Kingdom of Knuffel

It stands for international Baccalaureate, basically a standard for advanced level courses that some schools offer.
It's a good career option because it makes it easier to work abroad if I ever want to go for that, also would give me an edge in domestic high schools too :)

How long will your family be visiting for? :O

Yeah, I looked it up and I've been reading.
I even checked which schools offer it in my country - only the fancy expensive ones, unsurprisingly.


They are supposed to be only today, it's a short visit.
But considering it's past 7 PM and parents are still out with both the children, I'll invite them to stay for the night. We'll see what they choose to do.

We live quite close nowadays, since we moved to this town. They live only 1h 30 minutes from here.
Usually it's us visiting them, but right now we can't because of my husband's surgery. (He can't sit for long.)

Oh no that's unfortunate, here a lot of public schools offer that option too. Though I suppose the ratio is still leaning toward private schools having more offerings

Should we cross fingers for them to stay the night or not? XD

Hahaha, I'm not sure.
I offered it, but they said they'd rather go back home because my brother has plans with his son tomorrow.
So they left.

Now we are making plans to meet again soon, they want to take my son with them for a few days.
I have mixed feelings about that, but the little one would love it, so we'll see how we arrange it.

Was it the same kinda circumstances that got your son cavities? I remember you mentioning that

No, that was with my in-laws. With whom I get along quite nicely. They live nearby and are a lot of help when we need someone to babysit our son.
They really did not think that him drinking a juice a day (and not brushing afterwards) would do any harm, but their behaviour is always great.
Not only they are super-nice to him, they also respect our ideas as parents.

My parents, well, they are trickier. They also love him. But I know they'll spoil him, and I know they'll lie to me to make me shut up. Which annoys me.
And I'm so used to their lies that I distrust everything they say.

And they manipulate the kids too.
They told my son about going with them a few weeks ago, made his mind up to going (which he would genuinely love) and told us later. So when we say "no" we are ogres to our own child, who is crying because we won't let him go...

Oh noooooo D:

Why do they do that? It sounds like they're turning him against you guys?

Not really. They are not bad people, you know. It's that they have this way of doing things...
They don't say anything straightforward, they just twist everything so it turns out as they want.
Or they try to, sometimes it blows up and creates a bit of a hell, which they dismiss because we are exaggerating

Last year they brought my nephew, they meant to stay a few days days here but then they changed their mind and stayed one more.
Which was ok with me but I was so shocked, because that was my brother's birthday. "Oh, he does not care we stay here with the kid."
But he did care. He was enraged, because he had only agreed to his son coming because they promised him they'd be back before his birthday! He phoned me and he was so mad.
And they dismissed his anger, saying that it was capricious. *sighs*
They did not talk to each others for months...

That is... just... wow :OOOO

It sounds like they live in their own little world. I'm sorry that you and your siblings have to be the "adults" with them D:

Most of the time they are very nice though.
They help my brother a lot, because they are in charge of his son during weekdays (take him to school, pick him up, stay with him in the afternoon...).
And they are generally quite nice.
Just that they sometimes do twisted things, and one ends up distrusting EVERYTHING. May be a bit unfair on them, but trust once lost is hard to recover.

My brother was quite spoilt as a child (because his health was bad) and they tended to ignore me more, I suppose that's why I'm more independent and don't want any help from them unless I have no other options.
But I grow very anxious whenever I expect having them around, because I'm always afraid they are gonna turn things around, and they are gonna talk me down.
Which creates a bad vibe, I'm not happy about it at all, but I can't help it.