Zappatas...over here!!!

[Dropdeadfred]

we got to 1000 again....made me reminisce about our original thread all those months ago

marmite - home for a nap

deffo

nap wins with me

right, going home for the nap in 5 mins (really ought to turn MN off and do some workthis afternoon, I have the choice of making some oil blends or working on a boring powerpoint presentation)

will try to stop whinging so much as well.

Right, choose the nap, then choose the oil blends .

Don't blame you for whingeing.

Swimming would be a bad idea, although may temporarily revive you. I hate all that faff of getting wet and then having to get dry again so soon (doesn't bother me when I have a bath mind you...).

Was planning to sleep once feed was over after nursery run, but from starting to feed DS to finishing feeding DS2 it took two hours, and then I had to do some chores, so DS may well wake up in half an hour thinking it is time for more, although knowing my luck he will wait four hours this time just because I am sitting here like a lemon.

Doula coming 2-6:30 today by the way, hence I am on computer all morning!!!

Oh Phono she does EVERYTHING. She generally feeds the babies, or we do one each (they are being bottle fed), also changes nappies and does burping etc. But she runs the washing / hangs it up / empties or loads dishwasher, hoovers, cleans kitchen / cleans floor / washes and sterilises bottles / will do shopping for me etc etc. Also it means I can go out with just DS1 to the swings / soft play etc and leave her at home with babies. She has also taken DS1 out by himself which he loved (think he has a little crush on her).

I want her FOREVER.

egg - do you have to stop having her at some time? Or could you have her forever? I mean, it would be a pity for her not to see them grow up, wouldn't it?

LOL. She is only booked for definite until Easter so not that long really. I think it is 8 weeks in total. She doesn't have a booking after Easter as yet though, and even if she does they may only want her 2 or 3 days a week (says Egg hopefully) so could maybe still pop in here one day a week or something. DH wants me to get her booked for longer but I think I will have to get used to going it alone at some point and will get a cleaner once she leaves.

Oh, she is also great to have a chat with over a cuppa .

egg - let your doula put her slippers on!

I want a doula!!!!

Girls, I have a problem...a big family fall out type thing. I need your advice but it will be a long long post...I will try and get round to typing it sometime today...

BTW, me and DP and girls are all fine, don't worry!

Okay...I will try and fill in the background.
I have a brother, a brother I used to be very very close to. We are less than a year apart in age, we grew up almost like twins. At one stage when I had split from my eldest dd's dad he offered for me to move in with him ( to escape from our hometown and being pestered by Ex and his family etc)

I think there may have been a tad of jealousy when I found DP and stopped 'needing' my brother so much. Shortly afterwards he moved away down South and I stayed on where we both had lived. I eventaully moved down South muself to live with DP, just as bro moved firstly to Paris then to Canada...a couple of years went by with communication being mainly through my parents passing messages on.

My bro then suprised everyone by meeting someone in Canada and falling in love. He had a whirlwind affair and then came back to the UK to Scotland (where his wife came from) and got married. At the time of them being engaged DP and I were going through multiple miscarriages and were elated by the arrival of dd3 4 months before their weddign date. We duly braved travelling via car 500 miles to their wedding where I spent most of the ceremony and the reception stuck in a room breastfeeding...not really much contact with bro or ssil but they seemingly understood and appreciated us making the effort to be there.

Now after the engagemnt my bro let me in on some shocking news that I will not divulge here, but suffice to say that his wife's upbringing had not been ideal and she had sufered things that no girl should have to . He asked me to keep this secret and I did until her decision to tell the rest of the family almost two years later.

My mum and sil seemed to have a bit of a rocky start to their relationship as sil seemed to not really need my mum's input in wedding plans and becuas eof the geogrpahical distance it was hard to stay close in all ways too.

Eventually when my mum heard of sil's emotional problems (due to childhood etc)she tried to show sympathy but was often rebuffed. SIL does not do amy communicating personally btw EVERYTHING is said through my bro.

Now we invited bro & sil to our wedding a year or so ago ( beforer date was even officially set etc) and they said they would be coming. SIL speaks to my dd's on msn at times and happily told them she would see them there. They arranged accomodation a month or so ago and told my mum and dad. They stayed with my parents at New Year and still did not mention anything, although my dad says SIL did chnage subject alot when weding was mentioned.

Now my brother told me that because of panic attacks/flashbacks etc SIL hates weddings and will not be attending and that he would be there alone.
To be polite and because I felt sorry for them both being in this situation I tried to help.

I asked if there was any way of them delaying their decision until later in the year ( we would gladly hold their places). I offred for her to sit near a door so she could slip away without being noticed into the gardens, I offered them daytime use of our honeymoon suite so she could hide if things got uncomfortable and my bro could join her.

I got an email saying that I was 'taking away her right to make a choice' and pushing her into a corner and that I should let it go.
So I did, I stated via email and tect that I was bewildered and non plussed about things and that if there was anything I could do to help out to enable them both to come I would. Only once did I ask why their own large wedding had not been a problem as such...in a way that I wanted to know what her coping mechanisms had been etc

Now my brother has said that because I am questioning her and demeaning her with my insensitivity he will not come either

I have spoken to him today ( the first time by phone in ages all other correspondence was email - his choice not mine) and he has told me that his wife was on the point of leaving him if he dared to come to my wedding ....

Worse still she hates and resents me and detests the 'attention' I have recived from within the family during the birth of dd3 and each time I have miscarried. She stated that my mum had more sympathy for me when I had three children than she does for her ( it is not certain whether she can have children yet, nor has it been said that she can't, she has PCOS).

My brother says he cannot mention my name in the house now...he does not know if we will EVER see ech other again right now. he knows for certain that she never wants to lay eyes on me...

HELP? Do I write them both off? Sorry for long story girls!!

oh fred!

I totally see what you were trying to do and I do think that your bro has gone a bit over the top and was perhaps looking for an excuse to say he wasn't coming without his wife (?)

I really think that you have done everything you can as far as the wedding is concerned and perhaps you should resign yourself to them not coming but resolve to send them lots of photos and the video.

I presume that you don't want to fall out with your bro over this and you are feeling hurt that he could accuse you of being insensitive when actually you were being super sensitive? I can see two choices... 1: leave it or 2: write him a nice letter explaining how much it means to you to have them both at your wedding and how many hoops you will jump through in order to enable them to come. You realise that it is not going to be possible but you want to let him know how much you love and value him and you respect their decision (or something along those lines)

As you maybe know, I only really spoke to my bro last year after several years of us not getting on (in a big way) A lot of our acrimony stemmed from them forgetting to invite me to my nephew's christening and I made things worse by refusing point blank to go to my niece's christening because if I didn't go to one, I wasn't going to the other. With hindsight, it was 99% their fault, but I could have done so much to not let us fall out and instead I got stroppy and stubborn and refused to invite him or his family to dd2's christening and as I said, we only just got to be friends again quite recently (and when I say friends, I don't mean "ringing each other up to say hi" friends, I mean "can stand to be in the same room as each other" friends.

So my advice to you, above all, would be do not fall out with your brother, it is a looooooooong time in the making up.

Really really sorry this has happened, it sounds like she has serious issues!

sending cold, shivery Yorkshire hugs your way.

cross posted with your last post - didn't see the bit about speaking to him today.

Gosh, it sounds like he is really stuck in a hard place there.

She is obviously a bit loopy, but if she's struggling to conceive then that's understandable I suppose. However, if the family don't know the problems they are having, they aren't going to give her any attention, are they? duh!

It sounds like your brother thinks the world of you but can't go against his wife on this. Perhaps you should maybe take a back seat for a while and not contact them for ages, tell him you will always be there for him, but it is up to him to contact you, you will stay away if it is what they want.

Christ, why are families so fecking complicated!

wonder what everyone else thinks. It's not one of those problems that is easy to see a solution to when you're not involved in it. Wish it was

Thanks for the hugs Squonk!!

The trouble is he has told me that even if I were to write something sympathetic/apologetic then she would hate me all the more for making her feel like the one that who was unable to concede that she had overreacted. He said she could spiral into a pit of self-loathing and blame me for being 'perfect enough to understand'....

My DP by the way (bless him) would like to drive me up to Scotland so I can 'have it out face to face'.
I asked my bro if I could phone her and he said that she would just slam the phone down..

perhaps it's all a bit soon for her. Maybe if you leave it a week or two then phone her or write to her.

Or maybe write a letter but actually say in it "I am trying to understand but I don't, I think you're being horrible" Which is (probably) true anyway.