Hot Button Issues

Is this a theme? C1 talked about her hot button issues and I commented but I thought I'd write about mine here, why not.

I get very annoyed by many, many things, and I am trying to be better about it. Last night I had to go to the drugstore because I needed soda and just ... crap and it was Sunday night and I figured the drugstore would be my best bet. We live in the city so there is not a Target or good grocery store right nearby. It was kind of horrible at the drugstore, it was packed and they didn't have a lot of the things I wanted. I have the gestational diabetes again with this baby - or I should say I was very very borderline on the one hour test and I opted not to take the three hour - I don't see the point of going in and wasting three hours when I could just test at home and eat right and exercise. The nurse at my ob's office seemed sort of shocked about this but seriously? I do not have three hours and it's not like I'm going to be doing anything I shouldn't be doing anyway, eschewing dessert and white food and being sure to exercise a bit every day. So anyway. I wanted sugar free antacids and they had none. I wanted diet and caffeine free soda and they had NONE. NONE. There were crazy people on line, talking and talking to me and carrying in food that they found on the street and running out of money, etc., etc. and I was just over it. I was telling Todd about it when I got home and he said well, they're not going to change, so maybe you should, to be happier. Which is good advice. Annoying but good.

SO. I'm trying not to get mad at people for things they can't control, or for things that *I* deem annoying but are not to everyone. I know I can be a bitch and I'm tired and stressed out most of the time so I have to take myself with a grain of salt.

BUT I have had it with my MIL. Yesterday she was going to come up and see the kids. She had called the previous Saturday for Sunday and we already had plans. So she asked if she could come over THIS Sunday and she called on Thursday to confirm. I think it shocked her to the core that we could have made plans and she couldn't just swoop in like normal. Anyway, she called Saturday night but didn't leave a message so Todd called her yesterday to be sure everything is okay and she wanted to know if she could bring our nephew, who was DYING to see the kids (ha ha, he never even looks at the kids, he just uses our computer or texts the whole time he's here and I don't blame him - he is 16). Anyway, he had a friend with him so could he bring him too? So Todd said no, this comes up EVERY TIME. We have kind of a small house, it's a row house and it's like basically two rooms downstairs. Joseph can be kind of strange with new people, including my MIL, who is new every time she comes. WHY would I want to put him in a situation where he's uncomfortable? Or, and this is probably an unfounded fear, but I don't know this teenage boy at all, what if he was to make fun of Joseph? Or find it amusing how Joseph self-stims? I just am not up to it. Also, if you want to come and see the kids, COME AND SEE THE KIDS. Every single time there is some sort of extra thing involved. This is why I am never having my MIL stay over anymore - every time she does, like if we wanted to stay out overnight, or do something late, or something, she brings EVERYONE she knows, it feels like. Last time her husband couldn't come because he was working on a Saturday, so he came up here at 7:30 Sunday morning. SEVEN THIRTY. No one seems to think it's weird but me.

Todd definitely tells her that she can't bring strangers to the house but he doesn't like to. Plus she knows it's me that's saying no, and yesterday she barely spoke to me. Sigh. I do not know what to do about it. Todd doesn't like to say no to people, he says, as if - I mean, who does? Who LIKES confrontation and making people unhappy? Nobody. I am just willing to do it for the greater good and he's not. Anyway. That is frustrating to me and, I think, at the core of my issue with people not recognizing that our life is different because Joseph has autism. It's not BAD, I'm not JUDGING it, but I just want to call a freaking spade a spade and say we have to consider what is going to happen a little more than someone with a typical child.

God I am really babbling here so I'll stop. Hot button indeed!