Good Times

Thanksgiving this year was a treat. My brother hosted, so our drive was a whopping seven minutes (14 roundtrip)--and of course we were the last ones there, because DH needed to work (and was angry with me because his brother and mom are coming today and I found something else to do besides cleaning yesterday).

I bit my tongue. After all, he has to work whenever my family (as rare as that is) comes over and leaves all the cooking AND cleaning to me. Forgive me for wanting to share the love.

Back to Thursday. The boys did fine until dessert, and I had gotten a little too comfortable, or else I would have been guarding the dessert table. (Is there an apt war metaphor for this situation? Thinking not) So Nic, fortified with brownies and pie (really, sugar and this kid are not friends) began to make a complete nuisance of himself.

Which is a shame because those last impressions are the ones people remember--not the good behavior that preceded it.

Anyway.

Outside of the last 45 minutes it was a good time.

I always get strung up here because logic dictates you leave when the kids get like this. But Nic's goal was to get us to leave, so you don't want to reward that behavior, either. But people don't often get that.

So I took some me time and had my aquatics class--ahhhhh. And Andy let me have it when I got back.

So BIL and wife and dog PLUS MIL will be here this pm. MIL will stay here until Thursday. Thankfully, we'll be going to camp next weekend, so that will be a forced ending to her stay (else she might linger another week, or two, until she decides she needs to go back to her apartment).

I might be a little more patient if she weren't JUST HERE a few weeks ago....for almost two weeks...

I just gave the boys the speech that Nonna is coming and we will do things a little differently while she's here. They are both old enough to get that there's a lot of tension when she's here, and they love me enough to work with me. And they know that working with me allows Nonna to be here (they love her, too) so they do well.

No empathy, my eye.

I think what I resent the most about these incursions is that her presence forces us to do a lot of things differently. I find it's easier to re-route our lives than to try to explain to her why we do what we do.

But I resent having to. And I know regardless that she is going to run back to BIL, wife, niece with all these stories about what a horrible homemaker I am.

I hate the whole business. I really do.

And now for my moment of Zen: