I have a full length mirror in my room - scratch that. I HAD a full length mirror in my room. But I moved it outside my door because SS kept coming into my room to look at himself. He makes a duck face when he does this...

Now that it is outside our dooor and basically in our family room, dh teases SS about how often he checks himself out. SS has now asked for a mirror for Christmas.

I'm amused.

This kid is nuts. And the duck face in every picture I take is hilarious too. I thought duck face was a girl thing, but I digress.

I need some advice. My SS13 and my DD12 go to the same very small private school. They are in the same (the only) 7th grade/8th grade class. There are only 4 girls in the class and about 14 kids total. Very, very small school.

I've really tried to make a push this year to get both DD and SS to be more social - go to friend's after school, study at the library on Saturday mornings etc, invite friends over.

Finally.

DH (who is the custodial parent of SS13) went down to the child support office on his cousin's urging (cousin is actually BM's cousin but none of her family speaks to her after she abandoned SS13 when he was 5 and decided to go nutso).

They told DH that it is pretty cut and dry. Since DH is the custodial parent, she should be paying both support and providing health insurance, per California's rules. They will issue an order to find work and they will discover whether she is actually working or not via EDD, DMV, IRS, etc.

So DH and I had an initial call with a lawyer and it went quite well. She was referred by a family friend.

She said asked if a "order to seek work" had been issued yet. She also told us that it sounded like a good time to go address everything - restraining order violations, her not following the court order, changing visitation and getting some child support. She was concerned that BM might still be able to ask for spousal support.