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.
Craig’s parents came over last night to watch Connor for a while so that we could go out for one last “fling” before Elly is born. We were hoping that she’d be motivated to arrive, especially since we were walking a ton, eating Thai food, and doing whatever other silly crap that they say can help start a labor. None of it worked, not that I really thought it would, but that’s not the point of this post anyway. Needless to say, I am still as pregnant as ever. My right foot is swelling up like a stuffed pig now too, so maybe that’s a good sign? A sign that she’s moving down, and blocking off circulation in other places rather than just in my left foot?
I have been really on edge lately in anticipation of this baby. Mostly I’m anxious about what we’re going to do with Connor when we go into the hospital for the delivery. If it happens in the middle of the night, it’ll be fine – we’ll just call up Rachel and Amanda, have them come over and sleep at our house, and Connor hopefully won’t know anything even happened. Even if it’s a rough morning for them, he’ll have slept fairly well for the evening, and by that time my mom and whomever else we call can be at our house to provide him with more comfort, etc. That situation would be ideal.
If it happens in the daytime though, we might be screwed. Connor’s life will be thrown all out of whack, and I don’t want it to be a traumatic event, y’know? Our options are: if it’s happening quickly, I call my mom, my sister, and Rachel, tell them all to come to the hospital, and whomever gets there first can take Connor at least into a waiting room to be out of the action. If we have some time, I can call my mom and dad, and hopefully they get to our house in time to have me, Craig, and my mom go up to the hospital, and then my dad and Connor can stay at home until the “coast is clear”. We can even call Craig’s parents at that point and tell them to go to our HOUSE, not the hospital, because if my dad is around, I know at least some reasonable childcare will be happening and his parents won’t be at the hospital to bug the shit out of me. My dad will make good food for him, give him normal amounts of candy and junk for any grandparent, and insist that he goes to bed before it’s a stupid hour. His parents can be contained, controlled, and out of the way of me – because if they show up at the hospital before I’m able to shower this time, I will throw a placenta at them.
Ok, so blah blah blah. Like it matters, anyhow. New babies throw everyone out of whack, and all of this planning is bound to make me crazy, let alone extend this pregnancy even further into the future (too much stress) and it’ll all get screwed up in the end, anyway.
Back to last night. We got Thai food, it was yummy, we went downtown and walked around, shopped a little, went to Old Navy and bought a few things, went to a chocolate shop and ate a yummy chocolate fondue, walked a bit more, went to Blockbuster, came home. It was 11:00 p.m. CONNOR WAS STILL AWAKE. Not just mumbling in his bed, trying to fall asleep with the lights out. To me, it looked like they saw our lights shining in the window, and Craig’s dad hurriedly took Connor upstairs while Craig’s mom shuffled around turning off the TV and turning down the music, trying to make it look like he’d been up there for a while. She was basically panting when we came to the door, and Connor was upstairs yelling down to me that he wanted me to read him stories. DEAD GIVEAWAY – he hadn’t read ANY full stories yet. They just started bedtime. He’s four years old folks, and he had not napped during the day. On a day when I’m being relaxed about the whole bedtime thing, with those circumstances, Connor would still be asleep without any fuss at the latest by 9:30 p.m. With a nap during the day, I might stretch that to 10:00 p.m., and that’s only because sometimes when I’m not paying attention, we can be out pretty late, and then winding down takes a little longer. Still, he’d CRASH by 10, and it would actually probably be harder to keep him awake.
Craig’s parents though – those fuckers are totally retarded. And y’know what? It REALLY irritates me that I had to come home last night and STILL PUT MY KID TO BED. It wasn’t a night out, y’know? It wasn’t “carefree” – my mother-in-law acts like she’s doing us a big fucking favor, but in reality she just created more chaos, and I still had to be the responsible adult and put the child in his bed and… that’s not fair! Life’s not fair. So I came in the house, went upstairs, did what any fucking normal adult with any fucking BRAINS would do and turned off the lights, closed the windows, put my child in his bed. I kicked out the dog, the cat, and the grandpa, read three pages of a book, and he was OUT LIKE A LIGHT.
But Craig’s parents had already left. His mom was so afraid of how mad I would be that she was gone in three minutes. Craig insisted that he was trying to “educate” her on how stupid it was that Connor was still awake, but she didn’t listen anyway. She never will. When she explained how the night went, she said that apparently they had gone out to eat, went to the mall, and when they finally got back to the house it was already 9 o’clock. So, instead of getting pajamas on and getting ready for bed, they turned on the Wii and proceeded to play video games for an hour. Then they asked Connor what time he normally goes to bed. This is what gets me – they treat him like he’s a baby ALL THE TIME, except for when it matters – they’re seriously asking a four year old child what time he goes to bed… and he doesn’t even quite understand the concepts of YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW, or NOW yet? Of course, Connor gave an answer that he would be expected to give – he said something silly that a tired slap-happy little kid would say!
“I go to bed at all times, whenever I want to!”
OH REALLY? Oh really. They believed it.
Craig’s mom said that when she tried to get him to get into his pajamas, he cried and complained that he didn’t want to go to bed, so she just gave in and let him play a bit more. She gave him candy because he wanted it, let him play the Wii forever because he wanted to, let him run around like a crazy man because he wanted to.
And the thing of it all is, I know this is just a part of being a mom, and having stupid grandparents involved in the care of my child. I know that many many families have this situation – old stupid people that forgot what it was like to be a parent are taking care of a young child, and they can’t bring themselves to be strict, or even REASONABLE, because it’s too hard to see a little kid cry. My parents don’t have a problem with it, because they can allow Connor to be nuts and give him candy and do dangerous crap – but they still get a carrot stick into his mouth every once in a while, and still savor the calmness of nighttime with a child asleep. Because my parents have been that way for the entire time Connor has been on this earth, I think they could manage getting Connor into his pajamas and sleeping at a normal time without him crying! But Craig’s parents, the only people we definitely have nearby for when Elly decides she wants to be born, are totally fucking retarded, so factoring them into the plans is just something we cannot do! We’ll go to the hospital, I’ll push a baby out, we’ll be awake for 24+ hours, and then when we come home we’ll have to rewire Connor back into reality, because he’s sure to be on a crazy sugar buzz and very little sleep.
I hate them. I truly do – I don’t see their use. And that’s mean, but I don’t care. I’m just so sick of complaining about them; they’re so stupid I can’t stand it anymore. There are a lot of stupid people in the world, and it’s fine for them to exist because they generally don’t interfere with my life. When they do though, I’m entitled to do something about it – but not with Craig’s parents! I have to stand here, hands behind my back, and let them fuck around with my life whenever they want to.
Fuck.
I need to vent. I’m really annoyed, and I know that’s not anything new these days, but the annoyance factor goes WAY up when it involves Craig’s parents, and I’m just about to explode. I know I shouldn’t be doing this to myself, so please don’t lecture me on how it’s useless stress or whatever logical thought may be going through your head right now.
Brief history of the annoyance:
A month or so ago, Craig’s parents mentioned this Halloween event that’s going on at one of the campgrounds they go to. The way they presented this information was not just informative though, it was more like “So, you’re letting us take Connor for that weekend in October, right?”
(Um, no. We’re not. You’re too stupid.)
Craig didn’t say much at that point; he just acted surprised, which he was! He had no idea what they were talking about and neither did I, because the really funny thing is… they hadn’t ever mentioned it before. So annoying. So Craig said something like “We’ll see, I mean, that’s pretty far in the future so we’ll have to think about it.” This, Craig should know by now, always translates in his mother’s mind to “YES FOR SURE THEY ARE COMING BECAUSE I EXPECT IT AND THAT’S FUCKING FINAL.”
I forgot about it, until maybe two weeks ago. They mentioned it again, gave us some flyer about how fun it’s going to be, and OF COURSE, we find out that 1) I work today, so they can’t take him today (which they wanted to), and 2) Craig works tonight, so there’s no fucking way I’m going to take Connor and Gus out to some stupid campground with those idiot people when I’m NINE MONTHS PREGNANT… JESUS!
Whew. Anyway, I told Craig this. I really didn’t want to go, and I really don’t want them to take Connor. They’re really really stupid! But he presented this to his parents differently – he said that they could take Connor if they could pick him up and drop him back off. I mean, that’s OK in general – I’m not so protective over Connor that I wouldn’t let him out of my sight in the care of another responsible adult for the day. Even overnight! But the fucking KEY WORD in that is RESPONSIBLE!!!
My mom calmed me down. She said that she would come over after she’s done working, we’ll hang out for the day and even get pedicures (maybe), and it will give me a chance to relax and prepare for Elly, as well as… well whatever. She’s coming over, so I don’t have to sit around all day and dwell on the fact that his parents have my child, and probably everything is chaos around my sweet little boy at every moment of my “relaxing” day. Mom will help. I did feel calmer after talking to her, and I thought that maybe we’d all enjoy our Saturday.
But then… we went out last Friday. Craig’s parents came over to watch Connor for the three hours that we were gone. Connor didn’t nap that day, because he’s kindof straying away from napping. But, without a nap, Connor usually goes to bed easily and without any fuss at around 8:30 or even 8:00 on a busy day. Connor had a cool dinner, a lot of activity during the day, and though he was ready to play with his grandparents, his day was sortof winding down. There is NO winding down with those people though, it’s RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN and then CRASH!!!! I’ve been hoping over the past four years that they would try a little bit to adopt some of our mellowness, but it’s not happening yet.
I told Connor as we were leaving that I had recorded a movie for him on the DVR (which he knows how to use) and he could watch it later for bedtime. I purposefully gave him a long movie, because I knew that those retards would keep him up regardless; I thought that maybe I could try to make it at least a little normal (with a child-oriented quietish movie… it was something about Elmo). Craig’s mom especially likes Connor to fall asleep on her, so I really really was thinking ahead. Anyway.
They ran around like mad people until 10:30ish. Craig’s parents treat Connor like he’s a baby, and even though he IS a small child, he is really smarter than they make him out to be. From the stories his mom was telling me when we got home, it seems like they don’t understand anything he’s talking about, ever. He tells funny little jokes, has a bright imagination, and is really very literate! More so than them, even! But all of the things they found “silly” were real comments from Connor, things that he’s talked to me about, or things relevant to him over the past week… real thoughts. But they let him run around, made fun of how silly he was the whole time, and then probably when they realized that we’d be home soon… they couldn’t figure out how to work the GOD DAMNED TV. Fucking RETARDS. So, Connor was all wound up but also TOTALLY exhausted, and he really wanted to watch that movie that I recorded. He can figure out the DVR, but of course they never gave him the remote to let him do it himself, because they always underestimate him. I guess at some point Craig’s mom took Connor up to bed and told him that she’d come and get him when Papa figured out the TV. He finally fell asleep with that lie in his head – a lie because there was no way Papa was going to figure out the TV, even though he’s some “big man” that should be able to figure out all electronics simply because he has a tiny cock. Connor was on top of his blankets, his daytime clothes were still on, the window was wide open though the forecast said it was going to be 40 degrees that night, and the blinds/shades were open as well.
I know that story is really stupid and I shouldn’t overreact to it, but it’s just been happening for SO long. The only reason I was less hesitant to go out that night than I am to let him go to a campground with them is that at home, he’s less likely to get hurt or to encounter someone icky that could take him or do bad things to him. At home, he knows where the phones are, and he knows how to get ahold of someone if there was an emergency. At home, he knows where the neighbors are, knows where the mommies live, feels comfortable in his surroundings. So, at home, with crazy idiot adults supposedly “watching” him, he can somewhat manage on his own if it became necessary. They are going to have him out in some remote campground, surrounded by freaky camper people (they’re all voting for McCain because Obama’s an “Ay-rab” Muslim terrorist, so that speaks for itself how insanely dumb they all are)…
I’m dwelling like crazy, but I just feel so trapped. I feel like this kind of stuff happens too often, and though I know we can’t control everything in our lives, I’m just so much more willing to relinquish control when it’s NOT Craig’s parents that I’m giving it to. I feel like Craig is constantly holding back when it comes to telling his parents that we’re adults and can make our own decisions, and he’s also constantly giving them more information than necessary… stuff that they’ll use against us in the future. The most awful thing about this all is that I don’t feel like I have support from anyone; my family always makes me out the be the crazy person (sorry Mom, you do), Craig’s never supporting me in this, Connor likes them because he gives them candy…
But you know what? Connor gets lots of crap from them. Gifts, sweets, sugar. That’s what he thinks of when he thinks of Munga Murphee and Papa Murphee – what are they going to give me this time. When they load him up with sugar he has fun with them, but they then give him back to us to deal with the aftermath. When he’s in the bathroom crying because his butt hurts and his belly hurts from all the crap he ate when they were around, he doesn’t link THEM to the pain NOW. He couldn’t possibly; he really is just four years old and those advanced linkages are not part of his development yet.
Blah blah blah.
What sparked this whole huge lingering crappy post was this string of emails that went back and forth between Craig’s mom and I today. Craig, for some psychotic reason, had to tell his mom that MY MOM was coming over while they had Connor out for the day. As if that’s relevant to anything… but what that little bit of information DOES do is it gives Craig’s mom a reason for thinking that she’s doing me a favor by stealing Connor for the whole day. I’m just pissy.
Here are the emails. They’re copied and pasted from Outlook, so the first email from Craig’s mom to me is actually at the bottom, then my response to her, then her response back to me, and the last email (what I forwarded to Craig) is at the top.
Craig’s mom spells “POTATO” with an e.
Message
I figure if you’re not going to be straightforward with your mother about shit, I might as well. And seeing as how I’m pregnant, uncomfortable, and crabby most of the time – I also figure I can get away with it. Here’s the interaction that transpired today; tell me your mother isn’t yelling at me and I will promise not to punch her in the face.—–Original Message—–
From: Ann Beckman [mailto:abeckman@bbcu.org]
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 1:35 PM
To: Elizabeth Beckman
Subject: RE: TomorrowYES ON THE COSTUME
From: Elizabeth Beckman [mailto:ebeckman@aliquant.com]
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 1:07 PM
To: abeckman
Subject: RE: Tomorrow
My mom isn’t coming over until 4pm because she works tomorrow, so it’s really not a beauty “day”, more of a beauty moment (if we even go). Even so, I really don’t want to spend the day at the campground – it’s hard enough being comfortable in my own house, in my own bed, on my own couch – I just really don’t need to add any more complication to getting comfortable. Thanks for the invite though.Connor doesn’t need any special food or drinks; he really eats normal food like anyone else most of the time, we just try to get healthy options into him during the day (random fruit, veggies, whatever.) He’s not on any special diet or anything though. Sleep is a precious commodity these days, so waking up earlier than 8ish to get him ready is always something I dread, so can Neil pick him up at around 9? Also, just because bedtime is really cruddy with both him and Gus running around, it would be good to have him home at around 7pm. I’ll send his backpack with jammies and whatever else he wants to bring, books/etc.I assume he needs his costume too, right?- Liz—–Original Message—–
From: Ann Beckman [mailto:abeckman@bbcu.org]
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 12:35 PM
To: Elizabeth Beckman
Subject: TomorrowThank you so much for letting Connor spend the day with us tomorrow. He and we are going to have so much fun. The only thing that would make it better is that you and Craig could come too. If you and your mom get done with your beauty day, try to come out we will be in Brighton- Bishop Lake Brighton Recreation. on Chilson road. I always love showing off my beautiful family. I will have my cell phone with me at all time, and will keep watch on Connor every second. He is going to be so busy. If there is anything special food or drink you want for him let me know, I will get it. It will most likely be hot dogs and burgers but I am having sloppy joes, chicken noodle soup and potatoe salad. I have organic choc and strawberry milk for Connor and juice and water. He will need a jacket and if you want me to put him in his pj’s before we bring him home give them to Neil. His bicycle and helmet. If you have any requests please let me know. We do not have the dogs, they are at the doggie hotel until Monday.Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!Love youAnn & Neil
So, I haven’t posted in a while (a week?), because it’s been a really busy week. Or two. Or more. I’ve been crazy at school and at home, with the deck and having dad at our house for a week and the warm weather and the pool opening – it’s been nuts! Our deck is finally finished though, and it’s pretty awesome. Now we need to buy some furniture to stick out there – I was thinking that maybe Connor and I would go to some garage sales on Saturday after soccer practice and look for cool strange pieces of furniture to stick out there. We need to find a cooler weekend, very soon, to actually water treat the deck, and after that, all we have to do is enjoy it. Thanks Dad, Craig, and (ahem) Neil!
Speaking of Neil, I once again have good reason to completely despise Craig’s parents. When Craig’s dad was here briefly to help out with the deck, I think I may have gone a little overboard with my hatred of him. I try as hard as I can to keep that kind of stuff from leaking onto the outside of me; I have been pretty good in the past at keeping up appearances while silently wishing plague on certain people.
On the first night Craig’s dad was in our house, I came home feeling feisty, so after hearing and seeing the way he was treating his own son, I addressed both him and my father on the couch about the situation. My dad wasn’t really doing anything wrong at all; he designed, planned, and built our deck – much of it single-handedly. So anything he was doing that could have normally bugged me was not bothering me at all, and I was happy to clean up after him, cook for him, get him water or tea or whatever. Craig’s dad, on the other hand, was asked to come to our house to help with CONNOR, not with the deck, and instead of doing what was requested of him, he went outside and chatted with my dad, acting like he was helping out. Craig ended up taking care of Connor, cooking food for all of the men, and once in a while being asked outside to do some heavy lifting or something that his own father couldn’t handle because he’s old and has had a stroke. In general, Craig was given little chance to do anything with the building of his own deck (initially, at least, but he made up for it later). I think his dad has little regard for his own son’s pride, only his own, so the old man let a young man feel like crap without thought of the consequences. AND Neil was leaving his shit around, not taking his shoes off, leaving his plate on the table and walking away, and making sexist and/or racist remarks about whatever he was seeing on the TV. I got fed up, and I told them that they better not treat Craig like he’s a little woman of the house (I tried as hard as I could to mostly direct this at Craig’s dad), and I expect that each “man” take care of his own crap; nobody was in our house for a vacation from doing what is required of them normally. Neil defended himself, acted like he’s such a good helper boy, and really ignored me. I hated him from that minute on, but I kept my mouth shut (to him, at least). I then started talking to my sisters – Carole especially, and started realizing that Neil’s not only shitty to his own son, but he’s really icky around me and my sisters! Long lingering kisses, and icky squeezy hugs that are inappropriate for a man to give a woman that is not intimately involved with him, so ESPECIALLY inappropriate for a man to give to his daughter-in-law or her sisters. ICK! So toward the end of his stay, his sexist comments, disgusting looks, comments about pregnancy or childrearing, and idiot remarks about building as if he knows anything about construction at all, really got to me. So, I told him! He said Ann wanted him to stay at our house to help build the deck, and I told him that I wanted him to go home! GEEZ! My dad didn’t even notice that my comment may have been rude, so I don’t think it was. I tried to say it in a joking manner, like Neil likes to say everything, and I felt a lot better after saying it. Then, two hours later, he actually did leave. I invited him and Ann over for Ashley’s birthday dinner, and he said they’d discuss it. Then he was gone. Whew!
Now I come to find out that he was really offended by my treatment of him, and he felt “unwelcome” in my house. Well he was unwelcome, but I had no choice but to let him come over because like I’ve said before, I couldn’t take an entire week off so that I could watch Connor while Craig and Dad built the deck. I was stuck with him being at my house, and he’s always been a jerk I didn’t really enjoy being around, but I have a knack for dealing with things that I don’t like. I do! I mean, look what I’ve been through in my life (ok, it’s generally been really pretty good, but not *easy*), and then tell me that you think I’m not a resilient person.
Then I find out that Ann is mad too, that we would be so callous and rude to her wonderful husband. WhatEVER. It’s so ridiculous how quickly she changes her mind about something just to bother me and Craig. She hates Neil. She says it all the time – in fact, I hate having the two of them over at the same time, because it’s all you can do to STOP from hearing her tell of her hatred for her husband. Now I have to feel badly for being a bitch to her asshole fucker of a husband? NO THANKS. I’m not apologizing, nor am I backing down. I’m fucking pregnant, and anything to set me off WILL set me off, and in this particular circumstance, it’s set me off for good. When Connor was born, and before he was born too in fact (I was reading an old journal entry the other day full of fury and hatred for them, and it was from about a month before Connor arrived), I bit my tongue and coped with having crappy in-laws. I prevented them from coming in the delivery room and for the most part got my way, and I enforced the “we’re not going to have you around 24/7″ rule when we finally got home. I actually upset them pretty good at that time too, because Ann was (of course) being pushy and bitchy and just GOT THE BEST OF ME, so I blew up at her. And I’ll do it again, I swear I will, they better just TEST me so that I get the chance to. UGH. Ranting ranting ranting.
I know they’re Craig’s parents, but I really would not be very upset if they didn’t exist in the human form anymore. I’d show my condolences for a loss of a human life, but I wouldn’t miss them much. It’s so EVIL, but it’s so true. I don’t even know HOW to stop myself from feeling this way toward them.
So the reason I’m writing this huge long ranting post is that now, apparently, Craig’s parents are insisting that we bring Connor out to some sure-to-be-backwards campground in mid-June, because they’re doing their first camp thing of the summer and they just NEED to have us there. No apologies, no recognition of the fact that I’m angry and frustrated and it’s THEM that’s causing this feeling. Or maybe it’s caused by them and pregnancy, but either way, fucking RECOGNIZE IT and try to do something about it! Not them. Not those fucking pride-filled assholes. And Craig wants me to GO! What they really want is for me to drop off my 3.5 year old beautiful son to be in the presence of their dangerous shit – every fucking time he’s left alone with them something happens that clearly would not have happened if he were with me. I’m not a protective parent, either – I let him climb stuff, jump off tall stairs, try hanging upside down, jump in the pool and go underwater – but I make sure he doesn’t touch the stove or play with knives or near fire. They don’t – they’re retarded, Ann’s often drunk, and Neil’s oblivious to EVERYTHING if it doesn’t directly affect him or what he’s doing.
So no, I’m not dropping off my kid. And no, I don’t want to go. And no, I don’t want to say “maybe”, because it’s not like between now and then they’re going to suddenly come to their senses and realize they’re selfish pricks that I don’t want to have anything to do with, ever. Ann’s the type of woman that I hate anyway, always concerned with the gossip in someone else’s life, too little concern with intelligence, politics, or world events. Too into jewelry and makeup and “products”, too little care with anything real, anything emotional, anything based in reality without the extras. Neil’s a pervert, and a sexist racist pig pervert at that. The world could do well with a lot less men like him in it.
I read today that a little stress in pregnancy is actually good for the growing fetus, but I’m not so sure a LOT of stress is any good for anyone.
