Feeling Left Out

My sister-in-law was here this week. She got here Thursday and left today. She has 2 daughters, 3 years and 9 months. Abby is 2, so she loves playing with her cousin.

I drove out to my mother-in-law's to see them on Friday after work, and on Monday after work. We had them over here on Sunday for Mother's Day and on Tuesday they met Marti half way at the park for a couple of hours so the girls could ride the trains and the merry-go-round.

About half way through the day on Tuesday, I thought since my house was already cleaned up for Mother's Day, and since they were leaving the next day, and since my mother-in-law mentioned on Monday that she didn't want to cook, that I'd invite them over again for dinner Tuesday night. I texted my mother-in-law but didn't get a reply. As the day went on, I found myself getting a little tired and thought it was just as well if she didn't get the message since I didn't feel like cooking anymore. I went home and went to bed at 10 pm - early for me.

The next morning, Marti mentioned that they were in to see him Tuesday night for dinner. (He is a bartender at a local restaurant about 10 minutes from our house.) At first I was annoyed. I mean, I asked them to come to dinner, but they didn't reply and then went out without me.

But then, I really thought about it. Even IF they didn't get my invitation to come over, if they came ALL THE WAY OUT HERE and visited the restaurant where my husband works, you think they'd give me a call and have me come meet them, right? So, while I sat at home, the night before my sister-in-law and Abby's cousin go back to the east coast, they were a mere 10 minutes away, dining without us.

Sometimes it feels like my mother-in-law sees her other grand daughter(s) more than Abby, and they live across the country. Abby is only 25-45 minutes away depending on traffic. Some of this is due to the fact that we don't go over there much because they don't have a real pool fence. Some of this is due to the fact that they rarely come over here. Needless to say, this is causing a bit of a rift between us, whether we say it out loud or not.

Anyway, I found myself (who normally could give a shit) in the bathroom at work today crying about it because I felt so unwanted (and felt like my daughter was somewhat unimportant to them) after hearing they were eating in my neighborhood and didn't bother to call. Luckily, my boss is so fun to work with that she snapped me out of it without even trying.

Go figure -- my work cheers me up from my personal issues! Normally people retreat to their personal lives to forget about work issues!

Now THAT is an awesome job, huh?