(LONG) Please, I don't know what to do...

Aura - posted on 06/27/2010 ( 4 moms have responded )

I can only start at the beginning of my day because it is all needed in my question. It was such a long and emotional day.

My husband had to work for a little bit this morning and my mother had my daughter's car seat so we couldn't attend church. My mother called me and told me that, since my sister and step father would be out for the evening, she had some extra food. She asked if my husband, me and our daughter would like to come over for dinner. We have softball games on Sunday evenings but ours was starting at 4pm and it only lasts 1hr 30min so I agreed to come over. Now, my mother had two more children since getting married seven years ago so I have a brother that is 4 and a sister that is 2.5. They have NO guidance whatsoever, not gentle, not firm, not even a spanking (which is VERY different from how I was raised). Don't get me wrong, my mother tries, but it's very inconsistent. The kids really are atrocious.

Anyway, we were munching on some pepperettes, not the spicy ones just regular, and my daughter loves them. We were giving her little pieces to munch on. I got up and went to go change our daughter. While I was changing her, I was almost finished, she starts to make the crying face. You know, the one where their mouth is open in the "O" shape and their face is all squished up. Anyway, she was making that face and usually she starts crying right away, but she wasn't. Her face started to go red and she still wasn't crying, it was a good 10-15 sec of no noise whatsoever! I started to freak out. She had choked once before on a fruit gummy from my young siblings and it was reminding me of that. I could have just been imagining it, but it looked like her lips were turning blue, just a slight tint. So I freak and grab her off the changing table, turn her upside down, face toward the floor, and I start banging on her back. She started to cry and my husband grabbed her from me to comfort her. He was telling me that I was scaring her by freaking out, that nothing was wrong with her. I know what I saw!! All I could do was curl up on the floor and cry and shake. I was so scared I was going to lose her.

After explaining to him why I had reacted the way that I had, he comforted me a bit but still told me that I needed to calm down. I hear this all the time but I have no idea how, as a mother, you could calmly do things while your baby may be dieing. Anyway, she fell asleep until our game. We woke her and left, then went to Mom's house after. My siblings were so rough with my daughter, she is only 11 months. They grabbed toys from her and shoved her, they didn't even care about knocking her over. They didn't listen to a word anyone told them to do. Mom kept asking my brother not to pick up the phone when it was ringing, they were whining. It was all very upsetting. My step dad just walks over to my little brother, whacks him hard on the butt three times and shoves him onto "time out". I had to look away. Finally, step dad left for work and dinner was ready. My little brother kept putting his portions onto my little sister's plate and yelling at my daughter for daring to touch his cup. He refused to eat what he had given away and demanded dessert anyway. Before this, when Step dad was leaving for work he insisted that he was going with him and that he was not a child. Basically, he was very demanding, like he ran the joint. Anyway, I was finished my meal when Mom asked me to bring the kid's dinner table back into the dining room for her.

With my knife and fork on my plate, I was heading to do this when the kids did something, I can't remember now. I turned around to tell them to stop when my knife slipped off my plate and landed right on my daughter's head. It fell to the floor and she started screaming holy hell! I started to freak out again, it was a knife! Mom and hubby are telling me to be calm, she was only responding to me, she was okay. I knew that cry! I knew better! She was hurt! Mom kept asking me where the knife had landed and, by the fifth time, I screamed that I didn't know where the damn knife had landed, only that it had hit her. They were sort of halfheartedly looking her over and telling me there was no mark when I saw the blood. Granted it wasn't a whole lot but still. I started to cry and tell them that she was bleeding. They kicked me out of the kitchen, where they were looking her over, and told me to calm down it was only a red mark, but I know that cry! My daughter does not cry like that for no reason! Hubby kept asking where the blood was, he couldn't see it, and I screamed to him that I could not exactly show him where it was since I was kicked out of the ever loving room, could I? They let me back in, I showed them, my daughter was still crying that cry and reaching for me. I wrestled through their grasp and held her to me to comfort her and hide that I was crying, too. Hubby went into the living room where the kids were going nuts again. They didn't care that DD was hurt at all. Well, hubby had had enough and he hauled off and spanked little brother. One good hard spank. He said we were leaving, he couldn't stand it anymore.

We pack up our things and hubby put them in the car. Mom calls to me and shows me the hand print red mark hubby left on my brother. She asks me to talk to him because it was inappropriate to spank him, since she would never spank DD. I tell him in the car on the way home. Now he is declaring that DD is not allowed to have contact with my little brother and sister, on penalty of divorce! He doesn't want her to pick up that behaviour. I agree that their behaviour is horrible, but how do I tell my family that their young children are no longer allowed to have contact with my daughter unless they want me to divorce? I also did not condone what my hubby did to my brother, regardless of his behaviour. First, you don't hit someone else's kid and, second, what if that was OUR kid? I don't agree with that kind of thing, I don't want to hit our children. What do I do? DD's 1ST BIRTHDAY is next week and hubby says the younglings are not allowed. I can't change his mind and now I'm so torn and distraught! I'm an emotional wreck!