This year, I've discovered that we, as a family have had to make some more changes. Christmas was a reasonable success, partly due to the fact that we discussed in great detail, and decided that we would lower our expectations and demands, and that anything beyond a complete disaster, would be a success. And that it was. We went to Mum and Dad's for Christmas. They made a roast, we bought some prawns, and all was well. The kids got suitable presents that weren't embarrassing on inappropriate, tick. Lunch was a success, tick. We left in the afternoon with little stress, tick. The bon bons were forgotten til after lunch, so we cracked them after we'd eaten, that's fine, no big deal.
We went camping after christmas, and we took my mother in law as well as the cousins. This was also a pretty good success.
Since coming home, the mother inlaw has had an accident in her car (her partner driving) and written off the car. She's also been to her doctor and been told that she's had another MS attack. She obviously does far too much and doesn't look after herself anywhere near enough. Her partner is verging on half blind, and shouldn't be driving, we also suspect he has Vascular Dementia, but we're struggling to get a diagnosis. Mother in law copes very well and her MS is very well managed through drugs.
She is the type of person who never says no, to anyone. She always says yes to babysitting, even if it's inconvenient or excessive driving. She looks after her partner, who has many and varied problems. She looks after my sister inlaw's kids and various other members of her partners side of the family. Her and her partner live in separate houses, but together, so they travel over 100km between these two houses. They manage 2 homes and alot of driving.
We've had to make a decision to take away most of her baby sitting, as much as she loves it, and as much as it hurts her, because she just does too much driving, too much running around. Hopefully the goal for this year, is to get them to slow down, stop travelling the 100+km trip multiple times in a week, and when they go to one house, they stay there for a week or 2 rather than back and forth doing hundreds of km in travel each week. I am hopeful and doubtful at the same time. But at this point, all I can do, is take away any further obligations she has to help us out.
