Amazingly, GUBM not only got her to the airport on time, but, she got her there early. :jawdrop: AND she took the initiative to pay for the (apparently) required Unaccompanied Minor fee. How both she and SO escaped the knowledge that, because of who the flight was contracted out to, it would be required is beyond me. And who knows if she paid one way or both ways, but I'm hoping she paid both ways because she deserves to put out some money for a change.

But, this now brings the cost of just travel for SD for this visit to almost $500. We all could have put on our grown-up pants and driven to the half-way point for significantly less than $500. It would have maybe been $200 combined between the two trips and the two cars.

I'm nervous and stressed about this visit. SO wishes I was not so wound up, but, I can't help it. I've never been around SD for this long, I've never seen SO actually use his backbone and stick to what he says he will do while she's here (in other words, not making it the SD show 24/7, putting our relationship first, fitting her into OUR life and not forcing us to fit into her life), and, she's in puberty and adolescent territory. Even the most mild-mannered kid can have emotional reactions during that time. Their bodies are trying to figure everything out for adulthood and it makes some a little, intolerable. I'm hoping that won't be the case for SD, I really am, because there's no saying right now what sort of reaction she will have to the sudden change in dynamics. She's used to be center of attention Princess Pants when she's with dad, having him bend over backwards and catering to her. She's not used to the adult partnership being priority. She's not used to dad focusing on anything but her because, well, after she was born, she was his sole focus because his relationship with GUBM was toxic and he avoided her as much as humanly possible.

I told SO over this past week that there are things that SD does that, regardless of her intentions, comes across as obnoxious and rude to me in relation to our partnership. Like, when he and I are sitting on the couch and snuggling, she'll just run over and start crawling all over him and pushing me out of the way. Or, when we're out in public and he and I are holding hands or even simply walking next to one another, she will slow down and push me out of the way so she can walk next to him (never mind the fact that there are two sides of SO that one can walk on...I'm just saying). There have also been plenty of times when he and I have hugged, and, SD weasels her way into the middle of the embrace so she can hug him. Not so she can hug both of us, but, so she can hug SO and push me away. I told him that, while I can't say what her intentions are when she does these things, to me, they come off as if she is trying to push me away from him and mark her territory. He accepted the responsibility for setting the precedence for those behaviors (again :jawdrop: )and that he will try to remind her that it is rude to push someone else out of the way to show a family member affection and that the affection SO and I have for one another is a completely different kind of affection than she has for him should she have any more concrete issues with us showing affection towards one another.

Right now, I'm just hoping for the best, hoping that I'll have lots of work to do at my job/internship that requires me to work every day, for the most part, and that July 5th will come quickly so I can go get my break from this because I think it will be highly necessary.

And, yea, this is definitely the last relationship with skids I am ever planning on being a part of, either because we'll fix things and it will be awesome, or, because I will know better in the future. Makes me wish I knew people who dated single parents before I wound up with SO haha.