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Mentally exhausting visit
2005-07-25, 2:15 p.m.

Well, I started this earlier today, but by the grace of internet pop-up ads, I got confused and accidentally closed the page before posting. That was frustrating, let me tell you.
At any rate, I'm going to try to stick to the topic since I think I went askew when I was writing earlier anyway.

It has begun...

Yesterday we took Jack to visit my in-laws. As it happened, my sister-in-law, Nikki (again, not to be confused with friend-Nikki whom I refer to from time to time here), and the 3 nieces were still there. In a sense, it was a relief to get the first visit over with. Now the 4 of them have met the baby and I don't have to feel too bad about keeping him away (I hope) until he's a bit bigger and stronger. Up until yesterday I was worried that maybe the nieces might do something to hurt or scare him just out of ignorance of being kids coupled with their usual lack of discipline and doing something they were told not to. As far as Nikki goes, I was maybe a little worried about her and Jack out of some negligence on her part since her parenting philosophies are so lax, but I figured as long as she wasn't left alone with him, no problem. Now, I'm a little concerned that she has some spite for the baby, as I already have known for sometime that she holds some un-called-for spite against me.
The first thing that was getting under my skin was that in seeing Jack for the first time and hearing about how our last 4 or so weeks have gone, we weren't allowed to have anything special or unique unto our baby. Everything was "...Oh, that's just like Melina." or "I had it way worse with Shawnee..." or "You did that when you were a baby, didn't you..." She wasn't doing it in a way to be supportive or to offer advice, it was all done in a way that seemed like all she wanted to do was steal our thunder and make Jack un-special.
Then, a bit later, after a little episode that irked me about who would be changing Jack's wet diaper, Jeff disappeared into the other room to take care of the diaper and next thing I know Shawnee is walking down the hallway carrying Jack. I was beyond hot at that point. I was quite ready to freak out. Jeff and I talked, at GREAT length, during the pregnancy about what the rules were going to be regarding the nieces and Jack. Cheyenne and Melina are too small and Shawnee is too immature, and none of them have any experience with brand-new infants, for any of the three of them to be carrying around the baby. The rule was supposed to be that if anyone was going to hold him they would do so SITTING DOWN and don't you dare think about moving from your seat. Through my rage, I gave Jeff my most intense I'm-confused-about-what-is-happening-here-so-you-better-have-a-damn-good-explanation look. When he gets over to me he shrugs and says, "There was nothing I could do." That was the exact wrong answer at that moment. Bullshit. A very, very simple concept that he has failed to grasp with those girls is that he is the adult and they are not and he can say, "no" to them and mean it. It infuriates me. To my relief and delight, all three of my in-laws nearly soiled themselves also at the sight of Shawnee carrying the baby.
There were also some snide comments made by Nikki about everyone fussing over the baby too much, but that wasn't the highlight of my evening. She actually took a shot at me, right there in front of God and everyone. Unfortunately, I was the only one who seemed to pick up on it. Jeff didn't hear and if the in-laws heard, they ignored it. My father-in-law was saying something about how the nieces can't wait to get Jack into the swimming pool when he is older (all I can say is that I hope that once Jack is big enough to really run around and play outside that the girls will be your average adolescents and too busy with their own lives to care. I somehow doubt it though). Anyway, and Nikki found her opportunity: "Oh, he'll probably be so sheltered that he won't know what to do," she says. That was directed at me, for sure. Hmmm, no... I wouldn't expect her to feel any obligation toward her children to protect them or teach them anything or really in any way be a mother to them at all. In 13 and 11 and 8 years, she's certainly shown that. I'm still actually really, really angry about her general conduct and extreme standoffishness toward me and toward the baby yesterday. More than that, I'm worried about Jack. I hesitate to think that she would do anything to hurt him outright, but I do think that she would be mentally abusive to him later, once he's old enough to understand, and just, in general, I am not comfortable having someone so hostile (whether it's more toward me or toward him or both of us) around my son. It's the same reason that I'm glad my ex-stepfather is out of the picture. I was horrified at the thought of having someone so angry and hateful and dangerous be a part of my child/future children's lives. When I told Jeff, he was angry too. I told him that she gets that one for free, because she caught me off guard (I knew this would happen, I just didn't figure on it being so soon) and also out of respect for his parents being in their home. However, next time I'm not going to try to hold back. I don't want her to get the idea that she's going to be able to beat me up for the rest of our lives and I certainly have the ammo to fire back. I have a good 8 years worth of frustration and angst that I've been saving up (well, I think we were okay for a while there in the beginning, but at least 5 years of ammo saved up).
So angry...........

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