When grandparents meet their granddaughter the first time, plus impending doom

After my dad’s shitty apology over text and my mom calling to apologize for him, I came to terms with the fact that he would never bring himself to ever call me himself and give me a proper apology for calling me a bitch… or really, for anything awful he’s ever done to me. I have to keep repeating to myself that my parents will never change, and I will never be able to change them. I want them to meet their grandchild, so I will suck up whatever dumb things they do temporarily to allow this to happen. I was doing this for them, as it’s clear that I get zero benefit from any of this.

The visit started annoyingly, as it always does. When my mom knows Ed or I am home, she will never, ever open the door herself. She always, always has to ring the bell multiple times to demand that someone serve her. So since I got to the house before she and my dad got back, of course, she rang the bell. As soon as she walked in, I could tell she was not happy with me. She gave me a half hello with a pissed expression on her face (which was a hint at what would come as soon as Chris wasn’t around on Monday), and then went over to talk to Kaia and admire her.

My dad did the same: he barely said hi to me and then just kind of stared at Kaia and blew her kisses. My. Dad. Blew. Kisses. WHAT???? He did all kinds of pucker lip and other gestures towards her and blew kisses and smiled endlessly at her. I have this strong feeling he never did that with Ed or me. They unloaded a bunch of clothes and toys they got her, along with some toys my dad picked up second hand off of Next Door (which my mom assured me she sanitized multiple times).

Then, my mom proceeded to fuss over everything about her and what I was doing wrong: why wasn’t I constantly wiping her hands and face when she was eating? Why isn’t she wearing more layers? What kind of half-assed bath did I give her? Why wasn’t I blow drying her hair? I wasn’t moisturizing her quickly enough: she was going to get sick being naked for so long while getting lotioned up! Oh, and then given the time difference (hello, it’s the baby’s first time changing time zones…) and how goddamn cold the house was, Kaia kept waking up crying throughout the night, so we had to give her Tylenol and turn on the heat…. which my dad kept shutting off even though I explicitly said the house was too cold for the baby (seriously??).

The truth is that it didn’t even bother me that she criticized how we took care of Kaia; I expected all of that and brushed it off; none of that really fazed me. I was more just cognizant of the fact that I knew she’d eventually swoop down on me and unleash her can of irrationality and anger as soon as Chris went to work on Monday, as that would be the only time she’d get alone with me. She’d never say any of this stuff in front of Chris; she barely said anything to him the entire weekend they were together. It’s mostly just meals together with nothing spoken and being under the same roof with little to no interaction.

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