Transitioning Back is Hard for EVERYBODY!

After my stepkids went back to their mother's yesterday, my 11 year old spent a good five hours crying. Pretty much non-stop. We went out to eat, thinking it'd help get her mind off of it all and she'd cheer up. She sat at the table in the restaurant and tried not to sob. Every once in awhile, I would see her face screw up and her lips start to tremble...she was trying to hold it back. She was a wreck yesterday. She texted her older sister a lot yesterday until I had her put her phone away after 9:00 p.m. last night.

Everybody talks about the transitions for the kids going between the two homes - their adjustment period. Nobody talks about the adjustment period of the kids in the non-custodial home who are being left when the other kids go back to their custodial parent's home. Those kids have needs and feelings too. They hurt. So the family court can take that and shove it. Unless my husband and I were to divorce - so the state family court could get federal kick-backs from the federal government for child support collected - the court doesn't care about my four children.

For me personally, my "adjustment" was getting some order back into my home finally and the excitement of knowing this next week's grocery bill wasn't going to be $400 like it was last week. We are SO far behind in our budget now. I spent a good hour or so this morning trying to figure out how to make our next house payment after this last week's bills with the stepkids. Between gas to get the kids from their state to ours and then home again, and the increased grocery bill for two teenagers (one of them a vegan so it's a different menu on top of the "regular" menu), having my stepkids is a huge blow to our budget that we can't afford to do but do anyway obviously.

On a funny note, my husband said last night as we were leaving dinner that his ex isn't aging well at all. He must think she is aging VERY badly because he said that the last time too. I've seen recent pics on my stepdaughter's camera (she asked me to take her pictures off her camera for her and email them to her email address because her mother won't let her take her pictures off of the camera WE bought for her at home) and he's right but I wouldn't say it first, lol. I see those pictures and wonder what the heck my husband was thinking...too much alcohol was involved obviously. Blech! That "relationship" would be a great advertisement on why you don't pick up somebody in a bar after drinking too much and the proper use of birth control. Looks aren't everything. Any decent person knows that, but she doesn't even have a good personality! It had to be the alcohol. There was nothing else but alcohol.