Day 128 The Perfect Mom Project

I have lost it! The pressures of all of the the things that have been thrown at me in the last few months have pushed me over the edge. As I sit here trying to write, all I can do is just slump forward and shake my head. I have been running fast and hard trying to stay ahead of the train, and now, I don't care. This is not the way a perfect mom should be. All of my get up and go, got up and went...
When my Mom and Dad used to come in to town to visit, they would tell us the day they were coming, and pretty much nothing else. You never knew where they were staying, what they were thinking about doing when they got here, and sometimes you did not know when they were going to leave. It was a nightmare. You were always juggling your real life trying to be ready for when they might be coming by or when they might want to do something with you. It was like the King and Queen had come to town and all the minions would scamper about trying to please them.

Skip forward to yesterday. My sister and her husband (who happens to be Mark's brother), decided about two weeks ago that they were coming to our state for Christmas from New Orleans. I heard this through another sister that heard it from her mother. So, here they are! This visit had all the ear marks of the past visits of my parents. I never heard word one from them and I heard rumblings of things that my sister wanted to do while she was here from other sisters who heard it from someone else. I had decided that I was not going to play this game and just go about my business.

While I was in the shower yesterday, preparing to take my girls out shopping with their holiday gift cards, I got a call from my "visiting" sister to call her. She wanted the cousins (our girls ) to get together. Since, the girls and I had a plan, I decided to just head out on schedule and call her later. As we traveled towards our destination I got a text. "We want your girls to spend the night at Grandma's (Mark's Mom)with us." I just sat there, here we go, time to juggle and jump through hoops! If I said no, I am the bad guy, if I say yes, I give up the day I had planned with my girls. How do you handle this? Of course my kids want to see their cousins and visit, but I had been planning this day with them since before they had started their Christmas vacation.

What had been a day that stretched out before us, suddenly became, a rushed unfun, crabby mom day! At one point Aly said, "I am stressed out, and I do not know why?" I just told her, "It's my fault, I am so aggravated about how things are playing out today that I am ruining the time we do have!" I knew I was doing it, and I could not stop myself. That's when I decided to just slow it down. I took the girls to get a bite to eat and did a little more shopping with them, before we headed home to pack them for their overnight at Grandma and Grandpa's house with their out of town cousins.

In the middle of this all I kept feeling was annoyed! My sister does not have to make any effort to make a plan and she snaps her fingers and we all have to jump? I was and still am aggravated. I am aggravated that they can come into town and they do not call us, make no plans and expect that everyone else will drop everything and gather round them waiting for their next wish or want. Oh great out of town relatives thank you for gracing us with your presence! I am also aggravated that knowing full well that this would happen and steeling myself against it, I still fell into the fray. There is no communication between us for; I cannot even tell you how long and now, I am changing my day, and my plans to accommodate them. You know why? Because I do not want to hurt their kids feelings. In the mean time, I am stomping around mad, because I did not get to spend any time with my own girls and aggravated with myself, because I did not just say no, not today, we have plans!

I will bite my tongue when the girls get home today and I will ask them how their time was with their cousins. I cannot let my issues become theirs. That is about all I have in me though. I will not be getting my promotion to perfect mom if, accommodating out of town relatives that do not plan, is part of the process. I just have no patience for it! I am Mad as #*!!