Well the journey from our house to theirs is long- 15/16 hours including ferry. On the way over we decided to try a hotel. It would have been ideal in so many ways- great family rooms, family friednly pub with very quiet playbarn attached, big grounds. Ds1 wouldn't eat, and then went into major meltdown. He was just running manically around and if we tried to take him in the room screamed and clawed at it to get out, smashing himself in the face and attacking anyone who wnet near him. In the end dh took him out for a 2 hour drive to calm him down.
Ferry on the way over wasn't oo bad. large boat and we had hired a huge cabin thinking we may be able to contain ds1. he refused to stay in it, but at least ds2 stayed there with his toys and we took it in turns to walk ds1 around the boat.
Actual stay was awful. MIL and FIL just cannot/will not take on board the autism. Stupid comments all week, completely unable to repond approrpriately to pinching etc (told them they had to give no response- or a very neutral one- they said that was impossible and mil ended up screaming "bad boy" in his face- which - as p[redicted he found hilarious and led to a frenzy of pinching for the rest of the night. As usual MIL was "ill" (has been every time we've seen her since ds1 was born). This time it was sinusitis. So every morning whilst we were giving the boys breakfast her and FIL had breakfast in bed with their room door shut. COuld go on and on, just dreadful.
Ferry on the way back was awful. It was small- no cabins and a fast ferry. DS1 just overloaded, couldn't cope with the car queue, or the crowds in the ferry and ended up just losing it. We provided wonderful entertainment for the tut tut brigade.
Anyway we got off ferry and dh rang his mother and told her a) we're not coming again until (when/if) ds1 can cope with the journey and b) they have to start learning something about autism as we can't take any more of their stupid comments and their inappropriate responses are leaving us with behvavioural problems to sort out. We'd sent them a copy of george and sam a month before going over but neither of them had read it (MIL doesn't work so she has plenty of time to read it). MIL told me that when ds3 is born she will come over after a couple of weeks to "help". We have agreed that she won't as she did this after ds2 - and although I had 2 kids, a house on the market and had had a c-section she went to bed every afternoon with a "migraine" (which miraculously disappeared each evening when a bottle of wine was opened).
They did their usual "we had 2 children so we know just what it's like" routine completely failing to take on board that 2 children are not the problem. We could have 15 ds2's and we wouldn't need to deal with OCD of insisting on going out in the street to look at neighbours doors/cars (and screaming for hours when refused), of self injurous behaviour, of attacking others, of not having any language but being 5 years old, of not being able to play etc etc.
Just fed up with it really.