This weekend was our weekend with SSs. Next week is their spring break. At their last mediation, BM insisted that DH give up every spring break, so SSs could go to her parents’ winter condo in Palm Springs. DH agreed, but BM - without fail - schedules the flight so that it eats into DH’s weekend either when they are leaving or coming back. Last year, they came back on Saturday of his weekend and she didn’t tell him until the Wednesday before. 

This year, she booked their flight at 7:25pm on Sunday. It takes at least an hour to get to the airport. She texts DH and tells him they must be home at 5pm, instead of the usual 6pm. As an aside, before DH had his own life (i.e. before we were married and had a home), BM would just demand that DH bring the kids to ththe airport, but now, since she feels as if she doesn’t have the upper hand, she just expects DH to cut his weekend short. 

Meanwhile, MIL got home this week from her winter in Florida. She texts me on Friday to ask if we would be around for Easter at DH’s aunt’s house at 1pm. I told her I would have to check with DH about when the kids needed to go to the airport, since I didn’t know at the time.

Then DH picks SSs up and one of them is sick. He has a headache, is coughing, and lying on the couch watching tv all day. So, when I talk to MIL on Saturday, I tell her we’ll go, with the caveat that SS is sick, so we may need to bail. She says fine and then tells me dinner is now at 2pm. Ok, that’s cutting it close for us, since it’s an hour each way to his aunt’s house, but that’s fine.

Sunday rolls around. MIL calls to say, don’t come until 2:15pm. I tell DH that, that won’t give us enough time. If people aren’t supposed to arrive until 2:15pm, then BIL and family (who are always late) will arrive at 2:45pm. We won’t eat until 3:00-3:15pm and then I’ll have to start rounding up SSs around 3:45pm to make sure we’re in the car by 4pm, so that they’ll be at BM’s by 5pm. Meanwhile, from 4pm to 5pm, DH will start getting texts from BM just to confirm we are on our way. I don’t need to rush through eating, then try to get everyone moving to the car (even at our house when there’s is nothing going on, they take 15 minutes to get out the door), then have the constant ping of texts from BM. 

So, DH calls MIL back and says, “we have to bail. Starting that late won’t give us enough time and SS is still sick.” MIL gets all upset at us, acts like DH is trying to keep her from seeing her grandchildren and ends the conversation by saying, “thanks for my invite!” and then hanging up. I’m assuming she meant thanks for not inviting her to see SSs this weekend, but a) we thought we were going to see her for Easter and b) she only told us she was home via text on Friday. I’m sure it was also a big topic of conversation that we did not go, because that meant his aunt made food for four more people. Again, we did not find out about this until Friday evening (last year his aunt said it was the last holiday she was hosting), and they changed the time on us twice. Also, SS was coughing up a storm by Sunday morning. I’m sure if we brought him and someone got sick, we’d hear about that, too. 

About 10 minutes after MIL’s phone call, BM also texts to say that she now wants SSs home by 4:30pm (assuming she realized that having them home by 5pm would not be enough time to get SSs on their flight (they are flying alone). 

All this drama when really DH and I were supposed to see my family this Easter, but didn’t because DH is busy next week, so couldn’t switch with BM and BM typically refuses to switch weekends unless DH promises her a bunch of favors.

So over all this drama!