Julep: don't blink first

I told Mr. J last night, sometimes I feel like dealing with his mom is an elaborate game of chicken.

Our anniversary is coming up next month, as y'all may remember, and we have built a little tradition of taking a trip together each year to celebrate. Since the kids came along, the trips have gotten shorter due to the need to arrange for child care. (We took the Bear the first year and realized that a family trip is not at all a romantic way to spend our anniversary.) Last year we took a three-day weekend and went to Chicago. This year we were hoping for five days/ four nights - the kids would go to school three days and spend one weekend day and two nights with each set of grandparents.

J-Mama was on board, but we hit a snag when Mr. J reached out to his parents. Evidently the Mr-Parents were planning to go down to their boat that weekend, though they assured Mr. J they would be happy to help out some other weekend. I was pretty frustrated - it's not like they had any special plans for that weekend, it's just one of many to be spent puttering around in Hilton Head. But J-Mama gave me some very sage advice: she said, "You chose to have children, they didn't choose to have grandchildren. If there's a need for someone to revise a plan to accommodate your kids, it's your need, not theirs." Fair enough.

I really hate re-assigning celebrations to other dates. So rather than reschedule the whole trip, we decided to find alternative arrangements. We changed our venue from Taos to Maine and cut a day off the trip. I figured to call on one or more of my cousins to pick the kids up from my mom on Sunday morning and entertain them for the day -  Mr-Sister agreed to spend the night with the kids at our house on Sunday and get them to school on Monday morning. Still working out the details on who would pick them up from school on Monday night as our flights were coming in late. 

So last night we had dinner with Mr. Mama, and she said, "Tell me about what you have planned for your anniversary trip." I told her all of the above (the last paragraph, that is). And she said, "Well, I can pick them up on Monday." I said, "That would be fantastic, but I thought you would be out of town." Well, it turns out her plans are still in flux. They haven't committed to whether they are going down that weekend. If they go, it will be a short trip since she is planning to play in a golf tournament on Monday morning. Maybe they won't go at all.

In other words, she didn't have any firm plans for the weekend of our anniversary, she just didn't want to commit herself to watching our kids. But she REALLY doesn't like being left out.