As a stay at home mom, I am so grateful that my boyfriend works his tight little ass off at work every day to take care of us. And because I’m grateful, I try to be really good about not getting uptight about the money he spends on his (very expensive) hobby.

I’m sure all of you have had this type of deal in your relationship, whether it’s his project car, or motorcycle, or tools, or football, or video games, or whatever else they can think of that gets them away from reality for a while. You kinda let it slide because you know it makes him happy.

He can spend the money, within reason. He can use the spare bedroom for his shrine. He can get excited and act like a little school girl with minimal mocking from my side.

I’m not jealous that he gets so excited about his new toy that he doesn’t notice me naked, nipples covered in whipped cream, nothing on but 4 inch heels in front of him (okay maybe that one hurt the ego a bit.)

I’m not jealous that he names his new toys and strokes them and talks to them like he should be bending them over with a fist full of their hair. (If he was, we would have a helluva lot more problems.)

I’m not jealous that he spends enough on them them to cover 30 mani-pedis and a full cut and color every 6 weeks.

What I am jealous of, is that he gets that escape, big or small. For me, an escape is a grocery store trip alone. For me, an escape is a quiet car, or a loud one where I can sing loud as fuck because there is no kid that fell asleep the second we reach our destination. For me, an escape is being able to shit without a kid in my lap, in the tub, in the laundry, in the who-the-fuck-knows this time. Wait, girls don’t poop. Scratch that last one.

I am happy he has an escape, a way to relax, get away from the mundane realities of the world. But I sure as shit am jealous of him for it.

Nick and I have had a few run-ins dealing with our in-laws. He has had issues with mine and I have had quite a few with his. We are getting better and better at dealing with these issues by worrying about each other and our family first, and then dealing with the outside factors. By doing this, we are showing support for each other and making sure our relationship is strong. It also prevents a lot of stupid fights.

Lately, we have been having issues working things out with Nick’s step mom. It seems that no matter how I try, nothing is good enough. Nick is completely anti-bullshit, and while I appreciate that part of him, sometimes I would like some back up when dealing with his family and not ignoring it. If it were up to him, he would say “fuck it” every time someone said anything and they wouldn’t talk until the drama was over. I feel the need to try to facilitate that relationship but sometimes it just pisses me the fuck off.

I am a stay at home mom, and while I am completely ok with leaving my kid with family in the safety sense, I always tend to feel bad. I don’t want them to think I am taking advantage of them or that I can’t take care of my kid. So we really don’t leave Joss with people often at all. But there are times and places where our little demon seed just can’t go with us so we try to see if someone can watch her.

The thing is, many times when Nick’s step mom finds out we left Joss with someone other than her or we visited with someone other than them over the weekend, I get a sassy as FUCK text message. And recently it has put me over the edge. Usually I am able to nicely suck up to make her feel better but the other night, I lost it. I blame Jack Daniels, the sneaky son of a bitch.

She claims we only see her as a babysitter and not a grandma. Which is fucking ridiculous, we are the pretty much the only couple in the family that doesn’t drop our kid off at least once a week.

She claims we think she isn’t good enough to watch the kid. Which is fucking ridiculous. She raised 3 kids of her own and has watched her grand kids a few days a week for years. She works full time, watches at least one grand kid at least one day a week. She is constantly cooking, cleaning, couponing, gardening, bargain hunting, or crafting something. I really don’t know how she doesn’t fall down from exhaustion.

She claims she is at the bottom of the list. Which is fucking ridiculous. My POS biological father definitely wins that one.

She claims we don’t love her. Which is fucking ridiculous. When we first found out we were pregnant, young and unmarried, she was unwavering in her support and even threw us an amazing baby shower. She remembered every doctor’s appointment, texted me to check up daily, made my favorite meal of chicken and dumplings almost weekly. I swear she was the reason I gained so much weight. And she was in the room with both my mother and Nick’s late mother when I gave birth to our 9lb 13oz spawn of satan.

It’s irritating the shit out of me that she doesn’t see her own worth and is acting this way. There is no need for the passive aggressive, snarky texts. There is no need to be so upset but instead, just say, “Hey, I miss the kid. Can you bring her over?” We don’t love other people more than her, we don’t choose other people over her, we just have things going on.

We should visit more, yes. But, we get so wrapped up in our own world that sometimes we forget that. Nick gets off work and all we really want to do is sleep, eat junk food, cuddle, sleep, eat some more, and sleep a lot more, and if we get the chance we like to do some naughty, nasty yoga. That can really take it out of you!

We will make an effort to come over more, but please, give us a break with the dramatic, guilt trips. I don’t have the effort to play nice anymore and I will call you out.

We love you, I promise. But cut the shit.