I am experiencing a freaking rerun of my life with the visit of my MIL. The game, the undermining, the personal agenda, the manipulation. It is tiring and I've not even spent more than a couple of hours with her. Since she stepped in our door, she has spent a total of 2 seconds acknowledging her grandson and the rest of her free time working on getting to know the dog. That is her priority. Not surprising. Every question is potential opportunity to insert her agenda. For example, I asked her tonight "what would you like to do tomorrow." She answered "whatever you want. Why? are you taking time off." I said no in response. Every effort to guilt me but this time, it didn't work. In the past, I probably would have taken some time off but this time - NO WAY! When she arrived, we had mention a couple of things that we had in mind that we knew she would appreciate but because she needed to have the final say, she dismissed every one of them. It's annoying that after she huffed our ideas and then turned around and said "whatever you want."

What was I thinking when I thought of taking my son to meet my mother? Seeing my MIL ignoring my son gives me another wake up call that my own mother would have treated him with the same disregard. The first day my MIL arrived, she raised all of our expectations by saying that she had a gift for everyone, even the dog. As soon as we got home, I hurried my son to get him ready and seeing that my MIL was unpacking gifts, it was natural for me to assume that the little guy will get his gift. So, that's what I said to him. Not only did she not give him his gift, she gave me my gift and gets annoyed with my 3 year old when he wants to help open "our present." She then said that my son would only get his gift the following day even though he looked at her in anticipation for a gift. How cruel. Not only did my son not get his gift the following day, she just handed it to my husband.  Today, she got annoyed with the baby when the dog's gift on the counter caught his attention. She refused to let him even touch the bone and hurried us to get him his gift so that he wouldn't mess with the dog's toy. She should win the grandmother of the year award.

And then the tears. Oh boy - did they come pouring down. How she's depressed. How she missed her dog. How she missed the dog more than her husband because "he did things to her." - whatever! He should win award for putting up with her. How she didn't want to have another dog because she wanted to spend time with us. Seriously, words without action is like an empty vessel. Time and time again, she does not have our best interest at heart.  If she really wanted to spend time with us, she would have checked to see when is the best time for her visit. She would have at the very least, stayed over the weekend. She is retired, no reason for her to come for only 3 days in the middle of the week while expecting us to use all our vacation time to serve her. absolutely unreasonable.

tick tock, tick tock..... 2 more days before her departure. Lord have mercy!