I have been struggling on deciding if I should or should not write this post due to the audience that occasionally reads.  I decided that, ultimately, I may help someone else out who is in the same position make a decision so here goes nothing...

About 10 months ago, my 26 year old (then, 25 year old) sister made the decision to come and live with us and watch our baby.  She had been away in the Peace Corps for many months and her tour of duty was ending right around my son's due date.  She was coming back to the US with lots of worldly experience, insight, and understanding, but without a clear plan on what her next steps in life would be.  It seemed like it was the perfect situation.  She would come watch her nephew while we got into the swing of family life and she could then in turn, get back on her feet and decide what her next move would be.  Since she didn't know anyone in the area, other than my sister and I, she would have lots of time, when she was not watching the baby, to work another part-time job or take some college classes to apply towards an eventual Masters in Education.  Win, win, right?  Apparently not.

The "deal" that we had worked out soon after she started, after a miscommunication right in the beginning, was as follows:

-Live with us, rent/utilities free, in her own bedroom.  The bedroom had a flat screen TV with cable, wifi, a desk, a bed, and a couch. 
-We would buy her whatever food she wanted.  She is a vegetarian so we always made sure she had vegetarian stuff even though we are far from vegetarians.
-We would buy her whatever "stuff" she needed (i.e. toothpaste, shampoo, etc.).
-We would pay for her full gym membership (included a pool).
-She could use my subway pass on the weekends.
-We would let her use the car if it was available and we would pay for it (gas/insurance/maintenance, etc.). 
-We would let her dog live with us, even though it was not up-to-date on all of its vaccines and we already had 2 cats and a dog of our own.
-We would pay her between $120-150 a week.
-We would pay her even for the days that she did not work and, as long as she gave us notice, she could take days off.
-I would stay home every Friday (and sometimes more than just Friday) to work and provide a hand.
-The hours would be 6 AM-4:30 PM (any extra time would be worked out ahead of time as $10 an hour).
-She could leave whenever she wanted to as long as she gave us enough notice to find another situation for the baby.

I thought that this was a pretty good set-up that benefited both of us.  She was going to be able to grow some roots, get her footing, and decide what she was going to do next, while we were getting a trusted family member with a degree in Early Childhood Education to watch our growing little boy.  It seemed too good to be true, and we came to find out that it was, unfortunately.

As the months rolled by, I thought that things were going really well for the most part.  B seemed to be happy, healthy, and growing.  We were all getting along well, even though my house isn't that large.  We had occasional bumps in the road, but I thought that we were communicating well and we seemed to be able to work through our differences.  We had lots of fun together including family runs, dinners out (which we always paid for), and spending time together in the evenings watching reality TV or sporting events.

My sister had decided a few months back that her next step was going to be to move to S. Korea to teach and not to go to school to get her Masters or a teaching job in the area.  It was her decision and her life, so we were obviously supportive.  She had some issues getting the paperwork together (some of which was out of her control) so she made an interim plan to teach at a summer camp for several weeks starting in mid-June.  This ended up working out perfectly because daycare was set to start mid-June as well.  We would have no lapse in coverage...yay!  Everything seemed to be working out so perfectly...

I came to find out, from another sister, that my sister was planning on leaving her dog with us (yes, the one without all of the proper vaccinations), but had not asked us or even so much as mentioned to us that she was anting to do this.  My husband and I talked it over and decided that it was not going to work to take her dog for several reasons, including the fact that my 65yo MIL was going to be watching B two days a week (FOR FREE) and would have to watch two to three dogs, including her own if she had to bring him, and the baby.  We had originally been letting the dogs out on their own in the backyard, as necessary, but just gotten our backyard re-seeded so we had started walking them 3 times a day instead because we are tired of having a backyard full of dog $#!t.  There were many other reasons that factored into our decision, which I am not going to mention because this post would end up being 100 pages.  I had talked with my mom and she had agreed to take the dog for the few months while she was at camp.  I planned on letting her store all of her stuff in our basement until she was done at camp.  I was ready to work out some type of plan with her for when she finished camp if she needed a place to stay while she was waiting to go to S. Korea or figuring out what came next.  I was willing and ready to help her out in any way that I could... besides directly taking her dog for several weeks.

Well, when I confronted my sister about the dog, her response was not one of, "Thanks!  That is nice that you have thought about this situation so much even though I never brought it up to you.  Let's try to work something out", it was one of, "I have sacrificed almost a year of my life and you can't do this ONE THING for me?!"

This is when the proverbial flood gates opened.  We came to find out that she had been harboring incredibly intense feelings of anger and resentment at us for the situation that she was currently in, for months.  She felt that we were making money off of her and not appreciating the "sacrifice" that she had made to come and watch B.  She said that we frivolously spent money on things when we could have been giving to her and that she could have been making a lot more money nannying for someone who was not a family member.  Then she proceeded to pick apart other aspects of the way that my husband and I have been living our lives (and what we were spending our money on), as if she had been silently observing and gathering dirt on us so that one day she could use it as blackmail to throw back in our faces.  It was shocking and hurtful, but I didn't counter back at her and do the same thing.  Even when she told me that we NEVER did anything nice for her, I was not about to go through and list all of the nice things that we had done for her to try to get back at her (although I could list a bunch of them, very easily).

Neither my husband, nor I, ever thought that her coming to watch the baby was a "sacrifice" at all.  We thought that it was a fair situation that would benefit both she and us.  She felt otherwise, but never bothered to say anything until it was too late.

She ended up leaving to go and stay with my sister because I could not have her in the house, caring for my son, with those feelings of anger and resentment towards us.  It was an incredibly hostile and uncomfortable situation for all of us, but especially my poor child.  My attempts to talk and compromise with her failed left and right.  I tried text and tried scheduling times to meet, but nothing worked.  She didn't want to try to work anything out.  She only wanted to keep harping on the fact that she had sacrificed so much that was not appreciated.  I don't feel like that was true for many reasons, but I can't change the fact that she felt like that.  She moved her stuff out at the end of last week and I have not heard from her regarding the situation, since.

Thinking back on the situation now, it would be easy for me to say that I wish we had never decided to ask her to come and "sacrifice" almost a year of her twenty-something life to stay with us and watch our precious son so that I could have avoided what ended up ensuing.  I am grateful for the time that my sister spent with my son during his very impressionable first months of life.  She was wonderful with him and he absolutely adores her.  He is who he is today partly because of the time that she spent with him.  I am sad and upset that things ended the way that they did.  I wish that I would have known that she was feeling so terrible a little sooner so that we could have worked things out.  My husband and I are both reasonable people and the fact that she felt like she had to bottle everything up just sucks.  Even worse, other people in my family have "taken sides", which hurts because they don't know the whole story.  They have heard one side of it and think they know, but they don't.  It has driven a wedge between me and other family members and I feel totally out-casted.  Everything is such a mess.

The past few weeks, I have been left trying to work full-time and watch the baby.  Yeah, as you can imagine, not so easy.  We had to cancel our family vacation so that I could spread the time out over 2 weeks and work while he was at nap and first thing in the morning and in the evenings.  Needless to say, I am exhausted and thus have not had much extra time for blogging.

My advice to anyone wondering if they should have a family member be their nanny would be this, work every last detail out before the first day and WRITE IT ALL DOWN.  Make sure the family member understands what the deal is and make sure that they agree with it and that they don't feel like they are sacrificing.  Some of these details include, but are not limited to: hours, salary, who pays for room/board and other expenses, vacation time needed (GET THIS UP FRONT), over-time pay, and an eventual end date.  Dealing with family and money is always complicated.  I heard it from many people when I told them what our arrangement was going to be.  I guess I thought that our situation would be different and that we could somehow defy the odds and both end up happy in the end.  I was dead wrong.  

The past few weeks have been quite crazy for me.  You can always tell when my life gets hectic in that the frequency of my posts takes a complete nosedive.  Here is a little update as to why I have been more quite than normal lately.

A few weeks back I think I mentioned that one of my sisters found a lump in her breast and had to have a biopsy.  She also got back results from a PAP that pointed out potentially cancerous cells.  She had a biopsy on her breast lump and it turned out to be benign (YAY!).  She ended up having a LEEP done on her cervix and has to now go back for monitoring every 6 months.  That same sister, poor thing, has had such a rough go of it lately that you would think that the universe would give her a break.  Not so much.  WTF, universe?!

She called me early last week and mentioned that she was having some numbness under her right rib cage.  That had turned into her whole right leg going numb and a feeling of weakness when she walked around.  She was concerned so she went to the doctor and they given her an MRI of her spine.  She didn't have the results back yet, but she seemed really worried and told me to pray for her.

Last Friday she called me in a panic and told me that they had found a "growth" on her spine and needed her to go directly to the ER.  She was pretty scared.  They told her that they were not sure whether she had an infection, a virus, cancer, or worse, but that she needed steroids right away to reduce the inflammation of the "growth" so that she would not have permanent nerve damage and loss of feeling on her right side.

In somewhat of an organized panic, I made plans along with two of my other sisters to rescue our sister who was in serious need of some sisterly support.  What we found out when we got there was quite different than what we had imagined.  There was my younger sister, laid up in a hospital bed on the neurology floor with old ladies dying of complications from Alzheimer's and dementia. She just didn't seem to belong there because she was young and healthy.  It was sad and depressing.  She looked so bewildered, but also relieved to see us.

She explained to us that she had another MRI of her brain the previous night because they were trying to figure out what she had by ruling out what she didn't have.  Apparently the "growth" on her spine was actually a lesion and a condition called Transverse Myelitis.  They had also found two more lesions on her brain during the brain scan.  She calmly, but shakily explained to us that the most probable diagnosis was the auto-immune disease called Multiple Sclerosis and that this was probably an "MS" attack.

In that moment, my heart sunk to the floor.  Why her?  She had already been through quite a few other health related issues in the past few months.  How unfair.  She is young, eats healthy, and exercises.  She is getting married in a few months to a great guy who we all love like a brother, already.  She should be into serious wedding/honeymoon planning mode.  So incredibly awful.

In the day that my sisters and I were there, we got to hear from doctors and nurses regarding her condition.  Some were more pessimistic than optimistic and vice-versa.  Regardless of her diagnosis, it was determined that she would have to stay in the hospital for several days due to the IV steroids that she was receiving which, luckily, were helping to bring the feeling back to her leg.  She also had to have a lumbar puncture (or "spinal tap") to rule out all other possible diagnoses, but would not receive those results for at least a week.

I wish that I could have stayed with her longer, but I am glad that my husband was able to watch the baby so that I could go and give her some support when she really needed it.  So now we just wait for a more "official" diagnosis.  For now, my sister is feeling tired and frustrated, but at least she is home and continuing to recover from whatever she may have (or have had).

Me being the person that I am did some research on MS and I learned quite a few things about it.  I figured that it was a death sentence and a condition that, at the least, would lead a person to not be able to use their limbs, eventually.  What I found was that that is simply not true.  The National MS Society has a ton of great information and in my 15 minutes of reading on their site, I learned quite a bit.

I am still hopeful that maybe this was a one time thing and that the conclusive medical results will NOT point to MS.  If it turns out that it is, I am sure that my sister will be ok.  She is a very strong girl.  She may have to change a few things up, but she'll be fine.  I know it.

This past weekend, my husband and I packed up the baby and dog and headed off to the beach for a mini-vacation.  The car was so packed that you could not see out the back window.  The poor dog, who has been banished to the way back since the baby came along, had barely any room with the baby bath constantly sliding into his tiny space.  It was an experience, that's for sure.  Something that only practice could perfect.

It was our first family trip and it was nothing like I expected.  I figured that we'd be relaxing on the beach or hiking in a park, but we really didn't have much time to do that.  Neither of us realized how much time our baby normal routine would take us in a different location.  Basically, it was the same stuff we do at home with less supplies at hand.

All things aside, we did have a really nice time hanging out as a family.  The dog was in his element at the beach and was probably a little confused that he was getting some attention once again.  Hi favorite things in life are the beach, tennis balls, and carrots.  He got to experience all three of those things in mass quantities this past weekend.  A little slice of "doggy heaven" for our poor neglected son dog.  

On Friday morning, my husband, the baby, the dog and I set out for a 4 mile jog.  The weather was pristine and the path was smooth and accommodating.  We did the run at a 9 minute per mile pace, which felt slow, but the dog was really laboring.  I had to keep bribing him with the promise of carrots for the last mile.

On Saturday morning we left the dog at home so that we could accomplish something together that we have never done before.  We were going to run 12 miles with the baby in the jogger.  My husband decided to sign up for a half marathon with me later this fall, so in order to do that we need to make sure 12 miles is something that we could accomplish.  I had done 10 the previous weekend so I knew I could do it, but my husband was a little less confident.

We packed up the B.O.B. with emergency supplies: diapers, wipes, changing pad, extra clothes for B, disposable diaper bags, coconut water (for us) and power jelly beans (for us) and then headed off.

My husband and I switched off pushing the stroller every 2 miles.  The route was pretty flat and very scenic.  My husband and I chatted while we ran.  It was so nice to be doing this with him.  It can get quite lonely running by yourself for so long.  It was a nice way to connect with him without any other distractions.

Here are our split times, courtesy of MapMyRun MVP:

Mile 1- 8:53
Mile 2- 8:45
Mile 3- 8:51
Mile 4- 8:39
Mile 5- 8:43
Mile 6- 8:48
Mile 7- 8:57
Mile 8- 8:54
Mile 9- 8:37
Mile 10- 9:00
Mile 11- 8:50
Mile 12- 9:18
extra .19 miles- 8:57

Overall pace average was 8:54 minutes per mile (faster than our 4 miler!).

My husband started to fade at mile 10.  I think our mile 9 might have done him in.  I was really proud of him, though.  It was his longest run ever and he really hasn't been running a whole lot lately.  I give some credit to CrossFit here.  Had it not been for CrossFit, he never in a million years would have signed up for a half marathon and run 12 miles to train for it.  

I felt strong the entire time.  I could have gone faster and/or gone longer.  It was a really great feeling.  I actually felt proud of my body for a change.  In the past 5 months, I have gone from 167 lbs down to 120ish.  I have started running again and gone from being out of breath in less than a mile (at a snails pace) to being able to run 12 miles at a pace that is faster than most average runners can sustain AND have the handicap of a jogging stroller.  I have gone from super flabby to toned, once again.  I'm slowly getting back there.  It is just taking a lot longer than I had imagined it in my silly little head.

Speaking of jogging stroller, our little future marathoner did great for the 1 hour and 48 minutes that were were on the road.  He was up and babbling for the first 1/2 and then took a nice nap for the second half.  We didn't even use any of our emergency supplies that we brought!

I think this trip and the run were great for more reasons that one.  Even though B didn't sleep and much of our time went to his normal care-taking, we all had a really nice time.  I appreciate my husband more for deciding to run with me.  I appreciate my baby for letting us run with him.  Despite its shortcomings, I appreciate my mind and body.  They are way stronger than I give them credit for.    

I am not sure what I have done lately to throw my karma so far off track, but it seems like every day I am screwing something else up and someone new is mad at me.  I always pictured pregnancy as a happy and cheerful time, but lately it has been anything but that.  Now I feel like I am always apologizing for screwing up and I forget stuff all the time.  I am the kind of person who does not need a list.  I remember EVERYTHING in my head.  I think that being responsible and conscientious and two of my good qualities.   I always pay bills on time, I remember birthdays, I email people back quickly, to name a few things.  Lately, I have forgotten to pay the electric bill twice, forgot to call my little brother on his birthday, and offended a friend-of-a-friend by not emailing her back when she took the time to offer me great advice.  So here we go again...

Several months back I got curious and I started creating the shell of a baby registry one night.  I started entering in the basic information including the due date and the sex of the baby.  There was a space for "grandparents".  I started entering with my Mom and step father first and then my MIL and her husband because I knew both of their addresses.  My Dad is deceased and I didn't have my FIL's address because they move very frequently, so I decided that I would go back and enter that later.  While I was in the registry that night, I wanted to check out a jogging stroller that my friend suggested I get, the B.OB R.evolution.  I found one I liked and added it because I didn't want to forget the kind.  At that time, the brands of baby items that are available was not as familiar to me.  Anyways, that is all I did that night.  I expected to go back later on and finish it.  Not many people even knew I was pregnant at that point so I kind of forgot about it.

Many weeks after that, a few nights before I was set to go register with my friend, I attempted to go back into the registry to update it.  Something happened with that account and I could not log in no matter what I tried.  It said my email address did not exist so I couldn't even have them email me my password.  No biggie, I thought.  I'll just have B.abies R U.s either make it usable or delete it and start a new one.

On the day I registered, I explained to the sales rep what I had done and she tried to get into the account and could not.  She told me that she could not even delete it and to create a new one and just tell people not not use the old one that would still show up.  I didn't really think anything of it.  I assumed it would be obvious that the registry with one item was a mistake and that people would move to the other one.

This morning started out great.  My fasting BS was 87, my 1 hour after breakfast was 100.  I took my dog for a walk around the block while my husband took out the trash.  He was giving me a ride to work so I had a little more time.  When I got back, I could sense something was wrong because he ignored me when I talked to him.  I asked him what the problem was and he slammed down his cell phone in front of me.  On the screen was a message from my FIL's wife (who my husband does not like, AT ALL).  Saying that she got the shower invitation from my sister (my husband did not want to invite her at all, I said we should and had my sister's send her one) and when they went to look at the registry, they saw that my FIL was not listed as a grandparent.  She said that my FIL was really upset by this and cried because he didn't understand why we left him out and he didn't think that we loved him as much as our other parents.

Knowing that it was all a misunderstanding, I calmly explained the situation to my husband.  Not sure why, but he didn't seem to believe me.  He said he was really upset by the situation.  This is when I snapped.  I pretty much flew off the handle, asking yelling how he could question me in a situation like this and think that I might have done this on purpose.  He said that rather than feeling bad about it, I felt wronged and that I should call his Dad and apologize.  I asked if he could call and explain to his Dad since I don't have a close relationship with him.  He didn't think this was a good idea.  The hits and low blows at me just kept on coming and I really couldn't take them.  We screamed at each other all the way to work until I started crying.  I'm not sure why I even bother with eye-makeup anymore since I seem to be crying it all off lately.  Then we both were silent.  When we got into the city and parked.  We both silently walked into the coffee shop, I bought us both coffee, then he left without saying anything.

Obviously, I feel terrible about this.  Thinking about my FIL being upset over this makes me feel awful.  It was a complete misunderstanding, complicated by the fact that sometimes technology gets fucked up (and fucks things up).  I had, and still have, no control over this situation.  I feel like my husband should be more on my side rather than quasi-accusing me of being spiteful.  As soon as I got to work, I called and left a voice-mail for his step-mother.  I briefly explained the situation, apologized (even though I didn't do anything), and asked that if she call me back if she wanted to chat.

Well, she called me back.  We chatted.  She rehashed the text message, making me feel guiltier, and explained again why my FIL was so upset.  I obviously understood why he might be upset if he didn't understand the entire situation.  I re-explained the what happened to her and I think she finally got it.  I apologized again and then she handed the phone to my FIL and I apologized to him, too.  I sensed that my 70 year old FIL might not have completely understood or believed me, but then again I rarely talk to him on the phone, so I may have been reading into it.  This ridiculous baby registry fiasco has already consumed my entire morning.

So now the most tension is between my husband and I.  No emails or phone calls from him.  Our baby-moon starts tomorrow and right now we hate each other.  Lots of people are telling me to stop stressing and to take it easy, but how can I when stuff like this keeps happening and I am left holding the bag each time?  Failure of any type is not something I handle well (if you haven't already noticed).