I can't stress enough...

***Warning, long with lots of angry complaining... please read the whole thing if you plan on commenting so you know EXACTLY where I am coming from. It's not too late to turn back.... OK, you asked for it!***

We are so back in the land of DRAMA with the MIL. Oh. The. Joys.

So. About a year and a half ago, the MIL starts dating this guy- who, can I just tell you- was just separated from his wife. He was a classmate of the MIL's in high school. He was a bit pushy and mentioned that maybe he could live with the MIL and she told him NO WAY. Good for her.

They continued to see each other for a while and even though she told everyone else on the planet that he was her boyfriend, when I said anything of the sort she snarled at me and said they were just friends. Literally bared her teeth at me, I kid you not.

What- EVER!

A little while after that, when things got a little to heavy for her, she told him she just wanted to be friends and hang out, have fun, nothing too serious. He persisted, she politely declined. He then told her that he got fired from Walmart for "patting a young woman on her butt". WOW. After 3 divorces, still such a good judge of character. That's a heck of a way to (not) break up with some one.

Anywho, that was end of that, she wanted nothing to do with him. A bit after that, we had our falling out with her this summer after she threw a sand pail of water in my 6 year old daughters face, and we didn't talk to her for almost 3 months I think.

I'm not sure when she started dating the very same YAHOO again, but it was around the time that we started to tolerate her presence in public again, and around the time that she decided to ambush me at a family member's birthday party... thinking in her twisted brain that her manipulating the situation and insisting to my face that I have slapped her in the past- ALL WHILE GRIPPING ME BY THE ARM and refusing to let me go until I heard her out- that this would suffice as "the talk " that we told her we needed to have before she could spend time with our kids. Grrrr.

Anyway, I believe that this yahoo that she had sworn she would never see again had possibly filled some void for her while she was refused access to her grand kids. Because of her crazy, unpredictable behavior.

Good for her.

Recently, (about 2-3 weeks ago) Anna was allowed to spend the night at her house. We had forgotten that the yahoo was back in the picture. The next day, the MIL calls and says, "We're going out to dinner to Wendy's, the yahoo and his grandson are coming too. Bah blah blah... Oh. I hope that's OK."

We were not OK with it because the yahoo already has a questionable character, but since they were going to be in public, we said fine. After Anna came home from the MIL's, Anna tells us that yahoo came over to the MIL's apartment. John and I looked at each other and I asked Anna if she had been left alone with yahoo at any time. Yes, she had, while the MIL went to the restroom and went to the kitchen.

Did I happen to mention that I had not even met this yahoo yet, and John had only been introduced in passing? And that the MIL KNOWS about how I was sexually abused by my father, and how I am very protective of my children, and she knows that I have a general mistrust of people when it comes to my girls? I told John early on while we dated that if my father has no problem doing that to me, I know strangers care even less what they do to children, and that was why I planned to be very protective if I ever had kids.

She knows ALL of this.

She knew she was in the wrong, that is why she did what she always does and asked after telling us what she was going to do (or in some cases, already did), by asking if " it's ok". John called her and let her know that this was unacceptable. He told her, "If he is over and Anna is there, and you have to leave the room, Anna is not to be left alone with him, or any stranger."

What does she say? She basically lies by implying that she already thought of that and was compliant by saying, "Oh, of course."

What she doesn't know is that we already knew at that point that she HAD left Anna alone with him.

She then asks, "Well, I'm not saying that this is going to happen but if I get married again, will I ever get to see my grand kids?"

Guilt trip, anyone? OK... so now I'm kind of getting to my point here. First of all, WTH? Married again? Where the heck....

John says, "Yes, but we don't want Anna left in a room with anyone who is a stranger. I'd have to get to know him better before that ever happens."

Two days ago I was talking to John's aunt, who is the MIL's sister. "Did you hear that she said to me that she mentioned to him (yahoo) that they should move in together to make things easier on each other?"

WHAT? Where is this coming from? She has been on meds for months now to "even her out". Honestly, she acts very much like my mother 85% of the time, and could very well be bipolar. Lately, she is short on money, so she cannot afford to compulsively shop like she normally does. She brags to us that she paid off some credit cards, and the next thing we know, she is buying more crap she doesn't need and her cards are maxed out again. Anyway, what she can't afford her usual compulsions so she decides she now NEEDS a man?

Now, here is the kicker... Last night I called her and let her know that I had some cooked chicken breasts that were going to go to waste (since we are eating out tonight and then this weekend I am going to cook the turkey John got from his job at Christmas... cuz we are po' ), and asked if she wanted them. Sure she said, she would swing by and pick them up, and Steve was coming.

I asked, "Right now? My house is a mess." She blew me off by asking me if I was using the turkey... You know the one I had just mentioned, because she listens so well? Because, since John had mentioned that he wanted to get to know yahoo better, she was thinking of having him, his daughter and his grand kids, plus us over for dinner and had thought about using our turkey.

I stood there with my mouth open. John has forgotten to tell me things in the past, but I was pretty sure, positive actually that since I know my husband pretty darned well , and given the fact that we have been dissatisfied with the whole yahoo thing....... That my sweet and loving husband HAD NOT SAID ANYTHING OF THE SORT, and that once again we were being pressured into something we didn't want to do by her twisting our words, or because she is out of her gourd.

So, last night, after putting the kids to bed, and after the MISU got home from being out with some friends, I ask him. Heck no, he never said that he actually wanted to get to know him better, he said"I'd have to get to know him better before that ever happens".

DOH! Then, the icing on the cake? When the yahoos arrived so that the MIL could pick up the chicken, I said, "I would say excuse the mess, but it always looks like this."

He looked me straight in the eye and said in deliberate tones, "I have grand kids that come over to my apartment. They have their own area for toys, but," he leans forward, turning red, sputtering and shaking a bit," I tell them one time. And if they don't pick them up..." He crosses hims arms emphatically, giving me a stern look. A look my MIL didn't see because she was standing in front of the yahoo the whole time they were in my entry way, and never once turned to look at him.

I stood there with my mouth ajar.

Later, after I put the kids to bed I thought to myself- what was that supposed to mean? Was he inferring that I was a bad mother for not making my kids too afraid to leave their toys out? OR, given the fact that all of a sudden, in a span of a week I hear that she mentioned to him about moving in together and MARRIAGE, is he inferring something about how things will go with my kids?

I don't fricking think so. I have been doing so well with not cursing lately... but let me tell you, based on my reaction last night after that little tidbit had time to sink in? I can't even think about cursing for the next 3 weeks. I'm "caught up".

That JACKASS has another thing coming if he and his 2 brain cells think that he will EVER talk to my kids like that. There are no (polite) words to describe how I will handle that situation. Lets just say that I am SURE, with every fiber of my being, that I will be "caught up" for roughly a year.

Let me just say that I believe that the MIL deserves as much happiness as anyone else, but given the fact that she has had a history of picking real losers as husbands.... I see divorce #4 in the horizon?!?

John's dad turned out to be an alcoholic who later before he died, his long time skank of a GF pretty much told us that they were dating before John's parents split up. Hedidn't pay child support at all, and rarely saw his kids.

Her next husband was the one that tried to get John and his brother and sister to hand sickle over an acre of property. John refused to do it and left, ran away right in front of her, and she didn't even try to stop John- who was 15- from leaving. before she married this jerk she asked them what they thought of him, and they all said they didn't like him. She married him anyway. After they got married and 3 days after they moved into a new house ( an old farm house), the house burned to the ground and they lost everything. John believes that he (the jerk) deliberately set the fire for the money. John never moved back home with his mother, and lived with his grandmother. Nice. This is the foundation for their tense relationship.

Idiot #3: 10-12 years younger than her, turned out to be a coke head. Their apartment was broken into without forced entry 3 times and valuables and money that only they knew about was gone. Overtime he supposedly did was unaccounted for on his pay stubs. We all ( including her kids) tried to convince her that since they were ALL unforced entries, and that money that they only knew about was missing from their apartment, that it had to be him... she told us all to but out, including the 2 kids she still had living with her.While John and I were in the Persian Gulf in '90, and the MIL took over our finances while we were gone... 500.00 went missing from my checking account, and she said she knew nothing about it. later, his girl friend showed up and said she was pregnant, that he had indeed been the one breaking into their apartment and stealing valuables and money, and that he had spent it all on coke for the two of them (him and the girl friend). After all of that, she still considered taking him back.

Now, here is the most troubling part: 9 months ago, I had mentioned something about the asshat that hurt me as a kid, and that I would kill if anything like that happened to my girls. She then tells me that her daughter had told her that JERK #3 had sexually assualted her (my MIL didn't go in to specifics, but said that my SIL had said that he "Had tried stuff with her"), but that the MIL refused to believe her own daughter. As if this could possible exonerate her, the MIL said, "I believe her now."

Sooooo, now you know why this is such a big deal to us. When it comes to men, the MIL always seems to put them and her own needs above her children. John and I vow that she isn't going to get the chance to screw our kids up too. They are already destined to be a little messed up, having a neurotic mother.

John said he will talk to her today, since Anna was supposed to sleep over Friday, and tell her that if yahoo is going to be there then Anna isn't coming.

I am worried that given all of the bad choices that she has made in the past with my kids (and her own) that Anna shouldn't be over there at all. I have a sinking suspicion that possibly the MIL will try to make Anna keep secrets about stuff that isn't supposed to happen... just to not hurt the yahoo's feelings. Shoot, I was thinking last night that she may have already told Anna to keep secrets about certain things, because she also has a history of us catching her in lies and trying to cover her ass, after doing something that put our kids in jeopardy.

*When you lay it all out like this, it sounds completely insane to think that we have entrusted our most precious possessions to this woman, ONCE AGAIN. It's insane to think that after 61 years that she can change. I guess despite the fact that John and I are typically hard asses when it comes to protecting our kids, we have just been asses and complete dumb asses to think that she will ever change and that our kids will really truly be safe. She does change how she operates a bit... but I think it's mostly to lull us into a false sense of security, basically so she can get what she wants.

What the hell is wrong with us? I really think it has to do with her being the only grand parent left, since I will have nothing to do with my own mother. Also, like I said before, we just want to hope that people (she) will change, and that our kids can enjoy a NORMAL relationship with their last remaining grand parent. Sadly, it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

I just told John *this a few minutes ago when he dropped Anna off after school. He agrees with me that she really can't watch our kids.

I realize how incredibly stupid I sound right now. Not to worry, bloggin always helps me see things more clearly. I have a feeling someone is still going to call me an idiot, despite explaining myself.

I've been called worse... I can take it.

Oh, Happy Valentine's Day. ;)