I have had an account on here that was regarding my ILs, but it was an old email and an old password, and I have a one, two, and three year old and that part of my brain is fried. Sorry.
This is really about my FOO anyway. I stay at home with our kids and he works. We just took our first vacation to visit my family, who live 1300 miles away. We drove there. It was hell (one kid puked ten miles into the trip, and it just sort of continued on like that). So it was a huge amount of effort and a huge undertaking for us, and me in particular. My younger sister lives there with her boyfriend, and my younger brother lives there with my parents. My parents and brother are heavy drinkers (probably alcoholics, in all honesty). I knew this going in and anytime the bottles would come out, we would leave to go do something. My mom was intent on getting my husband home separately and paid for him to fly back last Thursday so he could be home in time to work. Prior to that, we had a really great trip and it was fun getting to do stuff and see people we hadn't seen in a long time.
Friday we were getting dinner and my mom started going after my husband, basically bashing him for an hour, with a sprinkling of criticizing my parenting thrown in for good measure. I cut it off and tried to continue on with the evening. We headed to an outdoor concert, where we set up a blanket and I left the kids with them to get some snacks. When I headed back, I saw my three year old playing way too rough with my one year old, so I told her that we do not play that way. There was a lot going on and she wasn't listening, so I pulled her over to have eye contact with me, and reiterated it, and told her if she couldn't play nice we would be going home. My brother overheard me and started muttering about how I was being too hard on my 3 yo and just criticizing everything I was doing. I said, "Do not tell me how to parent my own child." He got angry and stomped off.
He later returned and I tried to apologize for being short with him. He ignored me. We got ready to leave and he started pulling the wagon. My daughter wanted to pull it and I let her, since obviously she had some extra energy she needed to get out. Side note: she has not been diagnosed, but she has a probable case of SPD and we implement "heavy work" with her often. It helps calm her and helps her focus. My brother didn't know this, because it is none of his business. He tried to take over pulling the wagon and I told him to just let her pull it, resulting in a litany of p/a comments the entire way back to the car. When we arrived at the car, he decided to walk home, and my mother decided to join him. Backstory: bro has never known how to feel because mom tells him how to feel, feels it for him, and then tells him how to act. It is so emotionally incestuous it's disgusting.
The next morning, mom wakes up early to go to a hot air balloon festival with us. My kids were really too tired to go, but still wanted to, so I woke them up and we went. On the way back to the car, my middle daughter was having a meltdown and I was sweaty, out of breath, and frustrated. My mom, who was holding both my older girls' hands, started to walk the wrong way in the parking lot. I told her to stop. We got back to the car, I changed diapers, got all the girls buckled in, and got in. My mom, who had not helped get them in the car at all, turned to me and said, "I am your mother. You will not speak to me like that. If you were ten I would spank you and send you to your room." This totally blindsided me, since I didn't even know I had done anything wrong or that she was upset. In retrospect, she was looking for a way to be angry with me so that she could emote for my brother. We argued a bit and I asked her to stop talking to me, so she started making p/a comments about me to my kids. I saw red and told her she was not to speak to my children. She got out of the car at a stop sign and said she would walk home. The girls and I proceeded to follow our plan of going to the local art fair and farmer's market. I used the opportunity to call my husband and tell him I wanted to come home. The plan had been for me to stay another week and then mom was going to drive with me and then fly back to her home.
When I returned to her house with the kids, she rug swept. I got the girls lunch, and then packed. She enlisted my little brother to say he was sorry and would drop it, and called my little sister to come over and guilt me. She then alternated between asking me to stay and haranguing me. My brother told me never to speak to him again. When my laundry was done, I packed the last load in the car and loaded the girls in, and left. I emailed her when we stopped for the night to tell her we were safe. Then I emailed her to tell her that we had made it home safe. She is not answering her phone, and I know I made a mistake in reaching out to her.
So today, my daughter starts telling me that she loves me, but she doesn't like me. This is something my mother says to me all the time, and has since I was a young child. I asked her where she learned it and after a few other questions, it came out that my bitch of a mom actually said this to my sweet child while I was packing. So, I don't give a shit if I ever hear from her again or not. This post is mostly to provide me with some feedback and support and because I know you guys relate, and I have a feeling that I will need a record of how things have gone so I don't cave later.
Also, I know not everything I did was DWIL approved, but it's done now, so if you want to criticize, go ahead, but there is nothing to be done for it now.
This is really about my FOO anyway. I stay at home with our kids and he works. We just took our first vacation to visit my family, who live 1300 miles away. We drove there. It was hell (one kid puked ten miles into the trip, and it just sort of continued on like that). So it was a huge amount of effort and a huge undertaking for us, and me in particular. My younger sister lives there with her boyfriend, and my younger brother lives there with my parents. My parents and brother are heavy drinkers (probably alcoholics, in all honesty). I knew this going in and anytime the bottles would come out, we would leave to go do something. My mom was intent on getting my husband home separately and paid for him to fly back last Thursday so he could be home in time to work. Prior to that, we had a really great trip and it was fun getting to do stuff and see people we hadn't seen in a long time.
Friday we were getting dinner and my mom started going after my husband, basically bashing him for an hour, with a sprinkling of criticizing my parenting thrown in for good measure. I cut it off and tried to continue on with the evening. We headed to an outdoor concert, where we set up a blanket and I left the kids with them to get some snacks. When I headed back, I saw my three year old playing way too rough with my one year old, so I told her that we do not play that way. There was a lot going on and she wasn't listening, so I pulled her over to have eye contact with me, and reiterated it, and told her if she couldn't play nice we would be going home. My brother overheard me and started muttering about how I was being too hard on my 3 yo and just criticizing everything I was doing. I said, "Do not tell me how to parent my own child." He got angry and stomped off.
He later returned and I tried to apologize for being short with him. He ignored me. We got ready to leave and he started pulling the wagon. My daughter wanted to pull it and I let her, since obviously she had some extra energy she needed to get out. Side note: she has not been diagnosed, but she has a probable case of SPD and we implement "heavy work" with her often. It helps calm her and helps her focus. My brother didn't know this, because it is none of his business. He tried to take over pulling the wagon and I told him to just let her pull it, resulting in a litany of p/a comments the entire way back to the car. When we arrived at the car, he decided to walk home, and my mother decided to join him. Backstory: bro has never known how to feel because mom tells him how to feel, feels it for him, and then tells him how to act. It is so emotionally incestuous it's disgusting.
The next morning, mom wakes up early to go to a hot air balloon festival with us. My kids were really too tired to go, but still wanted to, so I woke them up and we went. On the way back to the car, my middle daughter was having a meltdown and I was sweaty, out of breath, and frustrated. My mom, who was holding both my older girls' hands, started to walk the wrong way in the parking lot. I told her to stop. We got back to the car, I changed diapers, got all the girls buckled in, and got in. My mom, who had not helped get them in the car at all, turned to me and said, "I am your mother. You will not speak to me like that. If you were ten I would spank you and send you to your room." This totally blindsided me, since I didn't even know I had done anything wrong or that she was upset. In retrospect, she was looking for a way to be angry with me so that she could emote for my brother. We argued a bit and I asked her to stop talking to me, so she started making p/a comments about me to my kids. I saw red and told her she was not to speak to my children. She got out of the car at a stop sign and said she would walk home. The girls and I proceeded to follow our plan of going to the local art fair and farmer's market. I used the opportunity to call my husband and tell him I wanted to come home. The plan had been for me to stay another week and then mom was going to drive with me and then fly back to her home.
When I returned to her house with the kids, she rug swept. I got the girls lunch, and then packed. She enlisted my little brother to say he was sorry and would drop it, and called my little sister to come over and guilt me. She then alternated between asking me to stay and haranguing me. My brother told me never to speak to him again. When my laundry was done, I packed the last load in the car and loaded the girls in, and left. I emailed her when we stopped for the night to tell her we were safe. Then I emailed her to tell her that we had made it home safe. She is not answering her phone, and I know I made a mistake in reaching out to her.
So today, my daughter starts telling me that she loves me, but she doesn't like me. This is something my mother says to me all the time, and has since I was a young child. I asked her where she learned it and after a few other questions, it came out that my bitch of a mom actually said this to my sweet child while I was packing. So, I don't give a shit if I ever hear from her again or not. This post is mostly to provide me with some feedback and support and because I know you guys relate, and I have a feeling that I will need a record of how things have gone so I don't cave later.
Also, I know not everything I did was DWIL approved, but it's done now, so if you want to criticize, go ahead, but there is nothing to be done for it now.