sick

I'm sick (again). Chills, nausea, dizziness, runny nose, exciting new cold sore. I opted out of the last-minute Christmas dinner at my grandmother's this afternoon, and from my mother's reaction you would think that I had decided to enrol Blake into an outdoor nudist colony. I was screamed at continually for five minutes; at the end of my tether I offered her my dillema, which was stay home today or miss work tomorrow. She decided that I would miss work tomorrow.

And this is why my child never gets a consistent nap-time or why no one's bothering to toilet train him during the week, because her schedule of appearances is more important than anything or anyone else. Her own insecurity turns her into a screaming lunatic whenever she may have to lose face and not show up. (Most ironically of all, I think she's called in sick once in the past year.) And of course, without me and Blake, she loses more face, so I'm part of the train. No compassion, no understanding that I might be able to gauge my own capabilities, just the idea that any decision other than hers is wrong. She never feels settled in her family, so she's most volatile where they are concerned.

She put up her hand to hit me today. I almost wish she had; maybe if she'd actually "belted me" (as she put it) she could have seen how out of control she allows herself to get now that she has three jobs and no sleep.

I just wish I could be Nic. No chores, less than half the rent, laundry, cars whenever he needs them, and never on the hook socially. I get all the shit she wants to throw at the Boy, a cross-examination whenever I want to leave the house on my own, innumerable barbed questions about my abilities as a mother, and when I'm ten minutes late with the rent cheque, I get a screaming scene about ingratitude. Oh, and lectures on financial responsibility and my short-comings as a saver, when I pay her 70% of my wages for rent, board, car insurance & babysitting.

Labels: family

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 12/17/2006 06:47:00 p.m.