Hey everyone,
Floria - Hope you get some more sleep soon.
Les - Sorry ds1 is being bullied, hope something can be done about it. I was bullied in the last 2 years of high school, it can make it a very lonely place
Thought i'd finally update you on the meeting with my parents.
Most of the day was good as I said before. They were really happy to see Dylan and my Dad especially was very emotional when he met him.
Dylan was a bit shy at first but after half an hour or so he went to them no problem and was laughing away and giving hugs etc.
We had sausage and bacon sandwiches with them for dinner that they cooked for us in their self catering holiday home. They had brought some xmas presents for us and Dylan. My mum had tried to recreate xmas by putting lights up and had a santa sack full of clothes and toys for Dylan. We swapped presents and Dylan played with his new toy, a steering whell with sound fx.
The only bit that was a bit strange about this was that later on in the day she got some presents out that were presents she had bought that were meant to be from Dylan to them?!!! I thought this was weird but didn't say anything, we had given them some chocolates from him already and I thought if anyone would buy his Gran and Grandad a present from him it should be us. Anyway, it wasn't surprising cause my mum does stuff like that all the time (I think it's to do with the fact she's self obsessed - even buys presents off other people to herself)
We had told them about Dylan being a fussy eater so my mum was dying to have a go at feeding him. We were happy to let her cause it gave us a break. She managed to get about 6 spoons in and was pleased with herself so that went well.
We then drove to the nearby beach and hey had a go at pushing the buggy along the local promenade which was nice.
We then went in to town as my mum wanted a cooler top to wear as the home they were staying in was warm all the time and she'd been too hot. Whilst in town I popped to boots as I wanted to get Dylan some jars of food and they insisted on buying them, they also got him some nappies, baby bath, sudo crem, nappy bags, bibs and biscuits.
I told them they really didn't need to buy all that stuff but they insisted they wanted to help out. (I was very grateful for this but also a little worried they would throw the gesture back in my face at a later date as they sometimes do this when they buy things for me. They say things like, I can't believe you're being like this when we bought you a,b and c, you're so ungrateful etc). Anyway, I think they just wanted to be proud grandparents and buy Dylan something as they'd missed out on all the earlier stuff.
My mum had also bought some food for him for dinner to try as she said it used to be my favourite and she wanted to see if he'd like it..
We went back to the holiday home, had a christmas drink (just the one) and had tea which was sheperds pie that they also cooked for us. Dh was giving Dylan his bottle when I first sat down to tea with them and it was at this point my mum asked about my brother which she'd agreed she wasn't going to do (the brother she was asking about has moved from the midlands to cornwall, bought a new house, got a new job and got married sice they stopped talking, I didn't want to give her this info as it is big news and not mine to tell, it's up to my bro to tell them if and when he gets in touch).
Anyway, she was like 'has he been made redundant? I heard on the news there were redundancies at his company, what is he doing now???' (I had already told her on 2 seperate occasions over the phone before we met up that he was fine and had not been made redundant)
I just said 'I don't want to talk about Tim, I don't want to tell you anything about him he might not want me to tell or might want to tell you himself' then she said 'i'm just asking about my youngest son that we're worried about'(in an agitated tone) and I said 'I've already told you he's fine, if you carry on asking about him we will just leave, we agreed not to talk about him'. After this she said somethin like 'ok, ok I shouldn't have said anything' and I said 'no, you shouldn't' then we carried on eating rather arkwardly for a while till Dh joined us.
After that they brought a present through from the back room for him, it was a ride on quad with a handle at the back so we can push him on it. My dad (who is a signmaker/banner maker) had put Dylans name on the front of it and he had also gone to the local bike shop and got an electrical horn/siren and attached it to the handle bar . Dylan loved it and they were happy to see he liked it so much. He did just keep wanting to spin the wheels on it though - this is his absolute favourite thing to do!
One thing I haven't mentioned yet is the way my mum kept on mentioning at regular intervils throughout the day that she really wanted us to visit them at their house with Dylan. I was irritated by this as it made me feel really pressured and it is very annoying when someone keeps asking you over and over again to promise something you can't/don't want to promise yet.
I stuck to the answer 'hopefully at some point' but she kept on asking anyway
She just kept slipping it in to the conversation in any way she could. For eg: 'we'll take the quad back to ours as you've said you don't have much more room for toys, you will come down with him soon won't you????, eh? eh?' and 'we will see him again before you've finished that tub of sudo crem we've bought won't we???' 'There's a lovely petting farm down near us, you will come down won't you?' and 'I would have liked to have seen it when he met santa, hopefully we will see it in person next year, won't we??? Can we do that? eh? eh?'.
Anyway, you get the general idea!
We packed the car up so we could relax for the last half hour or so before we left and then sat in the lounge area talking for a while.
It was around this point the 'blip' happened. My mum got out the presents (the one's she bought from Dylan to her and my dad ??!! and also some xmas cards for Dylan. She had written one for his 1st xmas 2007 and one for the xmas just gone . Although I know she missed his xmas's and it was sad I thought it a bit strange to give him cards for it now when it's already in the past but thats her.
Anyway, we read the cards and said they were nice and then she started asking me again about going to theirs, this time looking me in the eye and really trying to get me to say 'yes, I promise'. She was saying 'we are going to see you again soon aren't we, you will promise you're going to com down with him won't you? You are going to bring him to see us aren't you? Promise me, promise, eh, eh' at this point I couldn't bear it anymore. Although there is a posibility we will go down there to visit we didn't want to be pressured in to doing it, we wanted to do it in our own time, on our own terms...
Anyway, I just calmly said 'yeah, as long as you behave yourself'. This provoked a massive shakesperean over reaction from my mum. She knew what I meant by it but had to have her moment anyway. She started saying 'you're cruel' 'how could you say such a thing after all you've put us through' . My dad chipped in with 'you're cruel' also. I said 'i'm not cruel i'm just stating the truth, you know what I mean by it. I haven't put you through anything, I stopped talking to you because of your behaviour towards me'.
My mum stormed off upstairs for no reason other than to look dramatic then she came straight back down and started giving me the gult trip 'after everything we've done for you, we've brought you up the best we can and this is all we get, I can't believe it, we've tried to give you such a nice day'.
Somewhere around this point Dh decided we should follow through on our plan of leaving if things went pear shaped and he wasn't happy at all that my mum was once again trying to lay all the blame and guilt on me for a situation that was largly her fault. He stood up and said 'right, we're leaving' so we started getting our coats on.
I said 'we didn't come here for this, we came so you could meet Dylan, we don't want to argue'. My dad said 'can't you feel in the least bit sorry for us?' and I said 'yes, I can, I do feel very sorry for you, I think it's awful that you've missed out on Dylan because of this awful situation, I wish you hadn't. However, that does not mean that it is my fault, there were valid reasons we stopped talking'.
My mum then went and stood at the front door to get some 'fresh air' for a minute then came back and was ranting on again. She was saying 'i'm not a vicious person' and I said 'well you were vicious towards me, thats why this situation happened' she said 'you were vicious to me' and I replied 'maybe in response to you'.
I stated we needed to go for Dylan's bed time and my dad said 'yes, you said you were leaving now anyway didn't you' so My mum said bye to Dylan but then kept holding him whilst going on at Dh about what they'd been through etc etc. It seemed like she was just holding Dylan to buy herself some extra time , I am NOT happy with him being used as a pawn in her game. I said (agian calmly)'can you let go of my son please' and then Dh just took Dylan off her. I was trying to leave before anyone raised their voice as I didn't want him exposed to that environment.
She said to me 'I would never had treat my parents/pils like you have treat us' I replied 'this is a different situtaion, you can't compare, they never treat you like you have treat me. I would never treat Dylan the way you have treat me'.
We went to the door to leave and my mum hugged me to say bye, I was irritated by the situation and just said 'bye' and hugged her back. Then she said 'is that all I get?', I was just like 'yes, we're going now, I told you we didn't want to argue or talk about the past'. At this point my dad became annoyed with my mum for prolonging the 'heated discussion' and said to her 'Just shut up and leave it, you're ruining it, if Amy doesn't want you to talk to her then just shut up, thats good enough for me'. I was quite pleased that he had recognised that my mum can make these situations worse as she just won't let it drop.
We walked to the car and my dad shouted 'will you call in a few days?' and I said 'yes, we will'. Then, just as Dh was about to get in the car my mum ran back out saying 'you've forgotten your chocolates (just trying to get him to come back so she could say something else) so he went to get them and she said 'just think if this was your parents' to which dh replied 'this wouldn't be my parents, they wouldn't treat us as you have'. At this point my dad told my mum to 'leave it' again and then he asked Dh again 'will you call us?' and Dh said 'yes we will, bye' and we left.
I was sad that I didn't get to say goodbye to my dad properly because of my mum's amateur dramatics and neither did Dylan
Anyway, things calmed down, I sent a picture message to them of Dylan saying we know the day didn't end how we wanted but Dylan was happy to meet them and he had fun and we would call them in a few days.
Dh decided he was going to call instead of me for once to give me a 'mental break'. He called on wed night and my parents were actually really nice to him. My mum even appologised for her behaviour at the weekend, said she knew she took it too far and she was also sorry for asking about my brother and she wouldn't do it again . It is unheard of for her to appologise, my dad must have had a very stern word with her and told her she'd ruin it if she didn't start behaving. Dh also told them on the call Dylan took his first steps and they were very proud and happy.
I have since sent them more pics of Dylan when he was younger and a video of him at 4 hrs old. Mu mum called me last night to thanks me for the pics and managed to behave herself for the whole call, also a difficult task for her.
So that is where we are now. We've told them we might visit in the next month or so but will have to see when Dh is working. Mu mum said she's happy just to see him whenever is convenient even if it's every 6 months as it's quantitiy rather than quality, at least she's calmed down a bit.
Sorry if you're all asleep by now but thats the update anyway, not sure if all details of when things happened are exactly accurate but you get the general gist.
Hope everyone I haven't mentioned is well, speak soon x