I picked up Melissa on Saturday afternoon. Dropped her off this morning. She's a bit unhappy - as 'home' isn't what it's supposed to be like. No mom. Things out of place and/or missing. She's asking for me to put on movies her mom took and can't figure out why she doesn't have her combo DVD/VHS. Amy left a VHS player but it turns out to be broken. She left a DVD player too, but didn't tell me she left it so I didn't know (it's in her study and I've been avoiding going in there, too painful).

I think, right now, Melly is blaming me somewhat simply because I'm physically there and 'there' isn't right. She's not old enough to understand.

I'm doing my best with her. We had some happy times at least.




Just trashed from trying to find, pack and move four years accumulation of stuff with no prior planning in less than a day. Closets opened up and stuff discombobulated. Stuff she didn't get to filling one corner of the kitchen, junk all over the dining room table some of which stays and some of which goes. Carpets a disaster from muck tramped all over them and the fact that the house wasn't in terribly great shape BEFORE all this happened.

So no - not maliciously trashed. More incidentally trashed. But pretty trashed regardless.

I spent a chunk of the weekend cleaning. Got two loads of dishes done, almost all the (very backlogged) laundry and got Melissa's room un-trashed and vacuumed and made safe again. The carpet in there needs cleaning, but that's from stuff before all of this (pop spilled by the little one while I was at work that didn't get cleaned up and left for days etc.)

In fact, her bedroom is cleaner that it has been previously save for right after we (usually I but not always) had cleaned it.



Probably not a great idea. Amy has a pretty abusive background and 'pushing' her into trying to deal with some of her issues - particularly the ones that were very negatively affecting Melly and I, could probably be said to be the very worst thing I've done in this relationship. Even then I tried very hard not to be personally mean but to stay focussed on the issue and not make it into personal attacks.

I'm going to encourage her to try some counselling treatment and some couples counselling if she'll agree to that (she tentatively has although she's not rushing into it). Perhaps that will help.



*Hug* Thanks. At the moment I'm dealing okay. Better, in fact, than I thought I would now that things are starting to settle.

I was a freakin' basket case when I wrote the original post. I don't think I've ever been so hurt in my entire life. One big hurdle she's going to have to clear is earning my trust again after this although I'm trying to keep it in perspective.

I mean, if all this was nothing but a really messy inconvenient move for a few weeks in the end, that's hardly the end of the world. However it's hard on our daughter and that's not a good thing.