On the down slope of the week Thursday! aka CHAT!

 Lisa, I hope your sister comes to her senses, and stands up to him for the sake of her kids, or gets out. This sounds a bit like my sister and BIL. He's mad at me right now because I said something to the effect of calling him lazy. Anyone who calls him out on anything, or does something he doesn't like, he's calling my sister expecting her to make them apologize, and I suppose her to tell him he's right. She may be able to hide it from you, or worry about what he'll do if she doesn't hide it from you. My sister thinks she's hiding it from us, but she does a pretty bad job of it. I'm glad your niece is able to come hang out at your house and get away from him. That's why my niece is at our house as much as we can get her here. We know her father is an idiot (but in a different way). We know he pays no attention to her when he's responsible. We can't get my sister to leave the idiot yet, but we can at least get the kid out as much as possible until it happens.

We took my niece with to Luke's  weight pulling class. She was pretty thrilled with that. She came out and walked him around for a bit. I think she wanted to ride in the cart. He can barely move the cart with no weight, so no way he can do it with her in it yet.

I do want to say that he doesn't touch the girls or my sister physically.  I know that the mental stuff is just as bad though.  But honestly, if there was even a hint that he touched any of them - well, let's just say it wouldn't be pretty.

The crazy part of all of it is that he is a nice guy in general, except when it comes to my nieces and their school work.  Since they were Riley's age, they always had "daddy homework" - to the tune of 2 hours a night.  To make matters worse, up until this summer he worked out of town the entire time they were married.  His company would ship him in and out every Monday/Friday so at least they had a break during the week.  Well, he got promoted and is now at home all the time - working from their home office.  I honestly don't know what my sister's problem is.  She tells me exactly what is going on, admits that it sucks, but then will say something like "she could study harder".  Spare me, neither her nor my BIL actually have a degree.  He's like 2 credits shy, but is super super smart in programming. 

Do you think my niece's school would listen to me?  What I would like to do is get her hooked up with a school counsler.  That way I know she would get some help.  My sister is seriously the LAZIEST person in the world and would never take to her appts. even if she wanted her to go.  It's so frustrating!