Oh My Lordy!!!

I have had such a stressful week. I'm so glad to have this blog to do a bit of venting and get some neutral perspective from my fellow bloggers. As you all know I work Mon and Fri and while I work my mum minds Nickie. It was something she wanted to do for me since I was pregnant as we are very close and I think after the stress my sister puts my folks through they are grateful that I'm no trouble to them haha. Also I think they respect and appreciate how hard Brad and I work to provide for ourselves and for Nickie so Mum wanted to do something to help us by minding him and eliminating the cost of daycare. She has been doing a great job and really enjoying it so far. Nickie absolutely adores her and enjoys his Nan days immensely so the arrangement has been awesome. Until Monday....

I have shown my mum many times how to fold our pram down and up and she has always had trouble mastering it. When I work I leave my car for mum and she drives Nickie around if she wants to go anywhere. Often she will take him to the shops or to her place. On Monday she took him to her place and she, my dad and Nickie went for a walk using the pram which mum got out of the boot of my car. After they got back, mum started to pack up Nickie to bring him back to my house and was having trouble folding the pram down to get it back in the car boot. My dad told her he would see if he could do it and to go inside and get Nickie ready and he would take care of it. She got Nickie ready and came back out and dad has got the pram into the boot so mum drives him back to my house.

I need to digress here and explain my dad has an ongoing habit of trying to fix things he knows nothing about and ending up breaking them. I got a car stereo for my 20th birthday and I booked in to get it installed professionally but dad wouldn't listen and thought he could do it himself. I said no and so one day when I was out with a friend and not using the car, dad decided he would "surprise me" and instal it while I was out. The result was that I not only had to pay to have the stereo installed properly, I also had to pay an extra $50 to have my air conditioning re-wired as my dad had ripped out all the wires in his attempt to wire up the stereo. I was not impressed. This is only one instance, there have been many over the years.

Anyway I get home from work, mum is at my house and she says to me "Pax can you come out and make sure everything is ok with the baby car seat because it looks sort of different than it usually does." I come out and realise with horror that the whole seat is unhooked and unrestrained. There are straps and a safety anchor that all connect up in the boot of the car and are bolted in and the bolt is just loose and lying on the floor in the back seat and all the straps are just loose in the back seat and not attached to anything. My first thought, not knowing anything about my Dad being near that area at the time was that the car seat had come out because it was faulty or had been improperly installed. I never dreamed it was anything to do with anything my parents had done so I was not yelling or directing anything towards Mum. I was just in shock saying things like "oh no, I can't believe this, to think I have been driving Nickie around on a car seat like this. Did you see anything odd about the seat before this Mum because I haven't seen anything before? I'll have to contact the store....etc" I have to digress again and add that since the miscarriage I have noticed my stress levels are higher and I get very jumpy and upset about the littlest things especially when they are to do with Nickie. Worry sometimes keeps me awake at night too and it is something I talk about with the counsellor I see regularly and she gives me strategies to deal with stress. Mum does know all this.

Mum then says "Oh no....I have an awful feeling your father has done this." and she proceeds to tell me the story of the pram. I have a sinking feeling that it was indeed my dad's doing and mum starts to feel terrible that she has driven him home with the seat like that and that he has caused trouble because now I will have to get the seat refitted etc...I say to her it wasn't her fault, she is not to know. In my head I was kind of thinking well how could she not notice all the bolts and staps everywhere but really I know it's not her fault and she does feel terrible so I told her not to worry, that we would sort it out and that Nickie is ok so we'll just make sure it doesn't happen again and maybe talk to dad about how important the car seat safety is (ie. stop touching things!). She goes home and I can tell she is stressed. I was stressed too but not angry at her, just frustrated because now I have a problem to fix and I am thinking about all the appointments we have that I am going to have to postpone as I had a busy couple of days ahead.

Later that night I decided to go over to Mum and Dad's to check Mum was ok and to talk to Dad. Dad is all frosty to me so I think "ok Mum has told him I was annoyed" but I just started to have a friendly conversation with him to let him know while I was not impressed, I was also not going to hold a grudge. I asked him could he come out to my car with me. I showed him all the straps and how they hook up in the boot and that there is a big bolt which is a safety anchor to make sure Nickie's car seat is secured to something so it wont go flying around the car. I asked him did he undo it and if so why did he do that? He says yes he undid it all because the pram wouldn't fit in the car boot and the bolts and straps were in the way and he didn't realise what they were for. By this time I am starting to feel pretty pissed off because I found that to be incredibly irresponsible. I tried to remain calm and speak to him nicely but at the same time I wanted to be firm and for him to understand the gravity of what he had done. I said to him that he has to learn that now that I have a baby a lot of things in my car and home are installed to make Nickie safer and so there might be straps and bolts and things everywhere and they are there for a purpose. I said not knowing what something is is not an excuse for tampering with something and that if he is not 100% sure of what something is and that he knows how to use it, then he is not to touch or tamper with it. I explained to him that an easier way would have been to leave the pram at their house and I could have collected it later, and that instead poor mum is feeling bad as she has driven Nickie home unsafely. Not once did I raise my voice although I was quite direct with what I said. Dad starts cracking it with me and yelling at me and he storms inside. I gave Mum a hug and said i was sorry for causing a scene but that I really felt something had to be said to him and told her I loved her and I'd see her another time.

The next day I call to check on her and she is not talking to me!!!! She tells me how dare I yell at her and Dad and she feels I am too critical of the way she looks after Nickie and that this is not the first time I have been critical and she is sick of it. She yells at me that I can find someone else to look after Nickie because she is not doing it any longer, she is sick of being judged. Then she hung up on me. I was gobsmacked! Not once did I "yell" at neither her nor dad. I don't feel I even raised my voice. And yes I did speak tersely to Dad but i feel not touching the car seat bolts was something a little kid would know. Who in their right mind would see at that set up and then undo it and not even worry about what it was or think to look what it was or even to ask Mum? And I certainly never directed any of my frustrations on Mum either as I didn't feel it was her fault.

Brad and I had a huge talk about what to do. We wondered if I should quit my job or if perhaps Mum might come to her senses. Then I said to Brad that I preferred to make other arrangements even if she does come to her senses. I thought now that she has accused me of being over critical then I will feel like I can't even have a say in the way she looks after my own child. Also I think I would walk on eggshells for fear of upsetting her again and causing her to "quit" babysitting Nickie. We decided after a day of deliberation that I would continue to work and we would put Nickie in daycare for the two days. We have spent the last two days chasing around looking at day care centres and choosing one. He is now all enrolled and ready to start this Monday. I then had to find an emergency babysitter for this Friday. My best friends Mum said she would be more than happy to help which I so appreciated. She is a lovely lady and has been like a second Mum to me since I was 13.

So with everything all set my Mum finally calls me and is now talking to me civally. She offers her babysitting services back but on a "trial basis" and she is not sure how long she will do it for. I said "Mum thanks so much for all you have done and thanks for the offer but Brad and I have made alternate arrangements." She is all shocked as if she thought that without her babysitting we would fall in a heap. I told her that I hoped in time she would still like to spend a day with Nickie every now and then because he will really miss her. She seemed really sad and regretting her "resignation". I am trying not to hold a grudge about the way she has acted but I am really sad and hurt. She has taken a really nice thing away from both herself and Nickie for the sake of being petty. I don't mind if she doesn't want to mind him because he is my obligation not hers, it is just the way she acted.

I can't believe after all my sister has done and still continues to do and they forgive her, they then turn around and haul me across the coals for this stupid car seat incident when it wasn't even me that did anything. Dad never once apologised for doing what he did, or even for inconveniencing me, nor did he offer to pay the $40 we had to pay to get the seat re-installed and safety tested. Not that I would have taken the money but it would have been nice to be offered. Dad is still not talking to me as he is so disappointed in me for being so rude to him! Yet my sister causes them to have debt collectors knocking at their door looking for her. She steals their credit cards and forges their signatures, she has stolen Mum's jewellery in the past and they never even react! I'm really quite hurt.

As well as that I am nervous that Nickie will now be in daycare. It looked like a lovely place and it will probably turn out that he will have a great time but it makes me feel funny. I guess probably because it's new and because of the circumstances. I hope we all feel better soon about everything. Sorry for the long post guys I'll shut up now! XOXOXO