MIA soon - :-(

Hillbilly Housewife wrote: Well... looks like DH planned a *fun filled* road triup to see his grandmother...

yi-freakin-pee.

I'll see yo uall probably Tuesday....but I'll try to check in at the next computer I see!! lol!!

Take care all!

MommyToAshley replied: Awweeee! We will miss you! I was just thinking that I hadn't seen you on today. I thought you might actually be working *gasp!*

Try to have fun on the roadtrip and we will try to survive until Tuesday without ya. Or, maybe you can sneak on the computer there???

Kaitlin'smom replied: We will miss you! I hope you can sneek on here and there! If not we will see you on tuesday!

hurry back. I hope you have some fun while gone.

MommyToAshley replied: Are you back yet??? We miss you!!!!!

jdkjd replied: Yay! You're back!

MommyToAshley replied: YEAH!

It just hasn't been the same without ya!

Kaitlin'smom replied: so do I ask How was the trip?

Hillbilly Housewife replied: Weeellll....... the trip started out ok. When we told the inlaws that we were heading out to see some family in Quebec, they said "oh what a great idea!" and decided to tag along. They strongly suggested (basically ordered us) that we all sit in their van instead of taking 2 cars, since we were going to the same place after all..... um....no.

We ended up taking our own car, rather than sit in the inlaws van ( ) so that we could come and go as we wanted. Friday, DH told me everywhere that he wanted to go, and told me all the people he wanted to go visit. So for 4 days, we were to visit a total of 8 families. We also AGREED that we were going to spend nights in motels, to avoid having Zach wake up the household in the middle of the night, as well as for the fact that we could enjoy SOME time to ourselves. Not to mention that we wouldn<t have to feel bad about showering at night or in the morning, when we wanted, have what we wanted for breakfast, etc etc...

HOWEVER.....DH's MOM is a royal pain in my butt.

She actually bothered to type up an itinerary for DH and I to follow, and gave it to us before we left. She apparently called, behind our backs, several other family members to let them know that we would be visiting them at a certain time on a certain day. She told us it was very important that we visit ALL the family members, as opposed to the 8 families we agreed on, so that no-one felt left out. We told her we had already made the plans, and she threw a fit.

Oh how I hate that woman. They actually followed us, in their van, from Ottawa to Quebec, to the first aunt's house, where WE decided we were going to go. When we got out of the car, in the aunt's driveway, the van parked behind us, and MIL gets out of the car, yelling that we weren't following the sheet she gave us, and that we were going to screw up HER weekend.



We tried to ignore her, and rang the doorbell. Of course, when the aunt answered, she saw her sister, and so we ALL went in the house. 10 minutes later, MIL grabs Zach and starts dressing him. I asked her what she was doing, and she says:

"Well if you aren't going to take Zach to see everyone, I WILL." So I look at DH, and he gets up and takes Zach right out of MIL's arms, and tells her flat out:

"Mom, we didn't ask you to impose yourself on OUR trip. Bugger off."

Of course she gets all upset, and demands of her DH to "take her home". They live 4 hours away... ha! As if he<s going to drive home when they just got into town.

So she quiets down, we have lunch, then we decide to leave, and go on to the next family member's house. MIL and FIL once again get in their van, and FOLLOW us all the way there. Same scene again. We get inside, and MIL actually starts to go through her sheet, and calls everyone on the list that SHE made for us, telling everyone that we refused to go visit them, because we didn't think they were important, and so they wouldn't be visiting either, because they had to follow us with their van to make sure everything was ok.

(A little sidenote: Everyone on OUR list live in the same town. Everyone on her list, well, the closest one to where we were is 3 hours away, and the next one down is an hour after that.)

So after that incident, I take out my cell phone, and DH and I call each of the peopl on our copy of her list, telling them that we took 2 weeks off work in a month, to specifically go out further into Quebec to go see other family that we missed this time around. We explained to them that we hadn't pre-planned this trip, and that MIL decided to tag along without being invited, and we were sorry for having dissapointed them, but that MIL really should have checked with us before assuming we would be iwlling to be dragged all over the place as if we were the trophy. Or rather, so she could show off Zach, or as she calls him "her baby".

Kaitlin'smom replied: well I am sorry to hard that it was not going as you and your dh wanted. I am glad to hear that your dh stood up to his mom........

I hate when *family* think you have to do what they want!

CantWait replied: Sorry to hear MIL is being such a ummmmm awwwwww well you know what I mean. Glad that dh stood up to her though.

Hope the rest of your trip went fairly well.

Hillbilly Housewife replied: Next, we head off to finally see his grandmother, where we had agreed we'd spend a lot more time there, because she is getting older, and is ill. She moved into an old age home last year, but one of those fancy ones where in the room there's a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen...not JUST a bedroom.

MIL and FIL once again, tag along, but now MIL is FUMING because we humiliated her to her family. Oh how I hate that woman. I don't think I can say that enough.

Albeit MIL's sour attitude the ENTIRE evening, we decided to leave around 9pm. Zach was getting tired, and I could use a hot bath, etc... so we start getting dressed to leave, and MIL asks us who's house we were going to spend the night. We tell her that we called ahead and made ourselves reservations in a small bed & breakfast nearby, and that's where we were going. So we get in our car, and leave. We get there, and MIL and FIL had followed us to the bed & breakfast. We go in, and the owner greets us. We tell her who we are, and she says that yes, our room is ready, and starts telling us what kind of things she serves for breakfast, and to let her know what we'd like when we got up. MIL and FIL barge in, and demand to have a room. Luckily, the bed & breakfast only had 4 rooms, and THEY WERE ALL TAKEN!!! Bwah ha haaa!!! The look on MIL's face was PRICELESS!! So she says: "Oh that's ok, we'll sleep in the same room as them."

I said: "Excuse me?" so she looks at DH and says "you don't have a problme with your mom sleeping in your room, do you honey?"

He says "YES, I DO!!!! We didn't ASK you to come on this d@^n trip, so leave us alone already! You've been following us around all fu**ing day, give it up! Go home!"

MIL was SOOOO ticked off....she grabbed FIL's arm and goes outside. So we had a calm night alone. The next day, Saturday, we go back to the grandmother's house to spend a few hours before visiting someone else, and we get there only to find that MIL and FIL went back there after the scene at the B & B, and slept on the floor in the living room, on a paper thin foam mattress, a blanket and a pillow between the 2 of them. Guess who got the pillow?! Hmmm! ( )

Well wouldn't you know it...that morning, before we got there, MIL called all the family members who lived in the town, and organized a big late lunch at one of their houses, where everyone would be there. DH's Grandmother thought it was such a wonderful idea (of course she didn't konw the motive behind it) that everyone would be together for a couple fo hours.

Well...in MIL's twisted mind, since everyone was together for a couple of hours, it meant that we didn't have to take a couple hours to go see all of them individually, and that way, we could take the remaining 2 days and got visit HER list.

What we decided to do was this - after the lunch, we stuck around for a couple hours, then everyone started leaving to go back home after a nice visit. We thanked DH's grandmother for being so kind to us, and told her that now it was time for us to head home, since our visit went by so quickly, and we saw everyone we came here to see, and that maybe we'd take the 2 extra days to just RE-LAAAAAAX!! So, we packed up, and started to leave. MIL runs outside and starts screaming that we are ungrateful, and that I am a little tramp, and that her some was too good to me, and that she would take my son some day to see who his real family is...we just tuned her out and started on our way home. When we got out of sight, we turned onto a side road, and did a couple more side streets, then we turned into a coffee shop. DH and I (and Zach of course) went inside to eat donuts, drink coffee, and had a long 2 hour talk about MIL's increasingly psychotic behaviour. DH didn't see it much before , but after this weekend, boy is he ever willing to work with me on this.

So after the 2 hour talk, we decided it's finally time to really go home. MIL and FIL were 2 hours ahead of us, and we didn't have to have them behind us all the way again, and we cvould take as much time as we wanted. Halfway there, we think of my dad - he's only an hour away from where we live, and we haven't seen him since January, so why not? It's only dinner time, they eat early, we'll be ther just after dishes are done! So I whip out my cell phone, and call my dad - I let him know where we were, and if it was ok if we stopped in - he says Sure! Come on down! Stay the night! We'll rent a movie or 2! Have some popcorn!

So great! We take the next exit to Petawawa, and head out to see my dad, have a wonderful rest of weekend, relaxation, movies, popcorn, laughter, cards, my dad's friends came over and had a beer.... it was nice!

When we got home last night, my neighbour comes over. He said that DH's parents came over around 7 on Saturday (around the time they would have gotten home - they live 5 minutes away from us) and MIL started banging on the door, yelling for about 15 minutes, yelling things like I KNOW you're home...where did you hide you car your coward,...come and face your mother.... just plain strange stuff! He said he was afraid to go outside!!!

So DH calls his mom, and she's FINE on the phone! It's like she was a completely different person. She asked how the rest of our trip was, and how I was feeling, if I was feeling better (I'd been fgeeling nautious since Wednesday night - I took a pg test last night, because I was due for my AF on Friday, never got it, so I tested - POSITIVE!!!!!! yay!! Going to re-test today - later...dunno!!! ) and asked if we were still going to dinner tomorrow night (which would be tonight - DH's B-day). He gets off the phone and goes: "Wow...she's GOT to be on medication or something..."

Turns out she has schizophrenic tendencies, and it just unfortunately happend that she forgot her pills at home when they came on the trip. FIL isn't necessarily "all there" sometimes, so he stays out of the situation where his wife is involved. It's not that he doesn't care about what she does, it's that it probably hurts him too much to have to say no to her... you know? I feel sorry for the old guy. (He's really not that old...he's only 51!!)

So THAT, people, was my wonderful Easter Weekend 2003, first Easter with Zach, which I'm glad there weren't many pictures of to remind me years down the road of how horribly the first half of it was spent.

I hope everyone had a better weekend! I'm still trying to catch up with missed psots. There are so many!!! lol!!

Love ya all!

Hillbilly Housewife replied:

Kaitlin'smom replied: WOW!

well now that you know what her problem is maybe next time she acts up you can ask her to go take her medicine?

I am glad to hear things went better after you *ditched* them

jdkjd replied: Well at least the weekend ended with some relaxation for you, your DH and Zach! It's so great that your Dad is a stress-reliever instead of a stress-inducer like your MIL.

You handled it much better than I would have!

supermom replied: So you might be PG???? That is WONDERFUL!!!

I do hope that all of your MIL problems work out - it's when I hear stories like this that I am so glad sometimes that mine lives half way around the world.....

HUGS and hopefully Congrats!

jdkjd replied: You totally snuck that in there, didn't you!!

Congratulations!! And keep us updated...

maliksmommy replied: Did you re-test today?? Is it still positive?

Hillbilly Housewife replied: Yeah...but I didn't TRY to be sneaky!!

Kaitlin'smom replied: did you re-test?

well after reading all of it I am glad I get along with my in laws, oh sure they drive me nuts sometimes (so can my family) but over all we get along!

Schnoogly replied: Just read your story-- your MIL sounds like my MIL who is biploar and doesn't always remember her meds either!! She's afraid I don't like her though and that's fine with me!!

One time they were visiting and she didn't know how to use a garbage disposal and almost broke ours with potato peels. I calmly explained how to use it and she ran outside to where DH was and started bawling and cried for the rest of the day about how I hated her. It sounds kind of sad now but I was totally annoyed at the time.

At least she lives in another state and can't afford to visit anymore!!

Congrats on your Christmas baby. No M/S vibes to you!!

Steph

MommyToAshley replied: How did I miss this post the first time around..hehe. I must have been caught up in your "It's a ... big fat...+" post. LOL.

Sorry you have to deal with that, but at least now you know it is a medical condition and that your DH will stick up for you. Glad the second part of the trip went better.

Congrats on the "+" again!