I Am a Small and Petty Person.

I try to keep my MIL complaints to a minimum here because, well, once begun there is no end. Today, however, I crumble before temptation. You've been warned!

A week ago MIL sent a care package from Alabama, where she was visiting with family for the month. Open it up to find - oh yes - she had sent B a skeleton costume for Halloween. Keeping in mind that A's family as a whole suffers from a crippling lack of subtext and the fact that I've had six years to get used to it, I still have some strong and complicated feelings about putting my medically complex, difficult to feed, failure to thrive baby in a dang skeleton outfit. A thinks it's hilarious, given that this is certainly the product of a group shopping trip designed to please me in particular. I just... sometimes you have to laugh or else start planning where to place the car bomb.

Ever since she sent it, MIL has been dropping some not-so-subtle hints about he'd make such a cute skeleton for Halloween and she couldn't wait to go trick-or-treating with him and... wait a second, did MIL just select my child's Halloween costume and invite herself over for the night?? Curses!!

This used to happen all the time. When we were first married, the calls would begin on Thursday, cheerfully letting us know that she'd been refusing invitations from her friends for the weekend just in case we decided to drive the hour and fifteen minutes down to spend it with her. Then she'd call with the plans she'd made for us, and all the house and yard work she needed us to do. I was a nicer person then and indulged her because I mistakenly thought that this was a temporary habit, but no. This is just MIL at her controlling norm.

(breathe.... breathe....)

So after my trial got continued today I invented errands to do around town, to give MIL more time to hang out with B. I can't spend time in the same room alone with her (it's taken years to get to this point, god I never thought I'd be a girl with MIL issues) but I respect the need for her to have a relationship with B. I got home at 3:30 and MIL stayed... and stayed... and I began to worry because I thought A had straightened things out with her. At 4:30 I thanked her for helping us and put the baby down for a brief nap. And it began. Oh, do we get many trick-or-treaters here? Oh, she had already called the families who visit her house and told them not to come, because she wouldn't be there. Oh, and she happened to have picked up candy and brought dinner so no need to use the candy or dinner I'd prepared and...

And I'm suffocating. Oh hell no. I am too goddamned tired and I know for a fact that A won't be home until 7. So I booted her.

I feel a little small still, for not being able to share. But I can only take so much. Big sigh of relief, larger glass of whiskey.