Easter

My husband went out of town for a couple of days before Easter.  We agreed that while he was gone, we would act like we were both out of town so that I would not have to deal with any of our son's drama while he was gone.  I hoped to have some nice, peaceful alone time.  I planned to screen all my calls and just not answer if my son called me.  I felt that I deserved a break, especially since my husband was getting one. 

But, early the next afternoon, the telephone calls started.  I didn’t answer.  Later that evening, I heard from my husband.  He had been out of cell phone range all day and when he finally had a signal again, he found many missed calls from our son.  Then, he called our son back. 

He told my husband that he wanted to know if we were able to go out to dinner for Easter with him.  And then, for some unknown reason, my husband told him that HE was still out of town and wouldn’t be home for at least 4 or 5 hours and that he might be able to get me to go out to dinner with him, if he texted me. 

I had no idea what happened to the plan to let me have some peace and quiet that day and felt that I was being put in the position of having no choice but to go out to dinner with our son.  If I didn’t he would have said, “You never want to do anything with me and all I wanted to do was celebrate Easter with you.”   So, I picked him up at his park, and we went to one of the restaurants that he likes because they serve huge portions of food.  He ate like he was starving to death.  He actually seemed to be trying very hard to be pleasant.  I tried really hard, too even though I was on edge during the entire meal.  I never knew what I would say that would potentially set him off.  I gave him the Easter gifts that I had gotten for him.  He seemed happy to receive them.

But, I still wondered if he there was an alternate agenda to this little Easter dinner together.

As we left the restaurant, I asked him where he wanted me to drop him off, and he replied, “I was kind of wondering if I could spend Easter at your house.  Alex’s family is having their own Easter celebration and I don’t want to intrude on it.”  

I knew there was an agenda.

I should have been happy to have my child back at home for the holiday.  Holidays can be lonely when all of your kids are gone, right?  I was not particularly optimistic about how happy this holiday was going to be, now.  After all, we didn't have a really great track record with happiness lately.  

He was nice to my husband when he got home that night and told him that he had a good dinner with me.  Things were going fairly well.  

On Easter, as we were driving back home after visiting our grandsons so that they could show us what the Easter Bunny brought to them, our son wanted us to stop at a Carl’s Jr. to buy him lunch.  But, I didn’t want to do that.  I had just bought dinner for him the night before.  There was a big ham in the refrigerator just waiting to become our Easter dinner.  Ham was one of his favorite foods, so I thought he should have been excited about having that to eat.   However, I didn’t know that he had already made himself a midnight snack out of the ham the night before and he didn’t think he should have to eat it twice in a row, especially since we were driving right past Carl’s Jr. and how hard could it be for us to stop and buy him some food? 

When we said that we had plenty of food at home and that he was more than welcome to eat anything that he wanted when we got there, he got angry and complained that because we were so cheap, he was going to have to walk all the way to the skate park to bum a couple of dollars off someone, then walk all the way back to Carl’s Jr. to buy himself some lunch, and then walk all the way back to the skate park again.   He wouldn’t let it drop and kept trying to make a big issue out of it.  He probably thought that the more he argued, the more likely he would be to get what he wanted since it would have been easier to just buy him the food than have this become a big deal.  But, we didn't make that decision and the demands didn't stop.  

The Easter blow-up came to a head when I finally yelled at him to just shut up about it.  I said, “You can either eat our food or not, but I don’t want to hear anything else about Carl’s Jr.!  We are not going to buy you lunch today!” 

Then, he told me what I was just in case I had forgotten (calling me one of his favorite names for me).  

When we got home, I went upstairs to my room and thought that it would be better to sit up there all day than to be around my son. 

I listened to the sounds downstairs and heard him cooking food in the kitchen and heard him go into the family room to watch TV with my husband.  I guess he decided that ham twice in a row was better than nothing and better than a 10 mile walk. 

I didn’t understand why he couldn’t be courteous and pleasant and even try to show his appreciation for us letting him stay at our house instead of being demanding, rude, and disrespectful. 

The tension in the house was high every time I ventured downstairs.

So, I spent most of the day in my room, out of the line of fire. 

Having a happy Easter.