Bad Situation
I think most of you know that Neil and I have been the primary care givers for our son, Jude, pretty much until a week and a half ago. I work regular 9-5 hours and Neil works 4-12 so that we could work it out this way. On my husband's way into work, he drops Jude off at my Mom's for that cross over period where we both need to be at work and I pick Jude up on my way home. So she has him for only about 2 hours a day, give or take. This just started last Tuesday. So this past Tuesday when I get to my Mom's to pick him up, she is asleep in her Lazy Boy with Jude on her lap pretty much completely on his back, with a semi-full bottle in his mouth. Her head is totally slumped to her right and she doesn't realize that I am in the house until I am about 5 steps from her. I immediately was visibly upset and took Jude from her. I went upstairs to change his diaper and cool down for a minute before I spoke to her. While eating, Jude sometimes falls asleep and begins coughing on the milk still in his mouth. It also sometimes happens if he is awake and gets distracted or something. It happens to him at least once a day, while my husband or I am feeding him. He just needs to be sitting up, some pats on the back and he's okay. I don't know that if he began coughing while my Mom was asleep, that she would have woken up.
P.S. - She constantly over the past few months told me how much she wanted to help and that we could bring him to her house in the afternoons, and how much she loves him, she missed him over last weekend, that she wants what I want for him, yada, yada....
When I went back down I said, "Mom, please try not to fall asleep while having a bottle in Jude's mouth". This was being nice because as far as I am concerned, this was completely unacceptable. And I tried to say it in the nicest way I could because with her, if you so much as insinuate that she has done anything wrong you automatically become the one with the problem. She absolutely denies anything that shows her inadequacies, whether they be visible to others or just to her deranged mind, creates a story that illuminates another as the culprit and from there believes that to be the truth. I then said, "You understand why that is so dangerous, right?". Her response, "I just closed my eyes for a few minutes". Me: "I don't care what you have to say. If He ended up dead because of THAT, you would be more sorry than I would." She got up from her chair and headed to another part of the house. I told her we were leaving and asked if she wanted to say goodbye, she ignored me and Jude and I left. No other words were exchanged between us.
I spent the entire car ride home debating whether or not I over-reacted. My Mother and I have a history of not getting along. In fact, I do not care for her at all - I do not love her and I do not like her. She has proved herself to be a liar, delusional, irresponsible, lazy, quite possibly schizophrenic, most definitely manic and no one upsets me more than her. So I had to ask myself if I was only acting this way b/c of how I feel about her otherwise.
The answer is no, I did not over react. If I took Jude to a child care center to be cared for, and someone fell asleep while feeding him and he aspirated his milk, being fired would be the least of their worries. I now know that it was careless of my husband and I to think that she could take care of our son for just a few hours a day. My mistake in thinking that she cared for her grandson as much as I do. There was a small part of me that thought/hoped/wished that my mother would want/try to make up for her lousy parenting of me with my son.
When I got home I called a few of my friends that are Mothers and asked for their opinions. All of them agreed that falling asleep while feeding a baby is a very big No No. Some of them said that accidents happen, talk to her. My gut is telling me that Jude should not be going to her house but at the same time I am in a tough situation. This is my Mother and I don't want get into (another) issue with her. At this point I still believe that she loves her grandson. She takes every opportunity to tell me how much she does. She has made it more than abundantly clear that she wants to "help us any way she can". Yet, her telling me these things does not make my mother capable of actually taking care of Jude. I will take this opportunity to those of you who do not know, that my Grandmother basically raised me from the time I was 3 months old.
My father even called me during this time and came right out and said how falling asleep while feeding the baby is very bad, with no suggestion of this from me. We talked about me calling her and bringing the subject up gently so as not to infuriate her (which would almost definitely happen). How I would have to get her to absolutely promise to not let it happen again. Suggesting that she not feed him on that chair, which she associates with sleep and so on. All the time, my maternal instinct is telling me that Jude should not go to her house again.
So I finally called her and she did not answer. I left a short message, something like, "Mom, it's me, pick up the phone, okay call me back as soon as you can". Click. No return call. About and hour goes by and I call back and leave another message, "Mom, it's me, pick up the phone... pick up the phone, Mom..." for a long time. As the time goes by and she does not return my call, I am getting more and more mad. She obviously knows there is an issue, knows what it is, and deliberately is not calling me back. 15 minutes go by, now I have made up my mind that I gave her her chance, calling me back was her chance and that she just bought herself a one way ticket out of my life. I call again, this time it is answered by one of those automated voice mailboxes. WTF??? I call my Dad and ask him to go over there and find out what is going on. He lives a lot closer to her than I do. Dad calls me back and tells me that she is on the phone. So she basically found it more important to talk to someone other than me.
He said to her, "Jeanine is trying to get in touch with you".
Her response, "Why? Why is she trying to get in touch with me? I don't know why she's trying to."
Dad: "Because of what happened this afternoon."
Her: "I guess she'll have to make other arrangements, then". (This is her way of threatening me. She doesn't believe that I could possibly get by without her.)
Dad: "I think she already has"
I'm sure she was busy talking to one of her friends about how I took her grandchild away from her and she has no idea why except for how evil I am and that I want her dead. This is an example of her illness. This is her delusion. To her, I am the delusional one. She has still not called me back, two days later.
Needless to say, Jude did not, and will not be going back to her house for care. I have made other arrangements with someone I trust.
Falling asleep with an eating baby in your arms is bad enough. When we get down to it - nothing happened and he is okay. But, to not recognize it. To not call me back afterward when she knows I wanted to talk to her. That is it. It's over.
I really wish I could say that she is out of my life for good, except for the reason that she will not be - my love, my son. Of course I can not allow him to know of this rift between my mother and I. And that an incident involving him was the last straw?! I don't want to imagine what that information could do the the psyche of a young child. For his sake I will move on. Jude will not be cared for by her, but I will not keep him from her. I do need some time though to be able to handle the situation. I will not be calling her for some time. And if she decides she wants to see Jude anytime soon, she can forget it because I will not be answering my phone to her.
Could she be beating herself up inside? That she fell asleep with him? Does she know how bad it was? Or am I, again, the one who is wrong (to her)? These answers I will never know because truth is something completely different to my mother than what you and I know. I will have to accept the fact that she will spread some untruth about me and why she no longer cares for Jude to people who I used to know and love. My Godmother, parents of close friends of mine. People who think I am the devil incarnate because of lies my mother told them in order to cover some fault of her own. There is no answer. There is nothing I can do. She is sick and does not admit it and therefore cannot be helped.
It is for the best, then, that Jude will not be cared for by her. It is a shame, in a way, though. Maybe he could have brightened her days. Made her want to be a better person. Maybe she could have been a huge force in Jude's life, like my grandmother has been in mine. I guess we won't know that now.
This is all still so upsetting to me for many reasons. I keep thinking how lucky we are that Jude didn't start to cough before I got there to rescue him on Tuesday. Add all the crap with my mother to it and I am overwhelming with anger, anxiety and just plain old hurt. I am not over it and this is my form of therapy.
P.S. - She constantly over the past few months told me how much she wanted to help and that we could bring him to her house in the afternoons, and how much she loves him, she missed him over last weekend, that she wants what I want for him, yada, yada....
When I went back down I said, "Mom, please try not to fall asleep while having a bottle in Jude's mouth". This was being nice because as far as I am concerned, this was completely unacceptable. And I tried to say it in the nicest way I could because with her, if you so much as insinuate that she has done anything wrong you automatically become the one with the problem. She absolutely denies anything that shows her inadequacies, whether they be visible to others or just to her deranged mind, creates a story that illuminates another as the culprit and from there believes that to be the truth. I then said, "You understand why that is so dangerous, right?". Her response, "I just closed my eyes for a few minutes". Me: "I don't care what you have to say. If He ended up dead because of THAT, you would be more sorry than I would." She got up from her chair and headed to another part of the house. I told her we were leaving and asked if she wanted to say goodbye, she ignored me and Jude and I left. No other words were exchanged between us.
I spent the entire car ride home debating whether or not I over-reacted. My Mother and I have a history of not getting along. In fact, I do not care for her at all - I do not love her and I do not like her. She has proved herself to be a liar, delusional, irresponsible, lazy, quite possibly schizophrenic, most definitely manic and no one upsets me more than her. So I had to ask myself if I was only acting this way b/c of how I feel about her otherwise.
The answer is no, I did not over react. If I took Jude to a child care center to be cared for, and someone fell asleep while feeding him and he aspirated his milk, being fired would be the least of their worries. I now know that it was careless of my husband and I to think that she could take care of our son for just a few hours a day. My mistake in thinking that she cared for her grandson as much as I do. There was a small part of me that thought/hoped/wished that my mother would want/try to make up for her lousy parenting of me with my son.
When I got home I called a few of my friends that are Mothers and asked for their opinions. All of them agreed that falling asleep while feeding a baby is a very big No No. Some of them said that accidents happen, talk to her. My gut is telling me that Jude should not be going to her house but at the same time I am in a tough situation. This is my Mother and I don't want get into (another) issue with her. At this point I still believe that she loves her grandson. She takes every opportunity to tell me how much she does. She has made it more than abundantly clear that she wants to "help us any way she can". Yet, her telling me these things does not make my mother capable of actually taking care of Jude. I will take this opportunity to those of you who do not know, that my Grandmother basically raised me from the time I was 3 months old.
My father even called me during this time and came right out and said how falling asleep while feeding the baby is very bad, with no suggestion of this from me. We talked about me calling her and bringing the subject up gently so as not to infuriate her (which would almost definitely happen). How I would have to get her to absolutely promise to not let it happen again. Suggesting that she not feed him on that chair, which she associates with sleep and so on. All the time, my maternal instinct is telling me that Jude should not go to her house again.
So I finally called her and she did not answer. I left a short message, something like, "Mom, it's me, pick up the phone, okay call me back as soon as you can". Click. No return call. About and hour goes by and I call back and leave another message, "Mom, it's me, pick up the phone... pick up the phone, Mom..." for a long time. As the time goes by and she does not return my call, I am getting more and more mad. She obviously knows there is an issue, knows what it is, and deliberately is not calling me back. 15 minutes go by, now I have made up my mind that I gave her her chance, calling me back was her chance and that she just bought herself a one way ticket out of my life. I call again, this time it is answered by one of those automated voice mailboxes. WTF??? I call my Dad and ask him to go over there and find out what is going on. He lives a lot closer to her than I do. Dad calls me back and tells me that she is on the phone. So she basically found it more important to talk to someone other than me.
He said to her, "Jeanine is trying to get in touch with you".
Her response, "Why? Why is she trying to get in touch with me? I don't know why she's trying to."
Dad: "Because of what happened this afternoon."
Her: "I guess she'll have to make other arrangements, then". (This is her way of threatening me. She doesn't believe that I could possibly get by without her.)
Dad: "I think she already has"
I'm sure she was busy talking to one of her friends about how I took her grandchild away from her and she has no idea why except for how evil I am and that I want her dead. This is an example of her illness. This is her delusion. To her, I am the delusional one. She has still not called me back, two days later.
Needless to say, Jude did not, and will not be going back to her house for care. I have made other arrangements with someone I trust.
Falling asleep with an eating baby in your arms is bad enough. When we get down to it - nothing happened and he is okay. But, to not recognize it. To not call me back afterward when she knows I wanted to talk to her. That is it. It's over.
I really wish I could say that she is out of my life for good, except for the reason that she will not be - my love, my son. Of course I can not allow him to know of this rift between my mother and I. And that an incident involving him was the last straw?! I don't want to imagine what that information could do the the psyche of a young child. For his sake I will move on. Jude will not be cared for by her, but I will not keep him from her. I do need some time though to be able to handle the situation. I will not be calling her for some time. And if she decides she wants to see Jude anytime soon, she can forget it because I will not be answering my phone to her.
Could she be beating herself up inside? That she fell asleep with him? Does she know how bad it was? Or am I, again, the one who is wrong (to her)? These answers I will never know because truth is something completely different to my mother than what you and I know. I will have to accept the fact that she will spread some untruth about me and why she no longer cares for Jude to people who I used to know and love. My Godmother, parents of close friends of mine. People who think I am the devil incarnate because of lies my mother told them in order to cover some fault of her own. There is no answer. There is nothing I can do. She is sick and does not admit it and therefore cannot be helped.
It is for the best, then, that Jude will not be cared for by her. It is a shame, in a way, though. Maybe he could have brightened her days. Made her want to be a better person. Maybe she could have been a huge force in Jude's life, like my grandmother has been in mine. I guess we won't know that now.
This is all still so upsetting to me for many reasons. I keep thinking how lucky we are that Jude didn't start to cough before I got there to rescue him on Tuesday. Add all the crap with my mother to it and I am overwhelming with anger, anxiety and just plain old hurt. I am not over it and this is my form of therapy.