I knew it was too good to be true

Gollum and I have had a long and sordid history. One day, in future blog post(s), I will get into the history and our rocky relationship and what has led us to where we are today. It’s long and painful but it needs to be told and I think blogging about it will help me to, perhaps, understand it all better and maybe hindsight will help me, moving forward. For the present, ever since my girl recently had surgery, Gollum and I have been getting along just fine. During my girl’s recovery time, Gollum would text and call ME, as she knew I was the one caring for my girl.


Coupled with the fact that Big Papa’s business is incredibly busy this time of year and that my job is incredibly flexible, I have been doing 90% of the pick-up/drop-off’s alone. In the past, when my girl was sick, Gollum would communicate with me as, obviously, I am the one caring for the sick child. After my girl returned to her usual self, the communication with me was then cut off. I expected that after my girl recovered from her surgical procedure that communication would subsequently be cut off between Gollum and I.

Surprisingly, it didn’t for the last month or so. Until today. Golllum has been texting me when she was on her way to drop my girl off to me and also text when determining who would be taking her to a weekend birthday party, for example. She even texted me after said party to see if my girl enjoyed it (ummm, what?) and I responded kindly back and ended up emailing her a picture from the party. Nice, yes? I mentioned to my sister and my mom how thankful I was that Gollum and I were able to communicate effectively, FINALLY, after seven years.

I think that is what all stepmoms are looking for from the birth-mother’s. We want to be respected as a fellow caretaker of the child, and to be given the opportunity to communicate effectively. After all, we are all on the same side, aren’t we? We are all on the side of the child. We all want to see our child succeed and love and grow into adulthood as fine, upstanding citizens.

Back to today. Gollum called and texted Big Papa about a change in pick-up spot for my girl this afternoon. Big Papa then had to stop his work day, call me to make sure I could accommodate the change and then text Gollum back that this change was okay with me/us. Doesn’t that seem like a waste of time (for us)?

I have been doing these pick-ups on Tuesday afternoons, without deviation, for the last two and a half months. Today, suddenly, she decides that she doesn’t want to speak with me about it. I tried to think back to the last time I saw her and if I had said or done anything that she could take and twist into something awful. I couldn’t think of anything at all. Had my girl just been incessantly talking about me and our fun weekend? What could it possibly be? I am tired of trying to figure out her warped way of thinking. I had hoped that our newfound communicative relationship would withstand her mood swings and whatever it is in her head that makes her be hateful towards me.

As small as it is, I has bothered me today. However, I did owe her a response on our vacation time. So I texted Gollum the information, thanked her for being patient with my response and said,” Big Papa told me you texted him for me to pick up my girl at your mom’s today – what time?” I’m sure Gollum gave Big Papa this information but as small as it may seem, I felt the need to assert the fact that I was still the one handling the transportation and majority of the caretaking for my girl. Is that petty of me? I didn’t think so. Normally, I would’ve let this type of thing go and chalk it up to her mood swings and her crushing insecurity but I won’t let her waste our precious time any longer with these games. She did nicely text me back the time but I will be asking Big Papa to respond to any further texts and calls on pick-up/drop-off’s, that I’ll be doing, by telling Gollum to contact me directly as she has been doing for the last two months. We are all adults here. Get over it.

Sisters, Sisters. There were never more devoted sisters.

10 points for anyone who knows which movie gave me the name for this blog post :) I had a wonderful weekend hanging out with my wonderful family. I went shopping with my sister, who also happens to be my best friend, on Saturday and we got to spend a few hours away from real life, browsing the racks of Macy’s & Bloomingdales. It was absolute heaven. She is my biggest supporter through my stepmom journey. Although not a stepmom herself, she has spent countless hours listening to me vent, complain and cry and has always offered good and sound advice. 

She was the first of my family and friends to open her arms and wholeheartedly love and accept my girl. And to this day, she has the best relationship with my girl, out of all of the extended (four sets) families connected to my girl. My girl runs and jumps into her arms every single time she sees her "Aunt S-Pop." I don’t think I would’ve survived this ride without her. Spent two years of my life without her and from what I’ve heard, they weren’t so good :) Love you always; my first, my last, my everything.

Mother-In-Law Saga

My mother-in-law and I have had a rocky road to where we now reside which, for the time being and this week only, is a friendly relationship. This road was not an easy one and there is no guarantee that our relationship will stay in the good place it is now. My own mother thinks the ups and downs in my relationship with my M-I-L has to do with her going through menopause and her own dysfunctional upbringing. I am in no way an expert on the menopause topic so I’m not sure on either topic…..

I do know that she was great to me for the first 5 years of my relationship to Big Papa. Even after Big Papa and I were engaged, she was still good to me and seemed to want to pursue a healthy relationship with me. I noticed that as I planned for the wedding, she stepped back more and more and didn’t want to have much to do with the planning process even as I tried to include her as Big Papa is an only child and this would be her only wedding where she would ever be the “mother of the…..” She would agree to help or visit venues with me and then always be mysteriously sick or change the subject when I began to talk of our nuptial plans.

Then it’s our actual wedding day and it’s 15 minutes before I am supposed to walk down the aisle and my hair is just not cooperating and I was REALLY stressed. My girl’s hair also needed to be fixed. My MIL is standing in the room and I hear her tell the photographer that she was taking my girl OUTSIDE (in the grass & dirt mind you!) to take pictures with Big Papa. Did she ask me? No. She didn’t even say anything about this directly to me. I just happened to overhear and said “oh no, I’m sorry, we can’t do that right now because we’ll be walking out soon.” Maybe I was short with her. I’m not sure and to be honest, the only thing I remember clearly is her trying to sneak my girl away and me panicking that my girl needed her hair fixed. My MIL walked out and I didn’t think much more of it.

The wedding was amazing and beautiful and all our family and friends surrounding us brought me to tears and made me so thankful for my wonderful life and these people who love me and Big Papa so much. It was truly one of the best days of my life (cliché I know, but true!). The only thing I could’ve wanted was pictures that I was not able to get. I had given the photographer a list and he was not able to get everything on it which was very disappointing for me but I couldn’t go back and change it. Instead I decided to focus on the positive and the amazing pictures that were taken.

The next weekend my in-laws stop by our house and give us a very generous check as a wedding present. Hugs and thank you’s all around. The next weekend (now two weeks after our wedding) we invited my in-laws over for dinner and I am getting the silent treatment from my MIL. And she had requested some time the next day with my girl and asked Big Papa if he would be dropping her off and he informed her that I would be doing the drop off and pick ups (as usual). She was clearly not happy about this. The next day with the pick-up, she wouldn’t tell me where she was taking my girl as it was surprise for my girl (and apparently a surprise for me too). I put my girl in her car and shut the door and lightheartedly said, “well, have a good time!” The response? A stiff and cold, “Oh we will.” Huh??

Long story short, I mention it to Big Papa and he jumps to her defense, saying I misinterpreted everything. Then he mentions it to her the next day (which is Mother’s Day, keep in mind, and already a tough day for me) and she breaks down crying and he tells her to come over and talk with me. He wouldn’t tell me why she was crying, only that he thinks SHE misread ME. Following? I didn’t. So she comes over, I try to give her a hug and say “Happy Mother’s Day” and I get the cold shoulder and she wouldn’t remove her sunglasses inside my house.

I’ll spare you the dirtiest details but the core of her very large problem with me was the fact that I didn’t “allow” my girl to go out with her on our wedding day 15 minutes before we were scheduled to walk down the aisle. Keep in mind that she acted okay around me for the week and a half AFTER this incident occurred. She was sobbing on my couch and basically screaming at me.

She yelled, “YOU WOULDN’T ALLOW ME TO HAVE A PICTURE WITH MY GRANDDAUGHTER! AND MY SON! BECAUSE OF YOU, I DIDN’T GET THE PCITURES THAT I WANTED AND I DON’T HAVE A PICTURE OF MY OWN FAMILY- THE 4 OF US- AT MY ONLY CHILD’S WEDDING. When I tried to explain that I didn’t allow my girl to go with her at that very point and time because the ceremony was about to commence, she again began screaming, BUT HE WAS MARRYING YOUUUU. YOU WOULDN’T START THE WEDDING WITHOUT HIMMMM. Meaning, I guess that if she was taking pictures with Big Papa and my girl that the wedding wouldn’t be able to start yet. Well, that’s my best guess on what she meant. I then also explained to her that my girl also needed her hair fixed and that needed to be done before the ceremony. She visibly calmed down after she realized what I was saying made sense and was the truth. At this point I am thinking:

1)Why is this woman yelling at me and why does she still have her sunglasses on?

2)How can she possibly think that I wouldn’t “ALLOW” pictures to be taken with her family? How can she possibly think that I am such an evil, conniving b*tch that I would stop such a thing as family pictures?? I can’t believe she went around for 2 weeks, thinking and telling people that she actually thought these awful things about me.

3)We have so many pictures of the family, how did she possibly not get the pictures she was looking for?

4)If there were any pictures that were so important to her, why didn’t she give me a list when I asked her for one, for the photographer, weeks before the wedding?

5)The comment about “her family- the 4 of us” must mean her, my FIL, Big Papa and my girl because we have dozens of pictures of me, Big Papa, her and my FIL.

6)Oh God. I can’t believe this woman wanted a picture of “her family” that didn’t include me. Why wouldn’t you want the 5 of us? Does she hate me that much?

I am crying at this point. I tell her that I also didn’t get all the pictures that I wanted to get and that I was disappointed with my photographer but there is nothing I can do about it now. We left on okay terms, with both of us apologetic. She actually did apologize for the way she had treated me. Said she wouldn’t have treated me like that if she knew the real reason behind the photo fiasco. Wow. I cried for the rest of the day.

We were fine for the next few months but had to have another very serious talk the night before Big Papa and I left for our delayed honeymoon. That discussion and its prerequisite deserve a separate post.

The way I see it, we have two issues between us – one being the fact that she tries to remain close to Gollum, her grandchild’s mother, and two being the fact that my MIL somehow doesn’t like the fact that, although Big Papa and her aren’t close, I married her “little baby boy.” The task of working through those two issues seems insurmountable to me.

I still feel as though she continually devalues our relationship (her and I) by maintaining such a close relationship with Gollum. She disrespects my role as the primary caregiver in our house by sneaking around and trying to get extra time (from our limited time) with my girl. She’ll wait until I leave the room to ask Big Papa if my girl can sleep over her house when clearly, I am the one who maintains the schedule in our house, because Big Papa will immediately come and ask me about it.

Did I mention that she and my FIL take my girl every other Saturday night while Gollum works her job as a bartender? I almost feel like my MIL is jealous of the fact that Big Papa, my girl and I are so close and happy that she tries to “get back” at me with Gollum.

I wish I could just say to her: I am supposed to be your family, not Gollum. You and my FIL both kiss her a$$ (admittedly) and its hurtful to Big Papa and I. You are pulling her closer as you push us away. How will that affect your relationship with your future grandkids? Any advice on the evil M-I-L fellow stepmoms?