A Garbage Tale

You see, when you have a kid, you have (well, most people) have a fundamental shift in how they see the world. You basically go from "I wonder what I'll do with all my free time this afternoon after work. I wonder how I"ll feel about it. Ohhh, I'm going to stop at the library and piddle around and maybe I'll try a new recipe and have a drink...or maybe I'll work out for 2 hours." to someone who thinks, mostly, about nothing other than how to protect and cultivate that child in to someone who has a healthy level of happiness and can go out and handle the world without becoming an embittered cynic. You have to be clear with people, lots of people, about what rules are in place when dealing with your kid and about the barriers you have set in place. These people could range from close family members to teachers to friends and neighbors. Then you have to enforce those rules and barriers, regardless of how those things make anyone of those people feel. That last part is the hardest part for me as a parent. I don't like confrontation, especially with family members. I also don't like to hurt people and sometimes during confrontation, I just fucking blow it. I've done it with my sister in the past and now I've done it with my sister in law.  The words don't come out right and they come at me swinging and I can't take it and....it just is a horrible situation. Let me explain it.

My husband confronted my sister in law about how we aren't yet comfortable with Lilly hanging out with her new boyfriend. We just aren't ready. We have only been in the room with this guy twice. I'm not saying that my husband had this conversation to the best of his ability. Naturally, it came out alllllll wrong. My SIL has translated this in to "We don't trust you. We think you have poor judgement about people. You are a horrible person who dates potential pedophiles." She thinks that because she undoubtedly trusts this guy that she's been dating for 6 weeks that we should automatically trust him too. But you see, when my kid is involved, I don't have to trust anyone. Anyone. Its not about her, its about my setting some clear boundaries.

Now here's the garbage part. We were desperate for a baby sitter this weekend. Her boyfriend is in town, which I didn't know. So Derek asked her to watch Lilly on Saturday for a few hours while I slept and he went and made a video. I wasn't aware until a few days ago that she was planning on taking him, the boyfriend, along. She basically said that he goes or she's unavailable. And so of course, he said he wasn't happy but he didn't feel he had a choice.  I would have asked if she could leave him at the apartment for a few hours, but that didn't happen until the pinnacle of our horrible conversation on the phone today. So our willingness to go along with it this one time kind of reneged the whole premise of our concern. Does that make sense? I agree. Its stupid. In the end, after much ado, tears, compromise and some really horrible texts, we cancelled. Derek changed the time of his gig (imagine the horrible situation that could have saved us). So, we're taking a little break from all of this. Putting some time and distance between us might help us heal. My fear is that we have irrevocably ruined our relationship with her. But hopefully, like with my sister, it'll get better.