Well, it didn't suck after all.

Jeez, what a rant. Sorry.

I wish I could say that FIL really isn't that bad, but he is. In fact, he's worse. I didn't even scratch the surface of his character.

Still, somehow, yesterday he was pleasant. Nice, even.
He was Pod-FIL.

Really, the worst part of the day was the stress I brought on myself for the hours prior to our arrival at Chez Inlaw. That, and standing in the back of the church for an hour and a half. We even got there 20 minutes early and it was Standing Room Only. Dontcha love that?

The kiddos were pleased with their presents from the Bunny. I really don't like for the Bunny to bring buttloads of candy. I'm not anti-candy, it's mainly that I don't want the Temptation in the house. Beeb got a T-shirt and a yo-yo, Ry got a glow-in-the-dark Magic Wand and a Star Wars Xbox Game (Revenge of the Sith, I think). He shuffled into my room at this morning at 6:45am and, still blinking, asked me if he could play it. Teeny got a Skarloey engine and a Fergus engine along with his Thomas Train DVD, and was elated.

The day before, when I spent most of the day questioning my parenting skills (as you read below), Ry was driving me crazy all morning with whining and when I asked him to quit and he didn't, I said I was going to talk to the Easter Bunny and tell him not to bring Ry any treats in his basket. That afternoon I took the kids to the City's Annual Egg Hunt (against my better judgment) and when it was over, we left to walk home and Ry started what we like to call The Silent Sob. I asked him what was wrong and he said that he was sad because he didn't get to see the Easter Bunny. Then T started crying too, and Beeb said "Please, can we see the Easter Bunny, Mom???"

There was a big long line. But, we had nothing better to do, so the four of us got in the Bunny Line. Should I have said no?

So after waiting in the line, Ryan marched right over to the bunny and said,

"Hello, Mr. Easter Bunny. My name's Ryan and I want you to bring me a REAL Light Saber and a Sword like Peter from Narnia. And if my mom tells you I was bad, she's just LYING."

Yeah.

So then yesterday we had brunch out at the Clubhouse at Chez Inlaw, which is the site of one of THE single worst experiences of my life, that I'm not even going to get into because I'd like to believe I'm over it. This time, though, FIL and MIL got us a private room, and I have no idea how much it cost them, over and above the $22 per person brunch, but it was SO nice to have our own room where the kids could get up and move around if they felt like it. I made a big deal about showing my appreciation.

I told my MIL (whom I ADORE, I should point that out) how I always stress myself out about how the kids are going to behave, and I even kinda covered it by saying I always stress out when we take the kids out anywhere - which really is true, it's just that we never really go anywhere but to Chez Inlaw.

So, to sum up, the food was good, the kids were really pretty well-behaved since Tito was able to lay on the floor and watch his DVD, Albert Pujols hit 3 home runs in a dramatic come-from-behind-in-the-bottom-of-the-9th Cardinal victory, and overall it was a very nice day. Here are a couple of pics.

Isn't he a stinker??