Perpetual Ruminations

Returning to The Bad Apples

It's been five days, time to update in here.

My last entry we were heading back to our old residence to get more stuff and the trip was pretty much uneventful. We did hit a detour for road construction that's been going on for about three years. They got as far as the border, so hopefully they will be done soon. Even so, it's crazy how long they have drug this project out for; it's also ridiculous how they detoured traffic. We drove to the highway and proceeded to travel along until we came to the state border, and hit the detour that made us drive back north about thirty-five miles, then east to the interstate and back south again. The road they detoured us to was crap, and it added aver two hours more driving time. Also, we didn't rent the truck as originally planned, so we are looking at another two trips to get everything.

It took a lot longer to pack and load than I had wanted, so we didn't get home until three in the morning and by the time we got things settled, in bed about four. The next day we unloaded the pick-up and should have been life back to normal. Not so, our daughter has started in again with some issues and things have been pretty stressful. She had really settled in well over the summer, made a couple of good friends, and seemed to have shown a lot of change. Then school started and the attitude and issues resumed.

I discovered a note in her pocket yesterday after she got home and asked what it was. She lied about it and went to her room. I dropped it until this morning, when I asked her what she had done with the note. She got irritated but threw it in the trash before heading out to school. It was addressed to a boy she had a lot of issues with last year and who hangs with a not so wonderful group of kids. She also got a text from one of these kids, and it's apparent now what's going on, she's back into a group of negative kids,.

In fact, one of the good friends she, we'll call her J, has had all summer is no longer talking to her. This was the case last  year at school, too. J wouldn't hang with these kids because they were trouble and mean, so she also wouldn't hang with our daughter. That all changed over the summer and they got to be real good friends. Now that our daughter is back in this group, however, J won't talk to her or hang with her.

The whole thing has me pretty upset, since she has changed in her moods and her personality to fit in with this group, she's back to lying and sneaking, and I'm not sure how to proceed.