Belated Christmas Vent (long)

Just finally catching up on TB, didn't have Internet during Christmas week / vacation.  I have to just say that I did not fully anticipate how much of a letdown this vacation would be.  This is long, you may not get through it all...

Let's start with my parents.  I am completely disappointed at how uninterested they really seemed in spending time with DD.  The few minutes that were spent playing with her, my mom was IN her face and being so grabby that she got upset.  I acknowledge that I am only one of 5 kids to pay attention to, but they see me and my family far less than the others, I would have expected at least a little more consideration.  Add to this the fact that apparently my Mom was upset when I asked her to get DD presents instead of me when she asked me what I wanted, and she got her 2 small gifts.  This is compared to the $100 gifts allotted for all other family members.  Childish and unfair, I know I haven't agreed with their thought process in the past on many topics, I suppose I was just hoping they would magically become better people since they have a granddaughter.  And my Dad, being the pushover that he is, just goes along with whatever my Mom wants.  We paid over $1000 to fly out and rent a car for a week, this will not be happening again.  Family may be important to me, but THIS family is not worth the investment.  Add to it that we were pushed off onto my Aunt and Uncle because they didn't have "room" for us (and my other siblings stayed there, whom they see much more frequently).

The next fun part was the plane ride.  DD was NOT able to sleep well on the plane as hoped.  We had a layover each way, and she did fine on the shorter legs, but really struggled on the longer ones.  This was very stressful and not fun to deal with, she was tired and could not go to sleep.  We additionally also had 2 hours' distance between the 2 sets of parents, so poor DD was not doing well in general with driving and flying for hours every day all week long.

In addition, I came down with a stomach bug and threw up 3 times and was sick to my stomach all day on Christmas Eve.  Add to this traveling all around and taking care of DD, it wasn't a fun time.  DD was fortunate enough to catch this from me 2 days later, and threw up 3 times (all over me twice) as well.  Poor girl did well, but it was very difficult to handle.

And now the ILs...they truly are nice people and want to be loving and caring (they are somewhat doting as well).  Basically the opposite extreme of my parents.  So this isn't as bad... But... Some of the topics of discussion during the visit were pretty concerning.  DH is adopted, and his parents have a biological child who is only 15 months younger than him.  She is mentally disabled and lives at home and will never work.  DH is somewhat bitter about her, because she needed so much care and attention while he was growing up, he feels that he had to raise himself in many ways.  While we are there, MIL starts telling me (when DH leaves the room) about how they have nobody to take care of SIL when they pass and she is at a loss and doesn't know what to do.. kinda trying to play the pity card so maybe DH and I would take her on.  I feel very caught in the middle by this.  MIL goes on regularly about how she doesn't have much time left until she passes on.  On our next visit, the story gets even better, and I am told that they just refinanced their house 1-2 years ago to pay for an AC unit and new roof and there is 28-29 years left on the mortgage, and the mortgage is for twice what the house is worth.  Both of them are retired, they left the military to preach at a church just a couple years before they would have been eligible for retirement, the church thing didn't pan out, now they don't work and barely have any money.  The paranoid part of me starts worrying that we are going to be saddled with their life situation, I did some research and it looks like we will be OK, but there will still be a nagging doubt in the back of my head that when they pass there will be a huge mess to deal with.  I have a hard time respecting them because they don't work and don't have any friends and really just don't seem to try.  This was DD's first time meeting them because they are scared to fly and can't afford to drive out (even though they promised us they would in the year before she was born).  They won't do anything for themselves to make their life better and just sit in their house every day steeping in their misery.

The whole situation is just kind of depressing.  DH and I were really just glad to get back to our normal, simple life.  I am sad because I wish DD would have time with her family, but after these experiences this week, what saddens me even more to admit is that she is probably better off not being exposed to them. I think this is our last trip "back home" for Christmas, it seems apparent to me that my "family" now is really DH and DD.  Change is hard, but sometimes it's for the best...  I say this, but even thinking about the fact that there will be NO family (other than me and DH) at her first birthday party just makes me kinda sad.  I think this will take longer than a week to work through...  Of course, all FWP, it could be so much worse, it's just hard sometimes.