My Kids are Going to be So Spoiled with All These Grandparents Around

A long while back, I caused a bit of a family brouhaha and I wasn't feeling very happy when I wrote this post. What happened was this:

Last May, when my in-laws came from England to visit us, we were walking by a darling red stucco house down the street that was for sale. We had known the previous occupants, and feeling curious, we climbed the fence into the backyard and looked through the back windows. Maybe we would have felt more guilty about it if we didn't happen to know all the neighbors.

As we stood in the backyard, taking in the glorious view, my mother-in-law (MIL) sighed in delight and said, "I just feel like this is where we are supposed to live."  After that, we went around and looked at some other houses for sale, but none of them had the same effect as the first one. My FIL teased my MIL a bit about the whole thing during the rest of their stay with us, but she kept referring to that red house as her house.

When they left us, they went to stay with one of Husband's brothers in another part of the country (the brother who met his future wife at our wedding reception). While there, both MIL and FIL had a very strong feeling they needed to go ahead and buy the red stucco house. Long story short: they did.

My mistake was in one day posting a status update to Facebook about them moving in down the street. I wasn't thinking, and I normally think before hitting the "enter" button and putting something out there into the open. Well, since the British rellies hadn't been told yet, phone lines began to burn up in England and then in trans-Atlantic calls of shock and horror to my in-laws. With so many more children and grandchildren living in England and Wales than the States (including the only daughter of those seven children), how could they possibly think about moving here permanently?!? 

I got a brusque phone call from my FIL requesting that I delete the Facebook update immediately. While the cat was out of the bag with the rest of the kids, he was worried that word would get around to MIL's and FIL's workplaces, triggering firings. Since both of them only had months left before they could begin drawing their pensions, it would have created a financially devastating tragedy.

I felt absolutely horrible. Really, I had one of the worst days of my life that day. I don't find it at all amusing to be on the business end of family anger, even if I knew it would eventually fade and go away. Fortunately, Husband wasn't angry with me and kept telling me it would pass with no permanent harm done.

Now, a year later, MIL and FIL are finally making the big move.They fly in next Tuesday. I've been officially forgiven as the bearer of bad news, though the kids and grandkids in England and Wales are very sad about losing two people who have given them so much support and love. They understand that Husband and I were not involved in a conspiracy to get MIL and FIL to move here. And the silver lining is that they'll have a place to stay when they visit the States. With three big bedrooms and a huge family room, MIL and FIL are ready for guests.

Now the interesting part begins. Stay tuned.