Sent off with the Wolves

It's pretty sad that I feel that way about sending my children to spend time with my parents, but I do. They are just so manipulative. If you've been reading for a while you know that in the past I have had some serious boundary issues with my parents. They like to tell me how to raise my children and if they think I can afford to have another one and what not. There's also been some major favoritism going on. Natalie's their first grandchild and can do no wrong. Kaitlyn is nothing like Natalie and has been picked on for that for most of her life. I finally get it drilled into their heads that their constant criticism of Kaitlyn is just wrong and hurtful, but now here's CJ. So they are finally a little more accepting of Kaitlyn, but they can't love CJ because they don't know him. Their words not mine. That's what they told me when I invited them to CJ's 1st birthday last year. They weren't going to come because of that.

CJ had gone through a long stranger anxiety stage. Much like my other two children. It took him a while to warm up to anyone he saw on a regular basis and even longer for those he rarely saw at all. He's still stand offish around people he doesn't know very well. All part of being a one year old though. All normal development. And in spite of being through this twice before with their own children and then again with my two older children they still seem to not understand why CJ runs to me when they are around and needs a little time to get used to them.

So instead of trying to build a relationship with him anytime they want to see the children it's the two older girls. And it's not just a day they want with them it's an entire weekend once a month they want with them. And one overnight is not good enough for them, no it has to be Friday all the way until Sunday. And if I offer pick them up Friday night and bring them home late Saturday night they won't take them at all. It's all or nothing. I cannot get them to see that one this is just too much for them especially once a month during the school year and two that they have another grandchild they are ignoring here. So most recently during an argument about this I kept asking them why can't you ever make a plan once a month to come see all of your grandchildren? Why does it have to be a whole weekend with just the girls once a month? Lots of lame excuses and turning it around on me of course and then my mom comes up with well okay if we take the girls some weekend and bring them home early on Sunday to spend time with you and CJ will that work. Okay, it's a start. Yes, we can do that. So we plan the weekend.

It just so happened to be this weekend. It was the only one that worked for both of us. I did get an invite after I agreed to this to a very good friend of Natalie's birthday party, but she hesitantly chose grandma and grandpas. And not because it was more fun, but because it was more time. But the girls were very excited about this. No time frame was given at the time. My mom called up Thursday night to let me know they shouldn't be here to get them Friday night any later than 6. I was not pleased with the timing because that's dinner time and while they were taking the girls out to dinner I still had to worry about the 3 of us left behind. But what can I do? So Friday they called up around 4:30 and said they were on their way. It's an hour away so they would be there sooner than I had anticipated which was nice. They came and were less than supportive of Joe and my instructions to the girls of only bringing two toys each with them. But we got through and got them packed the way we had wanted them. Then my mom says to me so we'll bring them home at 5 on Sunday okay? What? No back this train up. That's not what we agreed on. I said, "No, I thought you were bringing them home early so you could spend time with me and CJ."

My mom says, "I meant we would plan another day we could come up to spend with you." Then she proceeds to try to make plans with me on a weekend that does not work for me. My polite suggestions of hey that might not be the best weekend because I have this to do and that to do were not getting through. And now it seems she has invited herself to a parade that the rest of us (me, Joe and the kids) will be walking around selling popcorn for. And then our sweaty, tired, popcorn smelling bodies have to come home and entertain them. Really not what I want to do that day.

But they are bustling the children out the door and saying well we'll see you at 5 on Sunday then. Okay, well are you staying for dinner? No, that's okay I don't want you to have to cook for us. Ugh, yeah and when exactly am I going to cook for everyone else when you come with my hyper hopped up on sugar children at dinner time to my house and stay for an hour until you are hungry enough to go out to a restaurant for your own dinner leaving me with these sobbing over tired children that don't want to see you go? Then I have to feed them something, calm them down, unpack them, get them showered, and in bed for a school day the next day. Yeah, this just is hugely inconvenient for me. But hey, as long as they are not inconvenienced by only getting 24 hours time with them instead of 48 hours time. And so long as they don't have to spend any real quality time with their only grandson who they don't know. I'm so glad this all works out so well for them.