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Musings from yesterday’s Dysfunctional BBQ

momjeans's picture

Submitted by momjeans on Thu, 07/05/2018 - 10:54am

Skid - She’s boisterous in an annoying and attention seeking way. She’s never NOT talking or being loud. She is SO sassy, in a I think I’m so cute and funny way. Except it’s not. With a third of the things she says, all I can think is Wow, my mom would have backhanded me in the mouth if I said that. No one ever corrects her, because you know, “she’s just a child” - per my DH. 

I cringe at the thought of skid at 13, 14, 15, etcetera. If she is like this now? Oh, no no no no. 

Skid makes this horrific bark-like sound when she gets “spooked” or gets splashed with pool water or is asked if she’d like to hold a lit sparkler. Yes, she complained and snapped at three little ones (our two and their 3 year old cousin) for splashing her while she sat next to the pool. Thankfully, DH spoke up and told her to “get away from the pool, then,” to which she had some snotty stupid comeback. 

She was too scared to hold a sparkler. It was quite the show. In some of the photos I took of the littles, you can see skid in the background, holding a sparkler waaaay away from her, while still managing to take photos/Snapchat/text herself holding a sparkler on her phone. 

Later in the evening, skid interjected herself in an adult conversation with “My friend’s dad is on Tinder. We changed his profile picture and information one time when I stayed the night at her house.”

The look on DH’s face was priceless. He quickly snapped back with “How in the world do you know what Tinder is, at your age - 11!? And why are you ON Tinder messing around?”

The cold, hard reality is... I’m lucky I do not have to spend my days, alone, around skid. I would want to put skewers in my ears and tell her to STFU, daily. A few hours around her is ALL I can stand. 

Drunk BIL - Pretty sure he showed-up sauced, as I didn’t visibly see him drinking, though he did have a large stainless tumbler with a lid he was drinking from. I endured so many inappropriate comments and behavior out of him. It was gross. So gross. I feel he has always been like this towards me to a degree, but yesterday was the worst. 

I avoided my in-laws, mostly. I cannot stand the way they speak down to BIL’s young daughter. Also how they just sit there and smile while BIL badmouths the mother of his child, who isn’t even present to defend herself. It reconfirms why I don’t allow them to be in charge of our littles - ever. 

The upside to yesterday - so much good food and watching my littles enjoy time with their cousin. 

Comments

ProbablyAlreadyInsane's picture

Submitted by ProbablyAlready... on Thu, 07/05/2018 - 11:16am

momjeans, I honestly have no clue how you do it. I mean I've been known to take the girls over the BM's dad and SM's place for an evening. But if they acted like this, I absolutely would NOT be able to function through that without snapping on someone. When DH's family used to protect BM as the girl's "mom." It used to make me cringe. If their eyes hadn't been opened, I'd be absolutely insane. Yet here you are, dealing with all that chaos and somehow making it work!

thinkthrice's picture

Submitted by thinkthrice on Thu, 07/05/2018 - 12:07pm

SDs must read off the same script.  My SD and YSS also did this.  The loud shrieking!  The laughter sounded like a turbine windup on a Boeing 767;  it would first sound like someone was crying then hysterical barking/shrieking with laughter rising notably in sound and pitch.  The interjection into adult convos without being reprimanded for such.  To this day, SD has to be the "belle of the ball" by photobombing EVERYTHING!1

YSS would do this "cartoonish" imitation and literally MIME for attention.  He would repeat dialogue heard on the TV sentence by setence then coquetishly look over his shoulder and bat his long strawberry blonde eyelashes to try and get attention from Chef.  

Bad

Your SD sounds extremely Cringeworthy!!

strugglingSM's picture

Submitted by strugglingSM on Thu, 07/05/2018 - 4:04pm

One of my SSs has this annoying shriek he does when someone is chasing him or when he's frightened. It's the kind of thing you'd expect from a three year old, but he's in middle school. He's done it at least since I've known him. I have been hoping he'd outgrow it, but four years on, it's still going strong. Drives me nuts. 

This SS is also afraid of birds and has an annoying habit of talking about how gross and terrible his food is before he eats it and then sometimes will say "this is the best" after he tries it, especially after someone else (like DH) says, "this is really good." That and he insists on ordering adult meals (DH is no help in this department) when we go out and NEVER eats them. This same SS also has to have immediate attention any time DH talks to me. Most recently, SSs were playing baseball with their cousins. DH sits down next to me and all of a sudden this SS - who did not care at all where DH was before this - says, "hey dad, come throw the ball with me." DH laughs and says, "he can never let you get any attention." However, DH will also say that I'm just trying to compete with this SS any time I point out how SS always has to push me out of the way. DH wants us to have a baby and I know if we did, this SS would have a complete meltdown. 

I had my dysfunctional BBQ a few weeks ago. I try to be friendly and talk to everyone, but as usual SIL ignored me. DH was all upset that she was rude and ignored him and I wanted to say, "what about me?! The wife that you brought into this family and barely gets acknowledged because according to you, they are "protective" of your children."

DH is sort of upset with manipulative MIL right now, so we don't have to see her very much, but usually, she's either offering up veiled criticism, backhanded compliments, or problems of her own that she expects you to solve.