Post by beaglemom on Mar 11, 2019 21:16:44 GMT
The first part isn't really a vent, just hormonal sadness. My littlest will be 1 on the 17th. She has decided to go on a nursing strike. Nursing has been great this whole time and now a week before her birthday she is nipping at me, crying, and pushing the boob away. My other 3 all nursed till 16-18 months. I thought I had more time. She is the last and I am already having a hard enough time with the fact that my baby is going to be 1, adding this in is just making me all kinds of emotional.
Now for the real vent. Dh's family is driving me nuts. Yes I have brought this upon myself and at this point I am 99.9% sure I am just going to back out and let them deal.
At stake - 50th anniversary trip for dh's parents - sometime in 2020 - actual anniversary is April 2020.
Backstory: For my inlaw's 40th anniversary they had made a deal with their kids that if they had 5 grandkids by then they would take all of us to Hawaii. My sils did their duty and between the two of them, there were 5 grandkids! My inlaws took us all to a very nice all-inclusive resort in Hawaii, that is no closed because of the tsunami - hopefully to reopen in 2021 or 2022. In the years since the kids (dh, sils + their dhs, and I) have talked about the fact that we should take the inlaws somewhere for their 50th since they have been so generous.
Over Christmas, while in Cabo (inlaws paid for lodging), we discussed it again. Both sils claimed they are broke - since they are both in the midst of massive kitchen remodels. We pressed and his oldest sister said early August would probably work best for them. After suggesting that we could just do Christmas 2019, but then caught herself and made a comment about me having to do Christmas with my family. Which I got a little defensive about and said, no, I want to spend it with my family. We briefly talked to my inlaws about it and my mil asked me to plan it, in her words because then it would be a good trip (and she rarely says nice things to me - so I am taking that as a huge compliment).
So I brought it up again when we were out visiting in February, trying to confirm dates and get some sort of budget idea from them. Oldest sil's dh was totally clueless and said he had no idea what we were talking about. So I have been in touch with two travel agents trying to figure this out. Both want firmer dates and a budget idea.
Dh and I have talked about it and he is willing to pay for most of the trip for EVERYONE, but he hasn't told his sisters yet, he wanted to see what they would come up with as some sort of a budget. I have mixed feelings about it....I think it is very generous of him and yes we can afford it. But his oldest sister and her dh are both doctors and are willing to drop lots of money on what their kitchen designer tells them to spend it on (+$2,000 on a dishwasher, +$10,000 on a couch), but clothes for their kids, vacations, not so much.
His other sister doesn't make a ton of money, she works at a university and her husband doesn't work. He does odd jobs, golf, and skis.
So after talking to my mil's travel agent and her asking for more specifics I sent an email out. Reiterating that it sounded like August 2020 would work best for everyone and that we were hoping to get some sort of budget idea so we can start planning. I also included that their mother's wish list was beach and warm and that her two suggestions were Costa Rica or a Club Med somewhere.
Side Note: We live 12 minutes from my inlaws, 25 from my parents. Both sisters live a 2.5 hour flight away - a mile from each other. Both sets of their inlaws live on the east coast. Before I entered the picture the siblings and partners did Christmas always with his family. Which I find strange since dh's family is Jewish and one of the bils is a fairly strong Catholic, but whatever. I finally put my foot down the Christmas before our oldest was born and said I want to be home every other year - since that was the arrangement that had always been talked about, but never enforced. The sils did one Christmas with their inlaws back east and decided that wasn't fun, too cold, too expensive. So now my inlaws go to them on the off years, on the on years we all go to Cabo together.
The husband that was clueless before is the only one that initially responded. He said that August doesn't work for him because that is when they go visit his family and that he sometimes has a work conference then. He suggested that Christmas time works better, but that he sort of got that on the off year 2019 that wouldn't be fair to me because of my family.
So I sent out a new email last night to everyone saying that it sounded like Christmas worked better for everyone and asked if one of them would be willing to speak to their parents to see if they are okay doing that instead of Cabo in 2020. I woke up this morning to an email from oldest sil saying that the sils had talked and they think that fall break 2021 sound good. They get a week off in October. She said she doesn't want to have to pull her kids out of school since her oldest will be in high school by then. And sort of acknowledged that we would then have to pull our kids out of school because they don't have that time off. She also mentioned Spring Break as an option but said that theirs probably won't line up with ours.
I decided that I was pretty much done and just archived the email and was going to let dh handle it. But then I just got another email from her responding to the email that her husband sent pointing out that he recommended Christmas 2019, not 2020. I again archived, because the response I started was not going to be nice and I feel like I need to not stir up more crap.
My inlaws aren't my favorite people. But they have been generous with all of us (even if some of that comes with very thick strings attached) and I am really annoyed that their daughters can't get their act together. His parents are constantly paying for things for them and they have had 8.5 years to think about this trip. And they have both talked about that it is something that we should really do for my inlaws because they have done some much for everyone.
And back to dh. He wants this to be nice for his parents. He is trying to not step on his sister's toes. I asked him at what point do we just take his parents somewhere and he said that was last resort. We had also talked about staying longer where ever we went because our 15 year anniversary will be August 2020. And that if we are footing the bill we get to pick where we go.
For reference.... inlaws are in their mid to late 70s, but still very active, running, biking, swimming, golfing, doing triathlons. Then dh, sils and spouses are all 40s. And then the kids. There are now 10 grandkids our baby is the last and then the oldest turned 14 in Cabo. So part of the early planning is that we are planning for 18 people, including kids that will be 2-16. And because of the weird family stuff it needs to be all-inclusive, otherwise, we are going to spend the whole time grocery shopping and cooking (like in Cabo). And since my kids are the youngest, having somewhere with childcare that goes down to age 2 is very important!
Anyhow, like I said at the start I am 99.9% sure I am done trying to make this happen...I just don't know what to tell my mil when she asks about it.
Now for the real vent. Dh's family is driving me nuts. Yes I have brought this upon myself and at this point I am 99.9% sure I am just going to back out and let them deal.
At stake - 50th anniversary trip for dh's parents - sometime in 2020 - actual anniversary is April 2020.
Backstory: For my inlaw's 40th anniversary they had made a deal with their kids that if they had 5 grandkids by then they would take all of us to Hawaii. My sils did their duty and between the two of them, there were 5 grandkids! My inlaws took us all to a very nice all-inclusive resort in Hawaii, that is no closed because of the tsunami - hopefully to reopen in 2021 or 2022. In the years since the kids (dh, sils + their dhs, and I) have talked about the fact that we should take the inlaws somewhere for their 50th since they have been so generous.
Over Christmas, while in Cabo (inlaws paid for lodging), we discussed it again. Both sils claimed they are broke - since they are both in the midst of massive kitchen remodels. We pressed and his oldest sister said early August would probably work best for them. After suggesting that we could just do Christmas 2019, but then caught herself and made a comment about me having to do Christmas with my family. Which I got a little defensive about and said, no, I want to spend it with my family. We briefly talked to my inlaws about it and my mil asked me to plan it, in her words because then it would be a good trip (and she rarely says nice things to me - so I am taking that as a huge compliment).
So I brought it up again when we were out visiting in February, trying to confirm dates and get some sort of budget idea from them. Oldest sil's dh was totally clueless and said he had no idea what we were talking about. So I have been in touch with two travel agents trying to figure this out. Both want firmer dates and a budget idea.
Dh and I have talked about it and he is willing to pay for most of the trip for EVERYONE, but he hasn't told his sisters yet, he wanted to see what they would come up with as some sort of a budget. I have mixed feelings about it....I think it is very generous of him and yes we can afford it. But his oldest sister and her dh are both doctors and are willing to drop lots of money on what their kitchen designer tells them to spend it on (+$2,000 on a dishwasher, +$10,000 on a couch), but clothes for their kids, vacations, not so much.
His other sister doesn't make a ton of money, she works at a university and her husband doesn't work. He does odd jobs, golf, and skis.
So after talking to my mil's travel agent and her asking for more specifics I sent an email out. Reiterating that it sounded like August 2020 would work best for everyone and that we were hoping to get some sort of budget idea so we can start planning. I also included that their mother's wish list was beach and warm and that her two suggestions were Costa Rica or a Club Med somewhere.
Side Note: We live 12 minutes from my inlaws, 25 from my parents. Both sisters live a 2.5 hour flight away - a mile from each other. Both sets of their inlaws live on the east coast. Before I entered the picture the siblings and partners did Christmas always with his family. Which I find strange since dh's family is Jewish and one of the bils is a fairly strong Catholic, but whatever. I finally put my foot down the Christmas before our oldest was born and said I want to be home every other year - since that was the arrangement that had always been talked about, but never enforced. The sils did one Christmas with their inlaws back east and decided that wasn't fun, too cold, too expensive. So now my inlaws go to them on the off years, on the on years we all go to Cabo together.
The husband that was clueless before is the only one that initially responded. He said that August doesn't work for him because that is when they go visit his family and that he sometimes has a work conference then. He suggested that Christmas time works better, but that he sort of got that on the off year 2019 that wouldn't be fair to me because of my family.
So I sent out a new email last night to everyone saying that it sounded like Christmas worked better for everyone and asked if one of them would be willing to speak to their parents to see if they are okay doing that instead of Cabo in 2020. I woke up this morning to an email from oldest sil saying that the sils had talked and they think that fall break 2021 sound good. They get a week off in October. She said she doesn't want to have to pull her kids out of school since her oldest will be in high school by then. And sort of acknowledged that we would then have to pull our kids out of school because they don't have that time off. She also mentioned Spring Break as an option but said that theirs probably won't line up with ours.
I decided that I was pretty much done and just archived the email and was going to let dh handle it. But then I just got another email from her responding to the email that her husband sent pointing out that he recommended Christmas 2019, not 2020. I again archived, because the response I started was not going to be nice and I feel like I need to not stir up more crap.
My inlaws aren't my favorite people. But they have been generous with all of us (even if some of that comes with very thick strings attached) and I am really annoyed that their daughters can't get their act together. His parents are constantly paying for things for them and they have had 8.5 years to think about this trip. And they have both talked about that it is something that we should really do for my inlaws because they have done some much for everyone.
And back to dh. He wants this to be nice for his parents. He is trying to not step on his sister's toes. I asked him at what point do we just take his parents somewhere and he said that was last resort. We had also talked about staying longer where ever we went because our 15 year anniversary will be August 2020. And that if we are footing the bill we get to pick where we go.
For reference.... inlaws are in their mid to late 70s, but still very active, running, biking, swimming, golfing, doing triathlons. Then dh, sils and spouses are all 40s. And then the kids. There are now 10 grandkids our baby is the last and then the oldest turned 14 in Cabo. So part of the early planning is that we are planning for 18 people, including kids that will be 2-16. And because of the weird family stuff it needs to be all-inclusive, otherwise, we are going to spend the whole time grocery shopping and cooking (like in Cabo). And since my kids are the youngest, having somewhere with childcare that goes down to age 2 is very important!
Anyhow, like I said at the start I am 99.9% sure I am done trying to make this happen...I just don't know what to tell my mil when she asks about it.
That would be easier than getting this group to agree on anything. I really feel for you, I do t see any way to solve this, no matter what is decided someone is going to be unhappy. 
