Ugh.

Really. Just ugh.

My mother-in-law. Argh.

I'm still not verbal yet, apparently.

She called this morning to back out of babysitting the kids during Willem's birthday party. His overnight birthday party in Boston. So I have that to deal with.

Why, you ask?

She says that it's because the party is meant for his friends not family (DUH that's why I asked you NOT to attend it - that's why I asked you to babysit if you absolutely *had* to come out!), and because it being a week before Christmas and his actual birthday she'll just wait until then to come out. Fantastic.

But, as I found out soon enough, that's not the real reason. The real reason she won't come out is because she's mad at me for a post I made on Jacob's photos website:
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11/1/2005 - It's been two weeks, and I think my children are finally recovering from their recent bout of Post-Traumatic Grandma Syndrome. It was touch-and-go at times, but they're beginning to resemble MY children again instead of whiny, demanding, instant-gratification-hungry beasts.

And let me back up a second to say that this is NOT a rant against my mother-in-law! She did a great job taking them for the weekend, and I'm grateful - and the kids should be grateful, too, because it would have been miserable to spend the weekend in a cardboard box while mom and dad went away.
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And I went on from there, in the post. But apparently disclaimers mean nothing to her, and HER children never spent time away from her so they never had the opportunity to have difficulty adjusting. I got to listen to a full 15-minute rant (I timed it on my cell phone) about "I tried really hard to not buy them lots of things and to let them know that these are Grandma's rules and not Mom's rules and I tried not to spoil them and they didn't even know you were gone and it was great and now I can see that it messed them up for weeks and I should never spend time with them again."

Seriously.

I finally cut her off and said, "Listen, I'm really sorry you took it that way. It's not how it was intended. I don't have a single complaint about anything you did with the kids that weekend, and I've written a thank-you note and called to say thanks again and said it to your face before you left, all the time repeating how great it was that you took them and what a great job you did with them. If you can't hear that, I can't make you. I don't know of anyone, anywhere, who can have a fun vacation weekend and then not need some transition time at the end of it."

I feel bad that's she's so gosh-darn defensive, I really do. It must be a horrible way to live. But *I* did not make her that way, and I don't feel like it should be my job to stroke her ego and fix the defensiveness thing.

Oh I am so frustrated.

Plus she already invited herself here for Christmas and now she's thinking about "just stopping by" when we're at my mother's for Thanksgiving.

Three hours away.

UGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH.