Here We Go Again

Last Saturday, one of my cousins got married. My mom insisted on taking me shopping to get a new dress at a "nicer" store since the past couple of dresses I've gotten have been from the Junior's section of Kohl's (on sale for less than $30). She actually "forced" me to get two so she could use her coupon (that was off a purchase over $120...yikes!) It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but I do like it a lot and the material is pretty darn "fancy" for me ;) 

After shopping, then she, my sister, and I got pedicures and then went to a salon get our hair done. Guess my mom really wanted to pamper her girls and neither of us complained! The lady who did my hair didn't listen at all and my sister had to "fix" it some, but everyone thought it looked cute (all I wanted was a wash and style with her doing a twist or braid or something to keep the front hair out of my face...she basically did an "up do" using half a bottle of hair spray...)

The wedding was fun and it was nice to get a whole family picture...aren't we cute?! ;)

I love him. He is getting so big...even going potty in the big boy potty now :) Yesterday, I had him come over for a couple of hours for an auntie-nephew play date and apparently he is already asking my sister when he can come back.

Last Sunday, my dad came over to help me put together the new day bed I bought for the guest/foster kid room. It took us three tries to get it right, but I think it looks really nice. I (kind of) wish I would have taken a "before" picture because this room really was a disaster. Seriously, there was crap everywhere and had no sense of order. Of course, a portion of the crap is now on my bedroom floor and I still don't have a completely organized scrap-booking area in the basement, but it is a huge improvement! The tool chest and vacuum have since been removed, so I think a child really could sleep in there :) (There is no pillow on the Tinkerbell bed because the teen likes the silky material so it's on her bed) The teen's room actually looks halfway decent right now, so maybe I should take pictures of that room to post on here too.

Speaking of the teen...that is the reason behind the title of this post. During the past couple of weeks, she has stayed the night at my house about as many times as she has stayed at home. In that time (going back to August 6 in my "handy dandy notebook"), her mom contacted me once to bring her to her meeting at the school and once to see if I could bring her to a job interview (the same day she had me sign all the papers at school that she hadn't filled out/signed). Not once did she double check to make sure everything was "cool" or utter a thank you for not leaving her daughter stranded at work when she wouldn't answer her phone to let her know how she was getting home.

Then, last night, her mom decided to have one of her freak out crazy nights...I guess all these weeks of her leaving us be was too good to last. It does make me sad that she doesn't seem to give a sh*t, or enough to check in with me every once in a while (except when she needs something). However, that does make it much easier for the teen and I to "do our thing". I have no idea what set her mom off, but at 10:30 last night, I was getting a text message from her basically calling the teen a liar. Pretty soon after the text, she called me super ticked off saying she was going to go to the school and get to the bottom of all this lying and she was not going to be staying here any more. Then, at 11:00 she said she wanted her daughter home "now" even if she has to take a cab...then she texted that her friend couldn't come get her, so she could stay, but this was the "last night".

In between the "dialogue" with me, she was texting the teen and they "talked" (i.e. her mom yelled) a little on the phone too. I tried to sit back, but at one point looked over and the teen was sobbing. She hardly ever cries, especially in regards to the way her mom acts/treats her. So, I know whatever was being said/texted was hurtful. She also had had a rough day at school with a friend stealing her Algebra book and lying about it and a few of her friends were supposed to stay the night at my house with her but all backed out last minute, so that could have played a role in the tears too, but her mom was being completely irrational and unkind. It makes me so sad that her mom treats her like that. Her daughter is AMAZING and she has absolutely no clue. She handled the book stealing thing with tons of grace and maturity...I'm not sure I could have done it (especially the part about telling her friend she wasn't mad at HER, just upset that her friend was going to let her get in trouble for being unprepared for class since she didn't have a book). 

The "lying" her mom was accusing her of was partially in regards to a "group project" the teen said she was doing. The plan (before her friends all flaked) was that they would make their "little sister" costumes together. Instead, I helped her. You can't tell from the picture, but she spray painted the hat and it has brown pipe cleaners for hair. I made the diaper (with a little help from her) out of a white tablecloth (arts and crafts are NOT my thing, so it's pretty sad, but it worked!) Her little sister was to be Tommy from the Rug Rats...and her friends made costumes for the other characters from the show. I sent her mom a picture of the "evidence" she was, indeed, working on a project. She kind of accused me of lying too since she wondered why we were working on it so late, but I was at choir practice for 2 hours, so we weren't working on it the whole time (plus, I'm not crafty, so it took a lot more time than it should have!)...ugh!

So, here we go again...there's no telling how long she will be "banned" from coming to my house. The good news is that it doesn't usually last long, especially since it is WAY more convenient to put the responsibility of transporting, feeding, overall caring for the teen on me.

Until the next time...

Sunday, August 26, 9AM update...I got a call from the teen last night at 9:30 asking if she could come over since she couldn't reach her mom. She said she didn't care what her mom had said because she was basically stranded at work. I laughed and said sure. She didn't get to my house until nearly 11, but said her mom had texted her back that it was okay. She told me that her mom wasn't at all upset when she got home on Friday and didn't mention any of the "drama" from Thursday night. I guess this is a good example about why I/we shouldn't get too upset when she does her "crazy thing" because it rarely lasts long. She overslept this morning, but just got picked up for work. I had time to pack her a little bit of a lunch before she went (and threw in a pack of gum since I am pretty sure she didn't brush her teeth...)

Until the next time...