I am officially crazy

For our first Valentine's Day (after dating only 2 weeks) my (now) husband got me huge pearl earrings, chocolate, and flowers. For my first Mother's Day he got me an ipod nano. For another birthday a Wii (we already had a xbox360, but at least the kids get a lot of use out of the Wii). This year he got me an ipad (since he was gone for my birthday and Mother's Day). Oh and there was the engagement ring. The though was always well received but the gift... not so much.

He had known me for 2 years before the first Valentine's Day. I didn't like the pearl earrings... too big. (About 30% bigger than anything else I had ever worn.) Ipod...didn't need it. I think I had just bought a personal CD player about 6 months earlier. Ipad...I have a 3 year old working macbook pro (and he has a laptop and we have an extra laptop). The engagement ring it was also about 30% bigger than I wanted.

From his recent trip brought me back a beautiful cashmere scarf that is probably 6 ft X 2 Ft and I don't what to think what is cost. It is beautiful, but it is all colors I don't wear. It will probably sit in my closet until I die, maybe I will wear it a few times if I am lucky.

I think what upsets me most when I get these gifts is that it shows that he doesn't know me. You know what I want...new underwear, the yard re-landscaped (or at least a plan in place), the driveway re-sealed, a weekend at the beach. All of these things I have been talking about. It bugs me that he spends all this money on stuff I don't need/won't use and he could have feed a family in Egypt for a year.

These are only about half the gifts, so I guess he does okay.

How crazy am I, "Honey, Thank you, this is beautiful, but can I return it?"

I complain when he buys me something, I complain when he doesn't. Maybe I should create a "pinterest board" just for him or refer him to my Amazon wish list.

Support

There is only 1 time in my life when I felt like my parents were supportive. When I was in high school I ran cross country. At the semi-finals I finished 3rd and I didn't run my heart out. So they were supper supportive at the finals. They believed in me and knew I could place. They had a cake all ready for me when I came home but.... I didn't place. Sure we still enjoyed the cake and I felt like the one time they really supported me was the one time I let them down.

Where was that support the first 15 years of my life? Where has it been the last 16?

It is not that I need support but it sure would be nice if my parents could at least be just as supportive of me as they are of my brother's wife...is that really to much to ask...hell at least pretend I live 800 miles away so it really doesn't require much effort.

Billy Bob B......

If all goes well my brother is finding out the sex of his baby today. They have a nice normal girls name picked out and for the boy's name they have a name that is the equivalent of Benjamin Billy Bob. Yes, exactly.

My parents hated/hate my children's names. They are not American names is why. They are very beautiful names and my children are only half American but 5 years later they still aren't over it.

They said, oh the other kids will make fun of your kids names. Really?? In 5 years all I have heard is, "Beautiful names." Never an "oh....." They obviously go to school in an area where there are more than 2 or 3 cultures.

Benjamin Billy Bob will be going to school in an area where you are either hispanic(65%), white(30%) or other (5%). My parents love the BBB name and support it 100%. They think it is so cute. Hello! Cute when you are 1 year old, not cute when you are 30.

In other news my father is still upset at a question my daughter asked him 3 weeks ago. If my mother had not been in the room I do not know how my father would have reacted. Knowing how he was when I grew up and knowing he is worse, I have made a decision. My father will never be unsupervised with my children. I do not ever want my children to subjected to that kind of verbal abuse from their own grandfather. I am also thinking about throwing in the towel. I have made so much effort over the past 10 years to mend the problems and really there is nothing I can do, so I need to stop wasting my time. (Just as my husband has stopped trying to help his sister to no avail.) We love our families and that is that, nothing less, nothing more.