Grandma's Pearls

Feeling stressed out

Today is a new day and I'm sure that I will be totally stressed out by the end of the day. I'm still having to drive my daughter around everywhere. Her husband thought he had her car fixed but now it won't start at all. Go figure! He is trying to get her car fixed but just because she is complaining about not having a car and it is driving him crazy! But, today I think that I will talk about the hidden competition between my daughter and my almost daughter-in-law.
For some unknown reason, my daughter feels threatened by her brother's girlfriend. She isn't actually his girlfriend anymore. They still live in the same house and they share the bills and groceries and things like that. Occasionally, they are bed-buddies, but as for being boyfriend and girlfriend, that was over about a year ago. They have a son together and my son can't make himself move out because he wouldn't get to see his son very much. Yes, she is one of those women. It didn't start out that way, it just ended up that way. Anyway, my daughter has felt threatened by her long before she got hooked up with my son. She(daughter-in-law) used to be my oldest daughter's best friend. They were friends in jr. high and up until just a few years ago. She went to visit my oldest daughter for a while. That was when she broke up with my son. She took thier child to another state to stay with my oldest daughter. After about a month, things went from good to bad and then from bad to worse. Anyone with kids knows that 2 moms with 2 different parenting styles cannot co-exist in the same household without consequences. They had some major conflicts and my daughter-in-law ended up moving back in with my son. When she moved back in, she had her own bedroom, my son had his own bedroom and thier son had his room. Well, now they share a bedroom and a bed , but, that is about as far as it goes, unless she has been drinking and she is in the mood. Then it is ok for something to happen, but only if she is three sheets to the wind, so to speak.
Anyway, as I was saying, there has always been a competition between her and my 2nd daughter. I don't know why. There is no way she could ever replace my daughter and I have told that to my daughter so many times that it should be tattooed across her forehead! But, she has gotten it in her head that I treat my son's girlfriend differently than her, I do because she isn't my daughter. But she doesn't get special or preferential treatment like my daughter does. It is such a trying situation between those two and sometimes it just makes me crazy. There isn't anything I can do about it and I shouldn't worry about it but it still bothers me. Aside from totally ignoring her and my grandson, there is nothing I can do to remedy the situation between them. I am not going to ignore my grandson, so they have worked out an uneasy truce between them for now. As long as neither of them interfere with the others child or parenting ability, then they are ok with the other. When it gets really strange, is when I make plans to take one of them somewhere, the other one tries to get me to do something really important at the same time.
For example, yesterday, I was supposed to take my daughter-in-law to a no-kill shelter to take some puppies to them. The city won't let them have more than 2 dogs, mainly because the neighbors are complaining. My daughter had a dentist appt. for today. Yesterday, my daughter suddenly had the brilliant idea to call the dentist and have her appt changed. So, instead of taking my daughter-in-law to the shelter, I had to take my daughter to the dentist instead. Why, because my daughter decided to change her appt after she found out that I was supposed to take my daughter-in-law somewhere and she didn't want me to do anything with her, so, she fixed it where I couldn't. All the while making it seem as if it was just an innocent accident. It does no good to confront her on this issue because she has plausible deniability. Atleast she thinks she does. I am a very passive person. I don't like confrontation and will avoid it when possible. It is just easier for me and for my daughter-in-law to just work around it. Yes, I know I shouldn't do that but it is easier than arguing with everyone and listening to everyone call each other every name in the book and then some. If those two get into an arguement, then the grandchildren suffer, because they don't get to see each other. Not even at my house.
They were arguing the christmas before last and when christmas day arrived, everyone was supposed to come to Grandma's house to get thier presents. Well, my daughter and her girls came in the morning and my daughter-in-law, son and thier son came in the evening, so they wouldn't have to be there at the same time. We had Thanksgiving at my son's house and Christmas dinner at my daughter's house. Instead of having them both at my house like we used to do before they decided to have an on-going fued over whatever it is they feel like fueding about at the time. How crappy is that? It makes for a really stressed out grandma!
I love being with my grandchildren but it is a rare thing when I can be with all of them at one time. Even though I love my grandchildren, by the end of the day, I am ready for the peace and quiet of my own house. Atleast there, I am the boss, even though my husband thinks that he is the boss of the house. He knows that I run the house and just let him think that he does. He wears the pants but I make the rules and he enforces them when I can't. When the kids were little, he was the big meany because if they got out of line, they had to answer to him after they answered to me. Sometimes, the punishment had to fit the crime and sometimes the punishment from me was enough. It is really strange being a grandma. I still have some authority over my kids but not much. They all know how to act at my house and fortunately for me, they have passed that on to thier kids. I guess I have done a pretty good job raising my kids. They are respectful of others and thier belongings, they are well mannered and polite to others, they are hard workers and none of them are aggressive to others unless provoked to the extreme. The best part of having raised my kids, they still love thier momma and they know that momma will always love them. I have the best kids in the world, but, only because they are my kids and I am very proud of all of them!