. I asked her if she wants to live with her mommy and I told her that her daddy and I wouldn't be upset if she said she did but she said no. She said she misses her mommy but she doesn't want to go back there next summer, she would like to stay with her daddy and I instead although even THAT confuses me because why would she want to stay here for the summer when she doesn't seem to want to be here now??? I'm honestly worried about this kid and I have no CLUE... my children will tell me when somethings wrong because they want it fixed but this little girl has both me AND her father stumped... could someone offer some advice? Are there maybe questions I haven't asked that I need to or something I'm not thinking of? She was such a bright light before and now she's dim. I just don't know....