Over the river and through the woods. . .

to Nana's house we went.  There was only rain, albeit some heavy bands from time to time, but the traffic was light as it was early Sunday morning.  We got there right on time, which surprised the heck out of my mom.  Not that we are usually ever late, it is more that she had herself convinced that we were not coming.  (this despite my 6 a.m. email saying we would definately be coming as we had checked the doppler radar!)

I think she was as happy as my  mom knows how to be.  My mom is one of those people who seem to have lost the ability (and this happened long ago) to really grasp and embrace joy.  She has to say cutting things, compare my kids which drives me insane.  She totally is down on my youngest boy and favors my daughter tremendously.  The two older boys she is more even handed about, but I worry for the subtle slighting I see her doing.  This is the woman who knows how to hurt, I love her but she has it down to a science.  She is the woman who told me when looking at my senior class proofs to pick the one where I was "farthest from the camera dear; you know you are the brains,  not the family beauty."  I will not have her doing those kind of things to my kids.  My KC was excellent behavior wise, but I can see him stepping back a bit from his relations with her.  He is very tuned to emotions and i know he is starting to sense something.  I was grateful that every time Mom tried to say something negative that K jumped in and quashed it.  Last time, I was the quasher and then I heard that I  did not see that he did anything wrong and was blind to his faults.  So it is good for her to hear it from each of us, if for no other reason than to see that we are a team, and united as parents.There is the added wrinkle that KC shares the same first name as my mom's second husband and since I think she has unresolved issues surrounding that relationship, I think she takes it out on him.  Sigh.

She seemed to enjoy her presents as much as she ever does.  I opted for a gift card for groceries this year as last year she made such a furor over the camping lantern we got her that she unnerved the kids.  She thanked us and then told me her local fire chief gave her a certificate for groceries for $5.00 more than we did. The mug that said Nana was so gigantic that "who would ever drink out of something like that?"  Uh huh.  It was two hours of stuff like that.  Nothing that in and of itself really sounds horrible or even really IS horrible but which wears on you like water torture after a while.

But it is over.  Done.  And the next visit is supposed to be here in Feburary for Kirsty's birthday.  At least then she is on our turf and while that doesn't stop the sharpness of her tongue, somehow I feel more able to cope with it. 

We got to listen to the Patriots kill the Jaguars on the way home though and when we got home the rain had stopped and the sun was out so I took the kids in snow gear up to the park to run around and decompress.  We all felt less crispy after the fresh air break!