Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m not sure what to do, if anything can be done, about my crazy mother-in-law. Over the years, plenty of things have happened to label her as crazy, and we’ve had our fair share of falling outs. The current issue started just before and during Mother’s Day. Craig’s mom was very offended that we didn’t come to her house that Sunday, and has been holding a huge grudge ever since. She called around that time and left Craig a message about how she doesn’t understand why he has to “ask permission” to go see his mother, and we are just using her for free babysitting, and she just wants to see her grandkids. Craig and I were upset for a few reasons, understandably, and had a very long discussion about how to control that situation. It was completely rude of his mother to question his authority in his own family – neither of us owns the other, and when it comes to making decisions about what to do and when, we work together. It was not that he was asking permission to go to his mother’s house, it was that he wanted to talk it over with me because we have two children and need to plan accordingly. Plus, it was Mother’s Day, and since I’m a mother too… it’s only logical that I’d get a chance to decide what to do on my day. Whatever. That is too damn logical to get through Ann’s hugely thick skull.
I was also upset because whenever Ann does this, she causes a lot of unnecessary stress in our lives. She’s called to bitch Craig out about so many silly things, and it should be easy for Craig to brush it off and call her crazy, but she’s so overbearing that he’s usually incapable of doing so. She called recently to cry to Craig about how it’s so unfair that Connor never has spent the night at her house, but he has spent the night at his other grandma’s house. She called to bitch him out about having other people over to our house on the day that she came over with her old lady friends to see Elly (it was my dad’s birthday, BTW). She bitches him out because I won’t go on little lady trips with her and her friends – they wanted me to go to the Detroit Lady’s Show on my last day of my Organic Biochemistry class.
Our lives are not so easy most of the time – raising kids is a very hard job, and losing your firm grasp of your dreams isn’t something one can let go of so quickly. Each day we struggle to do right by our kids while also doing right by ourselves, and it’s so much easier to do that when there are supportive people around. Craig’s mom is definitely not one of the supportive people we have backing us up. Instead, she’s a thorn in our sides, constantly shoving her drama in our faces. She makes Craig feel like crap, and he doesn’t want to talk about it with me because he knows I’ll get all worked up about it. We both end up bottling up this crappy feeling… is that fair for a mother to do that to her child, and still expect unconditional love from him? Especially when he’s 31 years old? No.
So, Craig called his mom and told her so. Obviously after acting like such a bitch, she wouldn’t answer her phone, so he had to leave a voicemail telling her how he felt. Craig really rarely tells his mom the whole truth about how he feels because she’s really good at blowing things up. This was one time that he really laid it out for her – he didn’t appreciate the way she was treating him and his family, he didn’t want to keep his kids away from her nor did he want to stay away from her, but if she kept acting the way she is, he isn’t coming over to be treated like crap. He said he loved her, he wants to talk to her, and could she please call him back.
She didn’t call back. In fact, that coward instructed her husband to call, so Craig had to relay all of his feelings toward his mother through his dad, and that’s never really useful. Craig’s dad is not a good listener, and he has a real way of twisting and tripping over words. It was Craig’s only option though, and I think that conversation was actually beneficial in some ways because it helped Craig to see even more clearly how his mother is trying to manipulate us all. Apparently Neil was recently diagnosed with Type II Diabetes, and because of his mother’s drama, Craig wasn’t ever even informed. So both Craig and his dad were realizing how twisted it was all getting, and though nothing was really resolved, it was easier for Craig to feel angry toward his mother without guilt getting in the way.
We arrive now at this morning, when Craig’s mother called while he was in the bathroom. He didn’t get to answer the phone in time, so she left a short irritating message.
Craig, I just wanted to call to set up a time for me to see the kids. You don’t have to call me if you don’t want to, just call your dad.
Bye.
Um, what? Now she’s making “appointments” to see her grandkids, but she doesn’t even want to talk to her son about it? She doesn’t want to fix things with the human being that she actually grew and carried in her womb, gave birth do, raised and cared for, watched over in the hospital for countless hours, loved his entire life long? She doesn’t care about that person anymore, it’s all about the grandkids? That lady is fuckin’ nuts. Craig didn’t talk about it with me for long, he just said that he wished she would call and apologize. She could apologize for being a bitch, for treating him badly, she could even apologize for the fact that Craig hasn’t realized that she’s crazy yet. He just wants to hear “I’m sorry” come out of her mouth. It’s SO not going to. As I said before, she’s fuckin’ nuts.
Any suggestions? Anyone?
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ve been trying to figure out what’s wrong with everyone else for so long, and I think I finally figured it out. It’s not them, it’s me! I just am so intolerant, and it’s getting to me. I’m not sure how to change it though…
So my little idea a week or so ago was to sing this song to myself every time I feel like punching someone in the face. That hasn’t been working quite as well as I thought it might, but it does help to remind myself that I’m being a wench every time I get ticked off at someone for doing something that slightly annoys me. For instance, just now I was on FaceBook looking at random people’s status updates, and someone said something like “Can’t wait to see you at Shar’s wedding!” The “Shar” in that statement is really named “Sharlene”, and the fact that she’s getting married but still has a bunch of high school friends that she’s best buds with and they all have shortened her name to something so damn snobbish… these factors all came together immediately in my mind and caused a little puke to accumulate at the back of my throat.
But I’m being highly critical and bratty because I’m a loser, sitting at home on a Friday night when my husband is at work, listening to nothing but the fly stuck in the paper lamp across the room lightly fluttering against the shade.
I’m officially not a fan of mother’s day. I’ll tell you why – Craig’s mom is a mother, and that woman is definately not something to celebrate. Also, the fact that she’s a mother and I’m a mother means we have something in common, and the fact that I have something in common with her makes me a little ill.
Maybe I’m harsh, maybe I’m unforgiving, maybe I’m mean. That’s irrelevant though, because she’s worse. She’s passive aggressive and conniving, and when you put those two things together in a big, loud, overbearing package, you’ve got a force to be reckoned with.
Sandy says it’s a full moon, and that could be causing the forces of the world to be coming down on me a little harder than usual.
A week ago, Craig suggested that he take Connor and Elly to his mother’s house for Mother’s day. It would give me a “break”, and I could get some much needed rest and relaxation. Now, keep these important things in mind: 1) Elly is 5 months old, 2) Elly is 5 months old, and 3) Elly is 5 months old. For one, that means that a “day of relaxation” would require me to prepare for this fabled day for a week or so, pumping and storing breastmilk for my infant child at any point I could find “free” to do so. She needs to eat every 2-4 hours, more or less, so I’d need to find time between feeding her to sit down away from her and Connor both, just to make even more milk for her, but this would need to be perfectly timed to be both useful (milk is actually produced), and not detrimental (doesn’t piss off Elly the next time she wants to eat). That sounded like a really fun thing for me to worry about for a week just so Craig’s mom would be happy.
So, say I got all of this milk ready so that Craig’s mom could see my children and her son on Mother’s day. Now, I’m at home, worrying about how the idiot furball dogs that Craig’s parents own are most likely biting my son and growling at my daughter in between barking their fucking heads off and… ok, just fucking worrying about everything… supposedly relaxing. After three hours, I’m trying to relax still but something’s happening in those food bags that I used to call my breasts. They tingle, itch, and feel like they’re too tight in my bra. I wait another hour, relaxing as much as I can in between pacing around because I’m pissed off that my kids are at their idiot grandma’s house on my special day. Now the food bags hurt. OH YEAH! I forgot! Elly is 5 months old, and is a breastfed baby, and that means… YEP! I STILL HAVE TO DRAIN THESE FUCKING THINGS EVEN WHEN SHE’S NOT AROUND! This isn’t something I can just stop doing one day because my husband and his mother decide I’m supposed to be enjoying my day alone while they mess up my kids!
Ok, here’s the last, and possibly most important, reason why the fact that Elly is 5 months old is important to why I don’t want my children going over to Craig’s mom’s house tomorrow. I JUST PUSHED A HUMAN OUT OF MY BODY 5 MONTHS AGO. And that wasn’t the first time that I grew something inside my body for almost a year and then pushed it out of a tiny hole not exactly meant for expelling large things on a regular basis. I thought that if anything, the clear vision of me doing that so recently would really stick out in Craig’s mind – I’m an amazing woman deserving of celebration at least one full day a year. Craig’s mom, on the other hand, did that only once, as recently as 31 years ago. In fact, in the past 10 years or so, she hasn’t done much for her son other than cause unnecessary guilt, stress, and disgust on occasion. Once in a while she tries to purchase some love or attention. So yeah, going to her house, or the mere suggestion of it, pissed my off royally. That fight was fun.
Then today, Craig was at the table yelling at Connor to eat his lunch, when he casually but ever so subtly louder than he had been speaking, mentioned to Connor that he was stressed that he had to tell “Murphee Munga” that we weren’t going to see her tomorrow and that he “was going to send flowers” but he didn’t and now it’s too late. Now, the reason why the flowers are significant was that in our argument in the week prior, I had become angry also because Craig was going to spend $50 on sending a bouquet via Proflowers.com for his mother’s gift for Mother’s day. I firmly objected for several reasons, the most important of which is our current financial situation. We just refinanced our house so that we can afford to stay living here, and he wanted to spend extra money on a big present that would be thrown away in a week. Stupid. Stupid to get flowers for his mom, stupid to get flowers for me! Flowers are stupid, unless they’re randomly bought in an impulse buy when you’re passing by a flower shop and thinking about someone you love. Then they’re good. All other obligatory times, flowers are stupid. I suggested that Craig actually think about his mom, about what she would like, purchase it, and give it to her near Mother’s day. Perhaps the following weekend we could go see them, or invite them over, and he could give her a gift then. I even looked online for a gift and found a cute little RV bird feeder that I’m sure Craig’s mom would just love to hang outside their little trailer door on one of their camping trips this summer. Craig didn’t follow through though and buy the damn thing. It was $19. I’ll go as far as to reprimand my husband for spending our money frivolously on his mother, I’ll search for presents for him for his mom… but I’m not his mother and I’m not going to go buying his gifts to other people for him. He’s a man, and he needed to do a little of that work, but he didn’t and that’s his damn fault. Not mine.
The long-winded point is this: Craig mentioned to our Connor something completely meant for me – and in one short but extremely passive-aggressive statement, he pissed me off past boiling. Now all that I want to do is drive to MY mom’s house and relax with my parents and my kids all day, but that whole idea is just totally shot – I couldn’t take my kids to see my mother after screaming about going to Craig’s mom’s house for over a week. We’re just stuck here tomorrow regardless. Honestly, I’ve been so pissed off today that I’m not sure how I’m going to handle tomorrow, and I almost wish I could just sleep through it. If I could just lower my expectations of life to a low enough point that these things wouldn’t matter to me anymore, I think I’d be a happier, or at least mellower, person.
This is a long post. I’m a tired mom.
G’night.
Filed under: Uncategorized
In the mornings where Craig has worked the night before, I often have to tell Connor to go play alone in his room for a while so I can take Gus out to pee, make breakfast, and/or feed Elly. Today he went up happily, and wasn’t yelling to ask if he could come downstairs for quite some time. When Craig came home, Connor started yelling over and over that he wanted Craig to come upstairs. Then he appeared at the top of the stairs with a candy cane in hand, a big grin stretched across his face because of the treat he had found. Craig said, “Seriously?” To which Connor replied, “Mom’s making chocolate pancakes, and chocolate is candy, so this is candy and that makes it ok too!”
We couldn’t disagree. He got to eat the candy cane.
