Psych 101

Well, it's that time again. You know, the time when my parents have finally pulled out of the driveway after a visit and I finally feel like I can let out my breath again. Let's see, this time the food actually was not the big issue amazingly enough. No, this time was filled with other frustrations that were far too similar to my childhood than I care to remember.

Between arriving 21 hours late (yes that's almost a complete day late) with my oldest son in tow to ruining my cousin's life, I am all too happy to see this time come to an end.

Let me explain: first there was a lot of bickering between grandparents as to who could have my son when he was visiting the north. The entire time, gagknee & I were plagued with angry grammys spouting that they were the only good influence and that they deserved to have him rather than share him. However we finally convinced my parents to actually return my son after I threatened to make the trip up myself. Of course, every excuse came out of the book when they actually got on the road and, even though some of them sounded slightly convincing, I am not swayed from my understanding that the delayed arrival was simply because my mother was not happy about me asserting my parental rights about returning my child.

Anyway, the second incident came only a few hours after arrival when my mother indirectly "shared" some juicy family gossip that has been kept secret for 38 years thereby destroying my cousin's emotional state and beginning an avalanche of problems that will not be quickly fixed. To make it worse, since this happened my mother has been insistent on rationalizing what she said to the point of blaming the whole thing on everyone except herself.

So truly this has been a trying weekend that I'm more than happy to be over with. Oh and I just found a bag full of stuff that I am convinced I threw away yesterday. Just another one of my mother's specialties: picking stuff out of the trash bin...