Had Christmas day at my nans as usual, Various family all attend throughout the day. From 4 years ago there was the first great grandchild (DS) then various ones since then.
My cousins DS is a year younger than mine and is 'golden boy who can do no wrong' in his dads eyes, my aunts (his nan) and his uncles. I actually see potential problems with behaviour etc but would never say anything as I know excuses would be made so I'll just leave them to it.
My DS is the oldest out of the great grandchildren and knows it as he is interested in numbers and is always talking about peoples ages and who is older/younger etc. He can also be bossy. I know this, its not the crime of the century, I was the same when I was younger and still am.
He was being a bit bossy to my cousins DS on Christmas day, nothing over the top at all (I am not just making excuses, he really wasn't bad at all) and I did remind him that he is not in charge, he was generally just playing with everyone and enjoying the day.
I walked into the kitchen at one point to catch my 3 male cousins all stood around talking about my DS and how he is "bossing X around all the time" this was the only bit I heard and they soon shut up when they saw me. I didn't bother to say anything as I didn't want to create an atmosphere but it bugged me to hear them talking like that behind a 4 year old childs back.
God this sounds so stupid and pathetic, it really does. But when I look at my DS and his happy little face, I feel awful that I know they talk about him, I know this won't have been the only thing said. My aunt gets very annoyed that my DS gets looked after by my nan (she brought me up and is essentially like my mum, no one else looks after my children so my nan is the only one who helps out and my aunt knows this, whereas my cousins DS has loads of people looking after him and paying for this that and the other). My aunt was also annoyed that another aunt bought a little something for my 2 DCs and not just HER DGS.
Yes this is all very pathetic but it pisses me off that they are behaving like this towards a small child. I was glad that DS was happy to have someone to play with and he was excited about seeing his second cousin? (not sure how the distant cousins thing works) but I know that this is how its going to be when we meet up. I also overheard my cousin telling off (not in a really nasty way) my DS for shouting in his DS' face when actually it was the other way around.