(no subject)

[rivka]

Back from a long weekend in Memphis with Michael's father and stepmother.

The good:

• Michael got to spend a great deal of quiet one-on-one time with his father, who is dying. I didn't even know that Michael could bond over football and grilling, so it was fun to see a rarely-exposed side of him. I felt good about being able to provide the baby-wrangling that made their time together possible.



• Michael's father loves Alex to pieces. He just drank her up, all weekend long. She was much more responsive to him than she was during our last visit, which was a joy and a relief. She wasn't into sitting in his lap, which he would have loved dearly, but she played with him some, and gave him a lot of her best smiles. Watching him watch her made the hassle of the trip so worth it.



• They had scheduled Alex a session with a portrait photographer. I was dubious in advance, because it was hard to imagine Alex sitting still for a formal portrait. But (and this is obvious, in retrospect) the photographer was highly skilled at capturing pictures of toddlers, and didn't need Alex to sit still. She got some gorgeous shots. I still think of us as "not the formal portrait type," but I'll be glad to have the pictures anyway.
  
  
• They bought Alex a metric ton of clothes, some of which we like so much that we won't be returning them even though she already has too many clothes. And some of which filled empty niches in her wardrobe, like the warm, lined, hooded raincoat that will carry her right up until snowsuit weather.



• Michael's father paid for our plane tickets, so I didn't have financial anxiety to cancel out the family loveliness.



• Alex is a great traveler. She handled the flights and airports and disrupted routines incredibly well.

The bad:

• We discovered from a chance remark, after Alex had been trotting in and out of Poppy and Nana's room all weekend, that Michael's father keeps a loaded gun at floor level, just under his side of the bed. Oh. My. God. I mean, we were mostly following her everywhere, because the damn house is cluttered with breakable tchotchkes and they don't babyproof for our visits. But still.



• Michael's father is just so sick. He had a good day on Friday, when he was excited about our arrival, but for half the next day he could barely walk or speak.

The ugly, a.k.a. the Michael's Stepmother Rant Report:

• She expected to be able to hold Alex right out of the car, and sulked because instead Alex needed time to warm up. She called her "Mama's baby" in a sneering tone of voice, as if that's a bad thing for a toddler to be.



• I told her that I'd moved some breakables off the coffee table because Alex went right to them. She said, again in a nasty tone of voice, "What, she doesn't understand the word 'no'?" (She does. But we we try to give her a break by keeping temptations out of her way, so that she doesn't have to hear 'no' all. Day. Long.)



• A couple of hours after we arrived, Alex went down for her nap. She still hadn't wanted to be held by anyone but me or Michael. We crashed too. When Alex woke up, instead of coming to get us, Betty took her out of the crib herself. Fortunately, I woke up thinking I'd heard Alex, and went looking for her. I found them in the kitchen. Alex was crying and frantically trying to get away, while Betty tried to shove an artificially-sweetened Weight Watchers-brand popsicle into her mouth. It took ages for me to calm her down, while Betty made more snide comments about "Mama's baby."



• She explained that our choice of portrait studios was based on which shopping center "you can't hardly walk in anymore, with all the blacks and Mexicans."



• At the portrait studio, when I made a comment about "Well, I'd be satisfied with...", she interrupted me to say, "I'm the one who needs to be satisfied." (She was paying, because the portrait shoot was their idea.) She hit me on the shoulder, hard, when I ordered extra pictures for myself. (Yes, I had made it clear that I intended to pay for them myself.)She kept up running instructions to Alex about how she hoped Alex would be "good," where "good" was defined as sitting still and smiling for the camera. Fortunately, I'm pretty sure Alex is too young to understand a guilt trip.



• At one point, I went looking for some kind of vegetable to feed my child. Other than a sad-looking head of iceberg lettuce, there were no fresh vegetables in the fridge. There were no frozen vegetables in the freezer compartment of the fridge. Even in the massive chest freezer in the pantry, I couldn't find a single bag of peas or broccoli or corn or anything. Just a bunch of meat and processed stuff - french fries, Lean Cuisine meals, sugar-and-fat-free "ice cream." The only veggie-like substances we had all weekend were tomato sauce, baked potatoes, and "salads" consisting of iceberg lettuce and one slice of tomato.



• Not a Betty thing, but still ugly like whoa: see the top center doll on this page? Alex was given one that is almost its twin. A hard, stiff, unposable, unhuggable doll that sings snippets of nursery rhymes when you press on the little animal heads sewn on its body. It can only be played with one way - you poke it and listen to what it says. Seriously; she has other talking toys that are still lots of fun when you take the batteries out, because they lend themselves to general imaginative play, but this thing has almost nothing in common with a real doll. Amusingly enough, a banner on the box announced that it had won a "creative toy award" for 2003 from "Creative Child magazine." Looking at the other winners, I strongly suspect that awards can be had for a reasonable price.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

OK, not a gun-owner here, but I don't thing guns are necessarily ZOMG teh evul!!1!

But...a loaded gun? Bad. Without a trigger lock? Bad.

As for the rants... ::headdesk::

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Okay, these are definitely some of the worst Betty stories you've ever told. Is she getting worse???

Welcome home--I wish you peace!

-J

[beaq.livejournal.com]

I bet you can guess which snippets are most frequently read aloud in a tone of horrified incredulity.


Jeeze.

It sounds like Alex is a real pleasure all around. I wish Betty knew better how to enjoy her.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't think that guns are ZOMG teh evul either. I don't even think that there's only one way to store a gun safely. But not to take any steps towards gun safety around children, even the basic step of warning the child's parents about the existence and location of the gun? BAD.

And it's not as if she's the only child in their lives, so they have no practice. Betty has a 5-year-old grandson who lives in Memphis and visits them frequently. I have no idea whether his parents know there's a loaded gun kept where he could easily access it.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I'm relieved to know you didn't get caught up in the airport evacuation on Friday.

Other than that, I'm glad all the good things happened. The bad and the ugly... ugh.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

She might be. It's hard to tell. We don't get out as much as we used to, when we visited, because of Michael's father's illness and Alex's youth. Maybe she has more opportunities to be awful because we have fewer opportunities to escape each other. It's also possible that I mind her awfulness more when it affects Alex.

But I'm not sure she is getting worse. It would be hard to top her literal unwillingness to be caught dead around black people. (http://rivka.livejournal.com/280011.html)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I'm relieved to know you didn't get caught up in the airport evacuation on Friday.

The what?!

[wcg.livejournal.com]

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2006-09-22-bwi-package_x.htm

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

The combination of all that must have been exhausting for you and for Michael.

In my experience, kids who grow up without parental guilt-trips are astonishingly immune to grandparental ones for many many years. Like at least 17. "I dunno. She told me to pick out anything in the store. And when I did, it seemed like maybe she didn't mean anything? But she still bought it for me, so I guess she was okay with it."

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

I don't think she's getting worse -- it's just that she keeps finding new opportunities to show her awfulness. Every once in a while, she'll do something nice, and she is doing a pretty good job of being there for Dad with all the health issues he's going through right now, but for the most part, she's a waste of oxygen. Her kids are nice enough guys, if a little bland, and they certainly both married well, but Betty herself... ecccchh. There are depths of unpleasantness in her that I suspect we haven't come close to seeing just yet.

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

That's great about the good stuff! The loaded gun, not so much. Eek. And Betty sounds like a piece of work! Oy!

Betty sounds a little like my grandma, actually. The other week, Tamsin got a sweater vest in the mail that she had crocheted out of some thick, inflexible day glo yarn along with a note guilt tripping me about not calling them ('If we did something to offend you, we have no idea what it might be, and we don't know why you don't want us in Tamsin's or your life anymore...") after they called *once*... it was bizarre. They are also doll-givers... so far, Tams has gotten a little girl in traditional Irish dress who is missing an arm, and also what appears to be a Victorian prostitute, who came looking like a crime scene photo, her head, eyes staring, securely wrapped in a plastic bag.

Ah... family. :P

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Argh. Betty is the sort of person who would win my grandfather's most damning remark, a deadpan "Ain't she a peach?". Good on you guys for trying to keep Betty from over-running Alex's boundaries.

Re: The Gun- I once gave a roomie his walking papers over finding out he kept an unsecured gun where it could be reached by visiting children. He said instead of moving out he'd just move the gun. I pointed out that I still would not feel safe, since he was the kind of person who would keep an unsecured gun and ammo in easy reach of children who knew what else he would do? He then argued he just hadn't thought about the hazard of keeping the gun there, and I told him that was exactly what I had a problem with.

In the end he moved out and told everyone it was because I was unreasonable. And I was fine with that.

[pariyal.livejournal.com]

I have no idea whether his parents know there's a loaded gun kept where he could easily access it.
Do you know their address? Tell them! It can't make Betty like you less than she does already.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, no argument with that; I wouldn't do that (if I had a gun) around even my older kid (and he's 15 and has had gun safety training through Scouts).

And I'd certainly point out ANY danger to visiting parents-of-small-children, even if it was only "Don't go in that room, there's XYZ in there"

[telerib.livejournal.com]

*facepalm* I grew up in a house full of guns, and I am darn tootin' sure none of them were ever left totally unsecured and loaded. I'm with the chorus of BAD on this one.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Good God.

From the other comments, I can ascertain that this woman actually has children of her own. My first thought was that they must have needed some serious therapy. My second thought was that getting to the root of any problems must have been a breeze for said therapist.

Sorry you had to go through that. I think that having kids around intensifies the crazy in people.

Regarding that toy... I followed your suggestion and picked up Einstein Never Used Flash Cards. I noticed that the awards have a whole category for baby DVDs!

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

The good is very good. The bad *shudder* and the ugly -- oy. You have my sympathies.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Good grief. Between the gun and the popsicle incident, I think I'd have really struggled to stay in that house. I admire your self-control.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

You did fine. It couldn't have been easy. I can't think of anybody in any of my families who approaches Betty. I mean, I've had relatives who were crazed in some ways, but not familially disfunctional or plain mean. Though, come to think, an alcoholic second cousin-in-law had her moments, but that was temper and not malice.

(Snaps out of it.) But you did fine.

[(Anonymous)]

The gun certainly gave me a very sick feeling in the pit of my stomach....

My father has a belief that has always comforted me which is that we almost always get at least one warning that allows use to take action to prevent something bad from occurring.

It really is never safe to let a toddler out of your sight. The biggest danger in homes where people don't have kids is probably prescription medicine -- it's so easy to drop a pill and not realize it.

Another concern when visiting are the pull strings on window blinds.

I still feel guilty for once years ago leaving my purse (with some aspirin, etc. in a non-secure container) where a then small grandchild could have found it. Luckily the parents swept the living room before they went to bed and found it.

Grandma Susan (also known as worry-wort Mom)

[windsea.livejournal.com]

Godalmighty. She must be my aunt-in-law's sister. My uncle married a clone, I swear. Does she have a really nasal Ohioan accent and wear red stiletto heels to her mother-in-law's funeral (i.e., my grandmother ...(?

But at least there will be good memories of Alex and her grandfather, and if you can ever find the emotional energy to step back, Betty can make for funny sardonic stories, along the lines of "you would never believe what my stepmother in law was like ..."

[rivka.livejournal.com]

We found out about the gun the night before we left, just before Alex went to bed. I knew it would just be a matter of a few hours in the morning. But yeah, still.

The popsicle incident... I understand that with the popsicle itself, she meant well. She genuinely doesn't understand why we don't give Alex artificial sweeteners and why we don't think that "sugar-free" = "healthy." But it really bothers me that she was so oblivious to Alex freaking out and needing us. She'd just woken up in a strange bed, in a strange house, a strange woman was holding her, and Mama and Papa were nowhere to be seen. I don't think it takes a child psychologist to figure out the solution to that situation. (Although we're also to blame here, for being too tired to set up the baby monitor before lying down for our nap.)

I think, from that incident and from others, that Betty doesn't think that children's feelings have any meaning or importance. She was trying to get Alex to stop crying, but not by figuring out what Alex was crying about. She's the same way with her 5-year-old grandson, even though he can articulate his preferences and feelings clearly.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

The prescription meds are an excellent point; of course both Michael's father and Betty take vast quantities of pills.

I agree that it's never safe to let a toddler out of your sight, and we did our best not to. But it's tricky. At times you weigh the risks and perhaps make the wrong decision. Or you don't intend to make any decision at all, but the toddler slips away from you.

At Christmas, we'll insist that the door to their room remain firmly closed at all times. And we'll continue to watch her like a hawk.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Yikes. I'm glad that Alex had a little quality time with her grandfather, that is a great gift you made both of them.

As for the rest, the gun thing really got to me. Maybe _he_ is no longer quite aware of the implications (in which case a good wife surely would keep the ammunition under lock and key) - but that _she_ should not realise that toddler + danger = Not Good is inexcusable.

And her treatment of Alex is not so different from the treatment she gives you - absolutely *no* concept of valueing someone as an individual.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

It wasn't the popsicle itself so much as the trying to force it into the mouth of a child who clearly didn't want it - pretty much what you articulated (much more clearly) with your point about the child's feelings being unimportant to her. One thing I've definitely learned from my three kids and my goddaughter is how important it is to try to understand the personality of the individual child, rather than assuming there's a one-size-fits-all solution to any given problem.

[ailbhe]

"Betty doesn't think that children's feelings have any meaning or importance"

This is highly likely... I know we have trouble with Rob's parents assuming that Linnea isn't talking sense and not bothered to listen to her when she's telling them what she wants / what's wrong.

The gun thing, the baby-as-toy thing, the force-feeding thing *shudder*.

I admire the way you're able to treat this stuff as temporary and necessary to gain all the good stuff, which did sound very good.

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

The loaded gun at toddler level--just reading about it freaked me out. By Christmas, Alex may have learned to open doors, so I hope to God that it is not there at that point.

[bosssio.livejournal.com]

Lord.

I vow to stop bitching about my stepmom.

Wow.

okay, super evil thought, but when Michael's dad does pass, won't this mean you won't ever have to see Betty again?

[lcohen]

the good things sound really good--i am so glad you all had them.

the bad and the ugly things sound horrifying. ugh.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

LOL I get comments like that in cards from my stepmother. What? They don't think my father hitting/punching/etc. me every day and still believing that was okay is a good reason? Or that when she and her kids moved into our house, she moved me & my brother out and changed the locks when we were still minors (our mother had been dead six months) is a good reason? Yeah, right.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

okay, super evil thought, but when Michael's dad does pass, won't this mean you won't ever have to see Betty again?

Oh yes. That's exactly what it means. And I'm sure she'll be just as relieved as us, given that she obviously doesn't like us at all. (http://rivka.livejournal.com/208033.html)

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

Ooosh. That's horrific. I'm sorry you and your brother had to go through that--and that you still get reminders about it in cards. :(

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I can only offer *hugs*, and the thought that a person could write a novel with all these stepmother stories.