Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety, Jig

At 8:30 this morning, FosterEema and I jumped in the car to pick up Danielle from her friend's house. She's been staying there since Thursday night. Originally, we'd planned to have her gone because this weekend was our anniversary, and we planned to be out of town for a few days.

Our plans to be out of town were canceled because of a lack of money, but we decided to send Danielle to the friend's house anyway, simply because we needed to be away from her terrible, escalating behaviors.

When we went to pick Danielle up, I sat in the car while FosterEema went to the door. Danielle emerged, looking sleepy and grumpy, and climbed into the car without so much as a word. She refused to make eye contact, and just slid into her seat, head down. Her hair covered her face, so I couldn't see her expression.

We had an appointment with our therapist this morning, so we headed straight over after picking Danielle up. When we we got out of the car, Danielle lagged behind. She said nothing, her head down, hair covering her face, feet dragging. We decided to ignore her behavior, figuring that we didn't want to provoke another explosion. We just left her alone. She eventually made it into the waiting room, where she threw herself into a chair and slumped forward, her hair still covering her face.

We sat down in the waiting room, opposite Danielle's seat, and she refused to make eye contact.

We met with the therapist for a few minutes to show her my niece's letter. She agreed it was undermining and highly destructive, and that we should not give it to her. After meeting for about 15 minutes, we left, and Danielle went into the office.

"Your turn, kid," I said as we finished. Danielle slumped down the hall, dragging her feet, and that was the last I saw of her.

We left the therapist's office to run errands and return home. FosterEema will be heading out in a few minutes to retrieve Danielle from the therapist's office, while I get started on work.

So far, I've dodged the question I didn't want to answer, and for that I'm very glad.