This is why

When people tell us all those cliché reasons why we shouldn't be estranged from Tim's family (life's too short, etc.) it only takes a story or two about the things they've done to us to make them see why we are. They change their tune real quick. Yesterday was another one of those days. As Tim says, his family has no filters on their mouths. After ruining so many holidays and vacations and events with their constant fighting and nastiness toward me and others, they still don't get it, that all these friends they lost were sick of hearing it too. A few years ago, Liv was playing her first softball game of the season. We were assistant coaching. She pitched the last 2 innings of a game our other pitcher had lost already, but Liv pitched great and the head coach was so impressed. She threw a great two innings, shut down the other team, and Tim and I were so proud. Tim's father came up to Tim in the dugout and confronted him about an argument we'd had with Tim's sister-in-law,(this was the time we told her she was not welcome in our house that mother's day after ruining the prior Christmas for us with her nasty comment when I bought Tim his new truck). Tim got really upset at his father for bringing this up, and right then to boot, and as I walked up to him, he was angrily telling his father to stay out of it. We went from being proud and happy to really angry in just seconds and another good memory was tainted by them. About the only times we see Tim's parents are at Olivia's games and we don't enjoy them being there. We are civil and I talk to them like nothing ever happened, but, we'd prefer to be able to enjoy our daughter's games without them. The last 2 seasons, Tim even asked me not to tell them about every game so we could just enjoy them together with the other parents. Several times I have had to tell them to be quiet because they get irritated and start yelling out onto the field, either at players or the officials.(in the rec. league, your team can be disqualified if your fans yell at the umpires). You would think they would knock it off after being told once, but not them. They live by their own rules and don't care what anyone else thinks or who they upset with their behavior. Last week, we were sitting on bleachers right by 1st base when one of Liv's good friends, and our 1st basewoman, missed a throw to 1st. My father-in-law nastily said, "you should have had that." Her mother was sitting right next to us and the player, Rachel, heard it and got all nervous and shook up. I told him to be quiet, and my mother-in-law chimed in and said, "well she should have." These people just don't get it. This stuff happens. The girl didn't do it on purpose. Tim's whole family has a "do as I say not as I do" habit. If people said things to them like they say to other people, they'd go ballistic. That whole family just shoots off nasty comments to everyone and thinks everyone should just take it from them. I talked to Tim about what happened with Rachel. He did not hear the whole exchange, he was talking to someone else at the game. He was not happy. We are friends with her parents too. This is a great family that we've known for years and here is Tim's parents insulting their daughter. It's very embarrassing for Tim. We hoped it wouldn't happen again but we both agreed that if it did, he had to be stopped. Yesterday was Liv's final game of the year. It was a really tough season. Liv played extremely well but we have very weak fielding and batting in many of the other girls. But, they are a nice group of kids. Our coach is a bigger problem than that, as she just has no idea what she's doing and makes a lot of mistakes. We won 18-11 yesterday. Liv threw 8 strikeouts and threw out 3 runners, making 11 out of 15 outs herself (we only played 5 innings and were out of time). It was a hard fought win for Liv. The varsity coach took our 1st baseman and shortstop to play for him. The girl our coach put at SS screwed up many times and the coach left her in for 3 innings until she finally put someone else there. Anyway, the girl playing right field is a very good friend of Liv's and not a great player. She only started playing softball last season BUT she tries very hard. In the last inning, when we were trying to make sure we held them, Cheyenne fielded a ball and then made a very bad throw which resulted in runners advancing and maybe even a score, I can't remember exactly. My father-in-law started yelling at her. This 77 year old man was red in the face and furious and starts ripping into a 15 year old girl. I wasn't having it. She could hear him. I spun around to stop him, saying(in a low but VERY angry voice), "shut up, that is Liv's good friend, and you can go the hell home!" I'm just so done with this. He is so out of control. Both Rachel and Cheyenne were just at Liv's birthday party the other night. Great girls. Heck, Cheyenne spent almost the whole weekend over our house a few weeks ago, sleeping over and everything. I took my book(I keep stats for Liv) and walked away, standing by the other set of bleachers for the rest of the game. Old Phil was furious. Cannot tolerate a woman standing up to him, and that woman being ME just drives him insane. Tim had heard him yell at Cheyenne(was a few steps away talking to other parents) and shot over immediately to stop him. I didn't even realize they had gotten into it after I left. My kid was pitching and I was glued to the action on the field. Well, it went like this. My mother-in-law was saying "that was uncalled for" about what I said. Tim said, "it was called for, that is Olivia's good friend and we don't do that here. Do you hear any of these parents yelling and insulting the girls? You did this to Rachel last week too, another friend of Olivia's and the poor girl was embarrassed and upset after you did and her mother was right there. You can't just yell at these kids because they miss plays." Anyway, Phil said, "that's it, I'm done." Apparently, this means he's not coming anymore to which we say, YAY! He was ready to leave right then but it was probably Tim's mom who was not gonna miss the end of the game. Tim's mother actually said that maybe that's why we have such bad players and these parents should all be yelling at the girls, maybe they would play better if we did. REALLY?!!! She is just as bad as he is. Tim and I coached softball for 8 years. I have never seen a girl perform better when she was nervous or upset. I have seen them perform better when we have pumped them up and encouraged them countless times. These people just shoot off their nasty mouths at everyone and then wonder why they never hear from their old friends anymore. DUH!!! And, would it be OK if the parents started yelling at my daughter every time she threw a bad pitch? I can tell ya, it happened twice last year, that people that didn't even know her said something about bad pitches and I was NOT happy, even saying something to a woman next to me about her nasty comment.(she got out of her car, saw one bad pitch and started in, not knowing she was standing next to the pitcher's mother) It's just not necessary. They are kids. Even the pros have their bad days. I am sure Tim's parents would go nuts if people were yelling at their granddaughter. Olivia was the best player on the team this year and last year, as well as the "MVP" in her recreation league team too. We had many parents come up to us this season and say, "we wouldn't have a team if it wasn't for Olivia. She is such a great pitcher and we are so grateful for how hard she has worked. Please tell her we said that." Does she deserve to be yelled at too when she is tired and throws some bad pitches? I did not bother saying good-bye to Phil and he barely grunted Tim's way as they left. They did it again. Ruined/tainted what should have been another positive, wonderful memory for our family. We did not tell Olivia what happened. We're hoping she was too focused on pitching and ending the game to hear what he yelled out to her friend. She ended the game on a strikeout and we were just thrilled. So, THESE are the people who claim to be crushed over all that's happened, just sick over not having a relationship with their son. They still do and say whatever they want with no concern to what it does to us. They think that WE were out of line confronting him and there is nothing wrong with publicly insulting 15 and 16 year old girls who make mistakes on the ball field. They ruined yet another memory for us, as is their norm, and they think that WE did something wrong. I've probably said this before. My father told me once, "Denise, never argue with someone who is dead wrong. It's such a waste of time." That is the case with these people. I just said what I had to to stop his rant and walked away. They have lived their whole lives this way and have a long list of ex-friends to prove it. They'll never change. This is NOT how you support your grandchild at her games, by yelling insults at her best friends. They know those are Liv's grandparents. Besides being obnoxious, it does not reflect well on Olivia. So, game over. We probably won't see them, or at least him, at any more games. Again, not sorry. They ruin things for everyone. So, all those clichés are well and good, but when you see holiday after holiday, vacation after vacation, and all these memorable events ruined but this kind of nastiness, it gets old. We're trying to make good memories for out daughter. It's near impossible if they are involved.

Moving on.

Sweet 16

Tomorrow is the big day. Olivia turns 16. It's surreal to me. How did it fly by this quickly? Tomorrow also marks 6 years since Tim had a chemo drug put into his body. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but it has. He had a check-up on this past Friday. His kappa number went up to 36, I think it was. Knocked the kappa/lambda ratio out of normal range too. This bums me out. We saw the head nurse this time, doctors were busy, and she is not worried about it. They see people whose light chain numbers jump by the hundreds so, to them, this is no big deal. To us, it is. His numbers are creeping slowly northward. They are still very low, but, a trend is a trend. Life has been full of medical issues lately. Olivia got what appears to be a staph infection on her leg, maybe even MRSA. The culture did not show anything, but they think/know it was a false negative. I have had some crazy symptoms going on which resulted in another bladder infection and a trip to the urologist, my first ever. I have to go to an ear, nose, and throat doc because I've had some kind of "click," for lack of a better word, in my throat when I swallow. Now, Olivia has to go to a dermatologist because some other kind of process started on the same leg. Tim and I both got pretty sick with colds and sinus infections. At one point, all 3 of us were on antibiotics for different reasons. I've been back and forth to CVS pharmacy so many times, I'm practically on a first name basis with everyone there. SHEESH!
Hopefully, things simmer down for a while. I'm just sick of it. I feel guilty complaining. It's all relative and it's so hard to know so many people who are really struggling and dealing with so much worse than we are. You're ticked and you want to complain, but, then the guilt settles in and you feel like a heel. Suffice to say, there is just a lot of hard stuff swirling all around me and some days, you just get so weary from it all. Can't remember what normal feels like anymore.

Back to the sweet 16. It will be a weekend of parties(Liv's birthday, mother's day) and I am still trying to arrange a camping trip or day trip to the beach for Liv and her buddies. I haven't a clue what to buy my kid, a sure sign that she has too much. (sigh) We have such a small family and she has a nice group of friends but not enough to warrant renting out some place and hiring a DJ. She has been to several sweet 16 parties now. They have fun when they do that dancing and DJ thing, but, in a few of the cases, kids invited all sorts of other kids that they didn't even hang out with just to get bodies there. I just don't understand inviting a whole bunch of kids that you're not friends with, especially to a gift giving event. I'm not OK with that. At the last party where a girl did that, some girl created a whole bunch of drama at the party and really ruined it for the guest of honor. I thought, "well, she is not even your friend and you knew she was trouble, why did you invite her?" Nah, not going down that road. We are taking a whole bunch of them out to dinner and a movie on Sat. night, and then we will try to do a camping overnight or beach day one of these weekends.

After a long, cold, snowy winter and a cool, wet spring, the beach sounds like a pipe dream. But, rumor has it we may hit 80 degrees here next week, and we're starting to see some 70's lately. WOOHOO! Olivia has one more week of softball. She has played great this season but we have a very weak team and a coach who is clueless. It's been great seeing Liv do so well, but she cannot win games by herself. We just try to enjoy it and support the girls as much as possible. The games are played right after school so most parents don't make it, but, our little group tries to cheer them on and I alway bring them snacks for after the games, which they appreciate. So, I guess that is the update. As always, the time feels like it's slipping through our hands like water. Too fast. Just too darn fast for this old girl. Here is a pic of our big girl, pitching on opening day! SO proud of her!!!

Happy mother's day!!!