Let me start with the backstory. In May, Mr. J's parents bought this new boat, which eventually will live in Florida/ the Caribbean, but will be at KY Lake for the next two summers while my FIL gets everything situated to his liking. There was much talk about how the whole family could vacation on the boat -- it's not stretching too far to call it a yacht, as it sleeps 10.
Well, then my MIL decides there will be a rule: no more than 2 dogs on the boat at a time. As she has a dog herself, this means that Mr. J's sister can visit at her whim with dog in tow, but Mr. J and I -- loving owners of two dogs, The Twins -- will have to find a dog-sitter for at least one of our dogs. (And it turns out the"2 dog" rule is actually a "only one of your dogs at a time" rule. We were not allowed to bring them both even when she did not have her dog with her. So we stayed home, to her displeasure.)
Mr. J and I discussed, and I was very happy to realize we were on the same page: absolutely no way were we splitting up our dogs. The Twins are attached at the hip. They have never been separated for a night since they met 18 months ago. Black Twin is utterly codependent and would have some kind of breakdown if he were left without his people OR his buddy for more than 5 minutes. Brown Twin spent the first six months of her life in a miserable animal shelter in Franklin County, and while she has socialized beautifully since we adopted her, we are not going to torture her by leaving her alone in her crate for hours on end with no buddy right next to her.
So, we concluded, there will simply not be many trips to the boat for us while it's up here at the lake. It's her boat and she can make whatever rules she wants for it. But they are our dogs, and we decide how we are going to treat them. It's way too much hassle to find a dogsitter every other weekend, plus we don't actually like leaving them all the time.
OK. With this backdrop, yesterday Mr. J and I stopped by his parents' house to drop some stuff off , and the topic came up of whether we will join them down at the lake next weekend. See, my MIL just will not accept that her own stupid rule is getting in the way of what she wants, namely these happy happy weekends with everyone at the lake together. She is determined that we should just leave one of our dogs at home and come hang out on her boat.
This woman is far too used to getting her own way, and I have some bad news for her. In 33 1/2 years, no one has ever successfully pushed me into doing something I don't think is the right thing to do. And I am not going to feel guilty or sorry about not giving in to her, either. Nor will she be getting the usual guilty, sorry response from her son now that he has me on his side. For years she has made him feel bad about not doing whatever she thought he should do (no matter how stupid or unsuited to him her idea was). Well, that day has passed.
And this was the kicker: as she was explaining that it is just so much trouble to attend to more than one dog, she segued into how much trouble it is to have more than one kid. (Note: she has 2 herself.) And then she actually said, "When you have kids, if someone volunteers to take one of them while you go on vacation, that would be great."
Excuse me? Let me get this straight. She's not saying that Mr. J and I should take a little trip together, just the two of us, and leave our progeny at home in the loving care of the grands - which I certainly hope we will do from time to time. No, in her mind, Mr. J and I will have two (or more) children, and leave one of them at home with Grandma while we take the other one(s) on a family vacation. That is a sure road to sibling harmony right there.
I realize that she thinks owning two dogs is a horrible inconvenience and she can't understand why we chose to adopt two (without consulting her, natch.) If we didn't think we could keep up with two dogs (though it really is no more trouble than one, maybe less because they keep each other occupied), we wouldn't have adopted two. We, not she. And if we don't think we can keep up with more than one child, we won't have more than one child. Also not a subject on which she will be getting a vote.
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