Apr

27

My What Beautiful Eyes You Have

April 27, 2006 |

Today I have to take my 2 older children to the eye doctors on the recommendation of the school nurse. She thinks my son can’t see the board in his classroom and my daughter can’t see out of one eye at all. Normally I would take the 2 younger children and the little girl I baby-sit too because you really don’t know shear joy until you’ve corralled 3 toddlers into a tiny exam room and subsequently tried to keep them from touching anything “icky”. Good times.

But today my stepdaughter will be coming over to watch the kids since I had a daycare parent call at the last minute and ask to bring her son. 3 toddlers I can manage at the doctors, but 4? That’s really pushing it. I guess in this way anyway it’s good my sd is currently unemployed so she can come over and fill in for me. The best part? It only costs me some food and some internet time. Not a bad deal overall.

The toughest part with A is that she has never outgrown the need to get in little digs here and there to make the people around her feel like crap. Anything that is said to her gets embellished to be more judgmental or nasty than it was ever intended. An example - she has a cell phone on our plan (I know, I know but it was J’s decision) and she has to pay for any minutes that go over our allotted amount or we take the phone back. She’s been pretty good but last month she was a bit chatty and racked up an extra $100 in charges. I had mentioned the amount of the overage to my husband because of a comment he made about feeling like he couldn’t use his phone while he was away because of the minutes she had used. Not to mention the sick fear in the pit of both of our stomach’s that we were going to get stuck with the bill. Not that it’s EVER happened before.

So anyway she stops by the house to drop off some money towards the bill and tells me that “Dad called and told me to get over here and give you some money for the phone bill so you’ll stop calling him and bugging him about it.” Since I had never called him specifically about it to begin with I knew this was one of her stick-it-to-you-sweetly maneuvers. I mean really, she has this gentle smile on her face and lilt in her voice like she’s just recounting this wonderful piece of information. It’s so frustrating.

I told my husband what she said and his response is “Why does she have to twist everything like that? To make herself the victim I guess. All I said was can you drop by and give Jules some money because we’re a little nervous about the amount you’re over already.” And he’s right. It’s her way of making it look to her victim like she and the person she talked with are best buds and the other person is the nasty one on the outside. And it is so tiring. I feel like I always have to be on guard with her and just paste on that nice smile. You never know what’s going to come out of her mouth of how much of what she says might really hurt. Sometimes they just cut to the quick.

And the funny thing is she only does this to her Dad and me. It’s like there’s still that adolescent desire to break us up. She has always tried to pit us against each other for as long as I’ve known them. But when you know that’s what’s going on it’s easier to stand tough against it. My husband and I communicate pretty well about that stuff so we know better when she says one of her zingers. She told my husband not too long ago that I said he was a loser for not having a job. I never said anything remotely judgmental like that - what I had said to her was that I was glad her Dad had found a job because it’s been tough for us while he’s been unemployed. See how it gets twisted.

She’s a part of our life though and always will be. She’s family no matter what. You can’t confront her because she will always lie and say she never said those things. J thinks that as long as we make it clear that we communicate and don’t believe the things she says about us that they will lessen over time. I hope so. Please give me the strength to deal with what she has in store for me today.


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. mrs. diamond on April 27, 2006 8:13 am

    Did you read the comment where I said in my blog that the reason blood is thicker than water is because family members are sometimes just THICK. That’s the kind of stuff I’m referring to. Yep. Family members do stuff like that to each other all the time. It makes me tired.

    (had a bad week and a big fight with a family member so yeah, that’s where all this bitterness is coming from)

  2. Aimz on April 27, 2006 3:19 pm

    It must be really frustrating having a family member constantly trying to make p.a. digs at you. Your husband really needs to call her on each comment that she makes as she obviously thinks she’s getting away with it.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind

← Balance of Power Update and Review →