sight isn’t always necessary

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.