Dinner with the outlaws...

It was already a hard day for me.

After school Abs dropped her beloved frog cup from my mom. She cried for an hour over her froggie. It is not repairable.

Then the girls went to Girl Scouts and Junior and I hung out for a bit and then Gunner called. He was so tired he didn't make much sense. Poor guy. He was sad and a little depressed. He spent 15 months at home which was great and more than we thought we were going to get originally, but he had 15 months there till he could come back to us. He's a firm believer in the mission and their progress, but I think it was just a hard day for him as well.

Then I got the girls and we met the outlaws and Erin at TGI Fridays for dinner. Abs was in one of her moods so I already knew it was going to be a hard meal.

I won't even get into the little things that happened, but Erin now knows what I was talking about when I said my inlaws were freaks. I was holding Tucker and Abs was under the table. When I realized what was going on, I handed Tucker back to his mom and grabbed Abs out from under the table. I went to take her outside and my MIL grabbed my arm and said she wanted to talk to her and calm Abs down. I flung it (her arm) away. I took Abs outside and spoke to her and put her in time out. We were outside of the restaurant and there is constant traffic so I wasn't about to leave her side. My MIL came out and started rubbing my arm and telling me in front of Abs that I was being too hard on her. She acted up and I took her out of the situation to have her regain control. That's wrong????? Then she told me that I wasn't being nice to her and while Abs was spouting off stuff and crying, my MIL went over and told her that if she behaved she could have dessert. I told my MIL and Abs that was not going to happen. Abs lost dessert already when we were inside and she was playing Helen Keller and grabbing food off of Em's plate. My MIL kept in on me and kept talking to Abs while she was in time out. If she wanted to voice her opinions she could have done it somewhere else when I had time, not in front of my child, I wasn't going to go that route. I kept my mouth shut but I was furious.

Abs finally was calm and we went back in. The waitress came and I ordered dessert for Em and Junior. Erin and I split something and my inlaws, who never order dessert, ordered one that Abs likes. Erin asked me if I thought they would let her have it, and I knew they would. I made it clear to Abs that she was not to have any dessert, taste any dessert or lick any spoons, and made sure my inlaws heard me. They didn't let her have any thank goodness or I would have lost it.

My MIL was talking about Tucker and Junior and asked which one she was going to take home. I was already upset (trust me there was tons more that happened) and told her she didn't get either of them. Then Abs came up about something else and my MIL told me "Abs is NOT bad and I shouldn't say that." I about flipped! I never said that, I would never say that as I don't care how much of a handful a child is, they are NEVER bad. Their behavior might be less than desirable, but never the child. I said "I NEVER said she was bad." I was furious that she said it at all, much less in front of my children. I held Tucker and started to cry, but tried to keep it in before I really lost it.

My MIL then told me that she would have different hours at work soon so she would take the kids so I didn't have to deal with them. They go to school, I don't need them taken care of by someone else. I am not on the verge of "losing it". I am not a bad mother. I am not unhappy or wanting to pass my children off to anyone. I love them with all my heart. Abs was having a rough day and we were dealing with it. She wasn't getting beaten, I wasn't hurting her, I wasn't being mean or rude to her.

Then we go out to the car and I realize that Junior has pooped. I told them that I needed to change his diaper. She (my MIL) told me he just dropped ice cream on his pants. I informed her that he had pooped and she insisted that it was ice cream. I looked in his diaper, Erin was there and saw too, he had exploded. But what do I know, I am just his mother and primary caregiver.

I could go on and on about all the crappy things that were said and done tonight by them. I was actually kind of glad that Erin was there, although embarrassed, so that someone could see how they are and what they do.

I came home and called my mom and started crying. I missed my Dad. I missed my husband. I was disgusted with the behavior of my inlaws. My mom was relieved when Erin called and told me she was coming over. I don't know what I did to deserve such a great, understanding, caring, thoughtful, outrageous, funny, friend. Thank you Erin for being such a friend and for sitting through the dinner from hell with me and making me see that it isn't me, that they (the inlaws) are truly strange and inconsiderate people.

Neighbors

When we lived in Germany, we had awful neighbors, three sets of them. I was pleasant to them in the beginning, but once I enrolled in school to get my MBA the remarks started flying. DH and I were just married and I had just finished up my bachelor's about a year earlier. We had no children and I was not working, so it seemed like the logical next step. Then I got an internship with the State of Florida in Frankfurt. So not only was I going to school, I was working for free. My neighbors made comments to me about how "your parents should have taught you how to keep house and raise children," "why would you waste your husband's money on something like school and who would be stupid enough to work for free?". The list was endless and they just got downright nasty. I hated stairwell living and learned to ignore them. (I did have one set of neighbors that we were friends with and were normal, lol)

Anyway, I continued working for free and going to school and then eventually I got a job with the American Consulate in Frankfurt and worked for them well over a year while I finished up graduate school and then had our first child. Stairwell living was our first experience living on post and I hated it.

When we moved back to the States we went to Fort Lewis where after 8 months we qualified for on post housing. I dreaded the thought of being in such close proximity of all those other people. We kept to ourselves and I was back at work after staying home a few years and we were plugging away staying busy. During this time our next door neighbor got in a fight and the cops had to be called because his "buddy" pulled a gun as was threatening to shoot because they were drunk and a window on the car got broken. They moved out and the other neighbors moved out and then Megan and Mark moved in. For almost a year I refused to talk to them or acknowledge them for fear they would lead to turmoil. Eventually I broke down and talked to them and they were wonderful! For the next year and a half Megan and I had the time of our lives taking Thai cooking classes, playing games, traveling with our families to Canada, meeting each other's parents and more. When she left we both cried. We are still halfway across the country from each other but we talk regularly and provide support for each other as we survive deployments and face being a single parent while supporting our Soldier.

I need a Megan here. Instead I have what I refer to as "the freaks". Thankfully though, a moving van came today and the "freaks" are headed to a new adventure and thankfully it is one that does not include living next door to me. I will breathe a sigh of relief that I do not have to worry about my car being boxed in, used condoms being thrown in my yard, their dogs running loose, strange men coming and going at all times of the night while her husband is deployed, etc. (Never mind that my husband found their two year old little girl wandering the street at 7 am in a diaper and a tshirt while it was cold and rainy while trying to see into a storm drain. DH picked her up and went to go to his car to find his cell and call 911 when she pointed to her house and he went up there and knocked and gave her back.) Anyway, I know the end is in sight and these people will soon be out of the way and making someone else's life miserable.

Let's hope the next one works out better.....