Christmas Holidays - Crapelletti - Bah Humbug

So nothing has changed. As soon as daughter got engaged, her husband and his mother have taken over. Our tradition of spending Easter and Mother's Day with my parents was rudely turned into a "Surprise Engagement Party" for her son and our daughter and his mother invited their entire family and gifts were brought and hubby and I were expected to pay for it all. Hubby put his foot down to daughter and forced his parents to pay for their side. But his sister showed up almost 2 hours late sending my father into a hissy fit. Lovely time.

It didn't end there. MOG wore white to the wedding and showed up 10 minutes late. Still didn't end there. Soon all holidays were spent at his mother's house. All holidays are controlled by him and his mother - food, etc. Our tradition of Cappelletti with hubby's side of the family is nicknamed "crapelletti" and he wants no part in making or eating them. Instead he would rather have dinners, etc that are catered or take out or cranberry sauce from a can. Soooooo different than how either hubby or I or our kids were raised.

Once our daughter got pregnant, it was his mother that spent the entire day at the hospital with her son and our daughter when she went into labor. It was his mother who got to see our only grandchild and daughter first. We were totally forgotten about until daughter was already having a c-section. THEN we were called and told. The baptism party was at her house. My side of the family was made to feel like outsiders. Supposedly my grandchild was to wear what my great-grandmother made for my grandmother which she wore when she was baptized, what my mother wore when she was baptized, what I wore when I was baptized, and what daughter wore when she was baptized. I have no pictures of granddaughter in that dress. I swear she wasn't allowed to wear it otherwise why isn't there a picture of it?

All holidays are his mothers. She retired and took care of granddaughter while daughter worked. We got a few hours maybe once a week or month. We still forged a relationship with our granddaughter. That is, until they moved to Colorado.

Yes, son-in-law moved our daughter and granddaughter to CO to be near whose friends? Not daughter's but his. Daughter has no friends out there. In order to move, she has to change jobs from one she loved to one she hates. In fact she hates it so much that she has developed an ulcer from trying to please him. Now they have been there since the beginning of August. His mother has been out there to visit 3 times. We went out once. They came home for Thanksgiving. They stayed at his mother's house where his mother got to see grandchild for all 10 days. How much time were we allowed? 2 hours on 2 different evenings and then we were forced to change out Thanksgiving plans to spend it at his mother's house. Conveniently family pictures were taken AFTER we left. Then there was a family wedding.

When we were out in CO, we took a full extra suitcase filled with granddaughter's fairy garden. I have another suitcase of things to take but we forgot it. Son-in-law refuses for us to bring it to her or send it. He stated bluntly it would go in the garbage. I flipped back at him that if he really couldn't tolerate anything from us for his child to send it back to us, that we spent over a couple of grand on that and his daughter hand picked out everything with us. He shut up then. Still not allowed to send anything out.

So today I find out his mother was given a ticket to fly to CO and watch grandchild for New Year's Eve for a week so they can go out and take a mini vacation. It is already bad enough that granddaughter asks us why we don't call every other day (we are relegated to calls every 3-4 weeks) and her "real" grandmother loves her more and says so. And she does. After one of her kids says I love you to her, she says I love you more. So to granddaughter that grandmother loves her more. She buys her more, she visits more, she calls her more, and she is told she loves her more.

We are chopped liver.

Oh then the topper of it all? My father and his wife had their Christmas last Saturday. It was planned for a work day for us so we were an hour late. Do you think anyone would save us some food? Nope, Dressing that was horrible and a dried out piece of turkey was all that was left. We left and went to our favorite chicken takeout place. Oh and did I mention that one of my sisters kindly shared the flu with us?

So is this what "empty nesting" is all about? I thought when a daughter married you gained a son. I didn't. I lost a daughter and my only grandchild. His mother has 3 other grandchildren but she feels a competition with me over my only one.

Yes, I am angry, upset, and know I should be grateful. But I am facing a bilateral mastectomy and I need my daughter that is gone.

Thank goodness I have my husband, my son, and God.

Child and Grandchild Move Across the Country

I haven't posted in over a year. It has been a very busy year. A couple of months ago our oldest child and her husband decided to move their family to over 1000 miles away. At that time, granddaughter and I began making plans to build her a fairy garden she and I had seen on one of our adventures. Husband and I are not rich in any way, shape, or form and fairy gardens are not cheap. So granddaughter and I started picking out what kind of fairy garden she wanted and the things she wanted in it. Slowly but surely, I was able to obtain and take delivery on it all.

The past 2 weeks daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter have been living at son-in-law's mother's house but they allowed our grand-dog to spend the entire time with us with only 1 visit scheduled with granddaughter. Grand-dog has spent time with us before when they went on vacations and he does love spending time with us. He has spent most of his life with us on and off so he is very used to our lifestyle and snuggling and playing with us.

A week ago I get an evite to a going away party being held in honor of my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter being given at son-in-law's mother's home where they have been living. Since we had 2 family reunions that same weekend and she is known to schedule things without permission of the kids, I called her to see if the kids knew about this. She said yes and were helping plan it but it was only going to be immediate families only. Yeah nope - didn't happen. Should have put money on that one - very easy bet. She is known to go way overboard and yesterday's party was a perfect example. It went from immediate family only to about 50 people (all friends or relatives of theirs). I almost didn't go but it would be the last time I got to see my grandchild. So I went.

So back to the fairy garden - everything has been in for over 2 weeks and I have been trying to get daughter to commit to a date I could have granddaughter for a few hours to put it all together. All I was asking for was a mere 3-4 hours. Yesterday when arranging time today with son-in-law's mother, son-in-law said not one thing more is going in his car and definitely not a fairy garden.

So here I sit with all the fixings for the fairy garden. I have no idea what to say to granddaughter on why she can't take it with her - I can't very well tell her that her father is a douche. So I said well, I can do it when I watch her when you come back for daughter's best friend's wedding. Ummm well I learned plans changed and they never told me. I am no longer watching granddaughter for the wedding since they decided to not bring her. Instead they are flying the other grandmother out to their new house to watch granddaughter and grand-dog. Glad I asked. Glad to know that I no longer had to save my own anniversary weekend for something I was not going to be able to do and this was decided 2 weeks ago and no one bothered telling me.

Truthfully I wanted to just ship it all out to granddaughter and let her put it all together but I can't - this was something we were going to share together. I want us to do it together. I have tickets scheduled for a visit in October. I guess I can lug everything out there and do it then. But again. What do I tell granddaughter who knows we were supposed to do it today? Oops - you can put it together but then not touch it again for over 3 months? Who would do that to a child? I can't.

Hopefully I get to see them before they leave. Knowing son-in-law, he will come get grand-dog at 6:00am and leave without us even knowing. The only time I have ever been away from my daughter is when she went to college or got married and moved in with her husband but they were only 30 minutes away. Did we ever encroach on their time or show up uninvited? Nope. Had that done to me by my inlaws so would never ever do it to my own kids.

Meanwhile, I pray granddaughter never finds out the type of person her father really is and that my daughter wakes up and realizes him for what he is doing to her and their daughter. He is moving them to an area where only his friends are and none of daughter's. I can only hope and pray they survive.