Every year on the weekend before Martin Luther King Jr. Day my three kids go to a weekend camp that the Epilepsy Foundation puts on where epilepsy kids and their siblings can go for a weekend of fun. It is a weekend that the kids look forward to every year and actually start asking about it around Halloween. They are psyched and honestly so are we it is a weekend with no kids! Plus it is a weekend when we do not have to worry about the kids getting hurt or having a seizure, the camp comes with pediatric neurologist on site just in case.
The only down side is that it is the weekend closest to my mother in laws birthday. Now she knows that the kids love going and says that she understands but I guarantee even though that she knows that they have camp next weekend I will out money on the fact she will call this week to do Christmas with us next weekend. When we remind her that the kids have camp she will say that we are just making excuses why we can’t get together.
When and if someone tells us about a birthday party for my mother in law it will be next weekend and I can guarantee that a few months from now we will get a call saying how much she was hurt by us not coming and how we just make excuses for not coming to family functions. That we were just making reasons why we cannot come to things based on when the invitations are given. This same thing happens every year I could not let the kids go to camp but they look forward to it and considering how bad the relationship is I am not going to make them miss something that they really love to make them happy