I just wanted to vent. I created a separate account for this as my main account is known by family.
Quick background:
Husband (2 years older than me) and I met as teens. Got pregnant when I was 17, married when I was 18. We're 32 and 34 (respectively) now. We have 5 kids (14f, 12m, 10m, 8f and 2f) and live 2 states away from Selfish Cynthia and company. "Company" would be her 2 daughters and our niece (her oldest daughter's daughter) who all live together with SC.
Now, as we only see her once or twice a year I don't have many stories. She's not nearly as bad as other mother's we read about, but lots of little BEC events that make me grind my teeth. Also, I recently broke NC with her (NC lasted 2 years after she denounced our youngest daughter and promptly loed about it). She seems to walk on egg shells around me now, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
So, obviously I have other stories, but tonight I want to gripe about Scrabble and Christmas in general.
Also note worthy, we temporarily have 7 children. We took in my oldest's bff (14f) and her little sister (2f) after they were removed from their family home. So for the past 3 weeks we've had 9 people living in our home, two of whom are toddlers. Cps dictates a fair bit of my days as they're new placements and we're still learning the rules.
So, this Christmas season, about 2 weeks ago my MIL let us know she was planning to visit our state for a week, to enjoy the holidays with friends and family. My knee jerk reaction, not wanting the stress of 13 people living in our home, and being unsure if cps would allow people without background checks to live with us for a week, was to tell her through text, "I'm sorry we can't open our home to you as we have 2 new additions to our family home." Or something diplomatic like that.
She turns around and texts my husband asking if they (the 4 of them) can stay with us. Husband immediately agrees. Then she says, "But your wife said we can't stay with you because you have 2 extra kids. I don't want to be a burden. I just want to see you and my grankids. And your wife too! I can't afford a hotel. I can't even really afford this trip. I just rarely get a week off of work. We can sleep on the floor. Or maybe we just won't come at all"
So my mother offers her home to them. My mother owns a 4 bedroom two and half bath house. (We have a 5 bedroom 2 bath) She lives alone. She has plenty of space! But no. Cynthia doesn't want to stay with my mom because, "Well, we're only related by marriage. She's not really family." So what does that make me?
Anyway, husband and I sit down and discuss this. I explain to him my concerns. First off, last time she stayed with us she expected me to wait on her hand and foot. She wanted me to cook every meal for her and wanted us to rearrange our family schedule based on her vacation whims. Also, a week is too long for me. And what about cps?He apologized for inviting her without consulting me and offered to retract the invite altogether.
At this point I felt like a selfish bitch for not putting forth any kind of effort into helping my loving husband see his family that he hasn't seen since last year. Especially since I said I would give her a second chance and broke NC.
So, we agree to 2 nights. And I tell him he needs to tell her I will not be cooking for them. I rarely cook for my own children (the 2 oldest 12m, and 14f love to cook. My husband also loves to cook. And I kinda hate cooking. But I know how to, and only do so when necessary). And we can figure out sleeping arrangements when they get here.
So, I try to get Cynthia to give me a date. I have 3 Christmas parties. 2 that we host in our house, and one to go to on Christmas day at my aunt's house. I need an arrival date so I can plan accordingly and let others know we may have 4 extra people. Well, she says she doesn't know when she will be here. She doesn't know what day. She won't give me anything.
I tell her I need to know dates so I can plan, so we can tell cps (who said they can stay) and our hoa.
side note: we built our house through Habitat for Humanity. Our house is part of a community of Habitat houses. 33 altogether. About 10 homeowners have moved in, 4 houses are currently being built and the rest of the lots are waiting for families to claim them. Our HOA is special because once our community is complete it will be solely comprised of the people living on our street, other people who built their homes and helped build ours. Everyone that lives on our private street has had a background check. Everyone knows what everyone's car looks like and people take notice of strange vehicles hanging about. One time a homeowner almost got a "strange" truck towed because they didn't recognize it. Turns out their neighbor had family staying for a few days. Because stuff like that happens we were told to tell our neighbors/hoa if we're having guests with cars stay over so there is no confusion.
Instead of telling me the dates she hems and haws. She says she understands why we would need to tell cps, but she doesn't feel like we need to tell the hoa (which is our neighbors). Whelp, I've had enough. I shouldn't have to explain anything to her in order for her to take what I say at face value. After all, we've only been building our house for the past year and a half. We've only attended every hoa meeting and read ever scrap of paper about our role in everything. What the hell do I know about my own hoa/neighborhood. Obviously, she who lives 2 states away knows more about my neighborhood, that I helped build, than I do.
So, I tell her that I will make my plans and just let people know that there may or may not be 4 extra people. I let my husband deal with the rest. My aunt was incredibly gracious when I asked if they could join in our yearly celebration at their home. She even got them gifts.
Anyway, she ends up showing up on Christmas day. Half an hour before we need to leave. We ended up leaving an hour late.
Christmas day is okay. Not too many ripples. She did voice her irritation about how late we got home. See, we didn't have time to exchange gifts before we left for my aunt's house. So we planned to do it afterwards. We got home around 9:30 at night. Toddlers are sleepy. I feel like we have time to just pass out the gifts and open them quickly. But she wanted everyone to open their gifts one at a time so she can take pictures. I look at my husband, he then explains that with 2 toddlers, and 7 collective children, that just wouldn't be feasible, or practical time wise. She gives the CBF but we do the gift exchange anyway (not one at a time).
So, you know when someone says something and you can tell they're asking you for something, even though their words are making statements? My kids do this all the time. Drives me bananas and I'm trying to train it out of them. An example is a kid says, "I'm thirsty." I say, "Well, congratulations. Go get water." They say, "I don't know where the cups are." . So really, what they should have said is, "Could you please help me find a cup for water?" Instead of this stupid guessing game.
Cynthia is good at this. Using this method she asked to sleep in our bed. No. That is where 3 people sleep. Me, my husband and our toddler daughter. We are not displacing 3 people for the sake of 1. She decided to sleep on the couch (as opposed to the guest bedroom since it is upstairs).
Now we are to today. Scrabble day. Cynthia's bff who lives in our state wanted to visit us while Cynthia and co were here. Cool beans.
Cynthia wants to play Scrabble. She says she plays with her youngest daughter (Rayn 20f) all the time at their place and Rayn has gotten really good. We agree, we think we have it in our spare room. Well, it can't be found. Husband volunteers to use the gift certificate we got for Christmas to buy Scrabble. Ok, cool. But Cynthia thinks her bff will be gifting that particular game to us. So we should not get it now. Husband goes to the store (for other stuff).
.I happen to be out with the kids running a few errands when Cynthia's bff shows up. She tells Cynthia she did not get Scrabble. So Cynthia calls and asks if I would mind driving back to pick up the gift certificate and go buy Scrabble? Yes, yes I do mind. That would take an hour with 7 children. Not worth it.
Once I get home she sends my husband to the store to go get this game. She makes Rayn drive my husband (he is legally blind, can't drive, but can see ok with glasses) to the store to get this game. They're gone an hour.
He finally gets back we set up the game and start playing. I notice the 2 word list is missing (if you don't know, several Scrabble games come with a list of Scrabble acceptable 2 letter words. Words like, Za, Qi, and Aa. No definitions, just a list of words. This game did not) so I looked it up and wrote it down to share. I have this list memorized, I wrote it down so I wouldn't have an unfair advantage.
Every time I played a 2 letter word from the word list Cynthia would make that CBF and say, "Well what does that mean?" I'd say, "I dunno. It's just a word on the approved 2 letter word list." After it became apparent that she wasn't winning the game (I was ahead of them by about 100 points, I happen to love this game) she said she wanted to quit. When asked why she said, "Well, when we play this game at home we actually learn something from it. If Rayn plays a word I don't know then she teaches it to me. It's not just a list of words. And I'm obviously not going to win. So why keep playing? It's supposed to be fun. And it's no fun if there is no possible way I could win"
My husband looks at me. I look at him, like this is crazy. He starts packing up the game! I shake my head at him. As in, keep playing. He texts me a question mark. I text him back, "I do not want to teach our children it is acceptable to quit a game you started just because it looks like you will lose." He agrees. So we play like she said nothing and the game goes on.
I try teaching Cynthia some of my strategy. I point out during one of her 2 point moves that if she added one extra letter to the board she'd make 7 points instead of 2. And she said, "Well, that's not very creative. It's just the same word twice. I feel like this game should be creative." I said, "Sure, but you get twice as many points." She said, "Well what does that matter since I'm going to lose anyway?" So I dropped the subject (she quietly put that letter down and got her extra points anyway).
I did end up winning the game by 20 points (husband was 2nd). Near the end I helped everyone find placements for as many tiles as possible before I played my last one.
The game took like 3 hours to play. Oi. <--- [Look at that, a 2 letter word that is acceptable in Scrabble]
Happy to be in bed now with my husband and toddler daughter. On mobile apologizes for format/grammar/typo errors.
Submitted December 27, 2016 at 06:05AM by SelfishCynthiasDIL http://ift.tt/2iaecVN
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