Messages By: tsalvis

My daughter is almost 5 and will be starting kindergarten in a few days.  She is a bundle of energy, to say the least.  I am at my wits end.  I can't take her anywhere!  My grandmother, mother and I go on these all day shopping trips.  She is usually very good.  She loves to shop!!  However, the last few times that I have taken her she has been terrible.  To the point that she will knock stacks of shoes over and take off running up and down the aisles.  I have tried everything.  She gets very upset when I tell her that I will have to leave her at home the next time we go.  I am very worried about what she will do in school.  We know her teacher real well (she is best friends with her daughter) and I am afraid that she will not look at her as a teacher.  I know that her teacher will know how to handle this but it really worries me.  What do I do?  Time outs don't work and there is nothing that she really enjoys that I can take away.  She will just move on to the next thing.  Help!!

My mother-in-law was wonderful before my husband and I got married.  We were together 6 years before we go married.  We have been married for 7 years.  After my son was born, she changed.  She even went so far as to give my husband's ex-girlfriend our phone number to ask him out to lunch!!  She will put what she wants for her birthday or Christmas in layaway and tell him to get it out because "he never gets her what she wants".  And she thinks that since she "raised" him (don't get me started on what type of mother she was), he owes her nice things now.  Even if it means canceling our vacations to pay for it.  He cooks for me, my mother and her on Mother's Day and she always cancels and makes him take her out to eat.  We have 2 children and we do okay financially and all of this would not be so bad, if she didn't EXPECT it. 

  

He doesn't give in to her as much as he used to and she does not come to our house.  She lives 2 miles from our house and only sees her grandchildren on holidays and birthdays.  However, my husbands brother and his wife and 2 children share a driveway with us and she goes to their house all the time.  She never calls unless she wants something.   

  

Her birthday is 4 days before our anniversary.  We never get to do anything nice for our anniverday because we are always doing something for her.  My husband always apologizes to me and I feel bad for him because she makes him feel horrible if he doesn't bend over backward for her.   

  

We built a house 2 years ago and the last time she was there she fussed at my husband because our landscaping wasn't finished yet.  I told her that he was doing the best that he could and that I was the one who had to look at it and I wasn't complaining and I would appreciate it if she would complain about it in my house.  If she puts him down in her house, I don't feel like I should say anything to her.  Then it is between her and him.  However, she will not come in my house and put him down.  That is my turf and I won't have it.  He is a wonderful husband and father.  She never says anything about that. 

  

How can I make her stop doing this to him and see that she has a wonderful son (she criticizes everythign he does) that she is losing because of how she is treating him? 

My MIL has succeeded once again at getting her way and making everyone around her miserable.  Every year we go to her house on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, which ever my husband is off.  He is a paramedic and usually has to work one or the other and he works 24hr. shifts.  This year, though, he was off both days.  We were excited because that meant that we wouldn't have to rush to see everyone.  We have always had Christmas with my family on Christmas Eve night at our house.  That is also when my brother-in-law and his wife do Christmas with her family, so that works great.  We don't have to work around 3 different schedules.  Well, my MIL lives in a trailer and it is very small and crowded.  There are 4 of us and 4 in my brother-in-law's family and 2 more with my MIL and her boyfriend.  within that number, there are 3 girls, aged 4, 5, and 9.  There is also 1 boy aged 6.  They can not go in any other room of the house except the living room, where there is no room.   They can't play becuase there is nothing for them to play with and the only thing her boyfriend will put the TV on is football.  So, they end up getting in trouble for trying to have fun.   

  

This year I asked my husband if he thought he would be awful to suggest to his mother that we do Christmas at either our house or his brother's house.  His brother's wife agreed.  My husband thought that was a great idea.  He suggested it to his mother and told her that way the kids could still play with their toys from Santa and we could all be together.  You would have thought that he had asked her to donate a kidney!!  She said that SHE had more presents to carry than anyone and why should SHE have to drag all those presents (most were gift cards, btw) to someone else's house.  Then, she wanted us at her house at 11 on Christmas Day.  Well, my husband, on his own this time, told her that he had both days off this year and he was not rushing anywhere.  If we got there at 11 fine, but that was Christmas morning and he wanted to spend that time with his family.   

  

She got very mad and did not call the house for over a week.  She also called my brother's wife, who I am very close to, and told her that she KNEW  that I was standing over my husband the whole time telling him he BETTER ask me to have it somewhere else.  She also told her that my husband said that he wanted to spend time with the kids, "like we don't see them everyday." 

  

So, we get to her house and not only are all 8 of us there, her boyfriend's daughter, her husband and her 2 small children are there.  Total, there were 14 people in this cramped little trailer!!!  And we had to open presents!!  It was total chaos!!  My husband says he has had it with having holidays with her there.  There is just not enough room. 

  

The problem is that it is not enough for her to just be with the family on holidays.  It has to be about her!  She has to be the one to do the cooking so that she can be the one to get the praise.  She will not even come to my house for a meal.  And very seldom will she come to my borther-in-law's.  I don't have a problem with her cooking at my house.  I just will not suffer through another holiday in that cramped trailer with everyone yelling at my children because they want to play!!  How do I handle this??  I think that my husband will stand behind any decision that I make.  He has had it too! 

If this woman was a woman who seriously cared about her grandkids, that would work.  However, she isn't.  My brother-in-law shares a driveway with us and she will go to his house and NEVER come 1/4 of a mile down the same driveway to see our kids or even call and say, "Hey, I'm out here, please bring the kids to see me."  She even went so far as to go to my BIL's house on my husband's birthday and did not even call my husband!!  She left his gift at BIL's house!!  It is just all about her.  I just hope that when I tell her (and I am going to!) that we will not be up there on holidays anymore that she doesn't hold it against my husband.  He says that it won't bother him, but she IS his mother and she is the only one that he has.  Unfortunately!  Does this make me a bad person?