16-1-2009 - My mother is officially driving me crazy...

My mood while writing this blog: Ok

Okay, so my mother is officially driving me crazy. We have never had a perfect mother/daughter relationship, she has always been closer to my sister and I have been closer to my dad. When I was growing up she a lot of times wasn't great to me, but she provided for me and loved me, even if she didn't show it. I think a lot has to do with the way she was raised by my slightly insane grandmother. But anyways, over the last few years I have grown and matured and come to see things from all perspectives and appreciate her more. I will also admit that living with my DH, who never seems to get upset over anything, has allowed me to calm down some (some!) and be able to step back and carefully look things over before getting all upset.

Well, with all that being said, I find I can't seem to handle my mother for more than an hour or so at a time. I visited last night and she was okay for a while. I have learned to let some of her comments just brush past me and ignore them. Well, every time I visit (which I try to do often since dad is so sick) she seems to be okay for a little while and then the insane button clicks on and she starts acting a fool. So she asks me if I have looked at her bedroom (her and dad sleep in separate bedrooms - he's sick and has to sleep in a recliner) since she cleaned it out for the baby. This is the second time she has told me she has cleaned her room to make room for the baby. I have told her multiple times she won't be keeping the baby and explained how we have waited a long time for this little one and she won't be staying with anyone for a good long while but they are welcome to visit her at our house. Then she tells me how there's plenty of room for a bassinette now. I was just like yeah, there's no need for you to worry about a bassinette (is that even how you spell it?) so you shouldn't go out and buy one or anything. She then tells me how she knows she will be getting a call in the middle of the night begging her to come and take the baby because she is crying. What? I reminder her I am a grown woman and not a kid and will take care of my child just fine. Then she says how she knows she will also be getting calls for her to come and change poopy diapers. That really got to me. Why in the world would I, a grown ass woman, who has a husband and is about to be a mother, who never asks this woman for ANYTHING, call my mommie and tell her I need her to come to my house to change a dirty diaper? Seriously? It's poop, it's not a deadly plague. I reminded her of how I used to babysit when I was a teenager and had several times where the little boy I watched was sick and ended up pooping all over me and I never asked anyone for help. Who would???

So anyways, this irritated so I tried to just let it go and we left shortly after. So I email my sis this morning and tell her and she says yeah, I think mom seems to envision this scenario of you having the baby and then falling flat on your face and not being able to take care of her and her swooping in and taking her. When I read this it made sense. The closer I get to my due date, the more obsessed and weird my mom gets. I am hoping a lot of my feelings are just pregnancy hormone related, but who can tell anymore, because I know I sure can't.

I tried to talk to DH last night and explain to him how I can't imagine not having baby girl inside me where I can control what happens to her and I can take care of her and know her every move and he totally didn't get it. He keeps saying I am going to change once she is born.

So anyways, that's my extreme irritation at the moment. And this is the woman who I have invited to spend a week with the baby and me. It's beginning to feel a little hand that rocks the cradle to me, but it's my own mother. I think something happens to women when they go thru menapause.

So, I am really hoping that we both chill out - on my side that my hormones calm down and I can learn to not overreact to everything anyone says that involves my child, lol - and on her side that she realizes I am not a child anymore and that I am a grown woman who is about to take the most amazing step of her life and become a mother herself and might need her support and advice even at times, but do not need her to try to be my child's mother, since that is my job, only to be her grandmother.

Well, that's my complaint for the day. Thanks for listening to my bitching!!! It feels so good to be able to express these feelings and know some of you ladies know just what I am talking about.