Arte, I have had the kids say similar things to me too and yep, it stings alright!
MD,fingers crossed this is the breakthrough she needed.
G, Maybe get her something personalised. If she gets a lot of hand-me-downs she wouldn't really have anything that has always been hers kwim?
IKWYM about late dinners. SIL wanted to have everyone at their place for Christmas lunch - mind you she only decided this on Sunday because her parents are coming because they couldn't wrangle an invite to any of their friends houses. And she tells me that we'll be eating lunch at around 2PM!!!!! I felt like telling her there and then to shove her lunch up her bum. In my world Christmas lunch is eaten at lunch time and certainly never at afternoon tea time!!! So I gave MIL the heads up because Christmas lunch is always at their place and MIL told her in no uncertain terms that no, we will not be having lunch at your house LOL. It just ****s me because I know if I agreed to go to SIL's place the kids would be fed a vegemite sandwich ages before we ate and then BIL would treat them like second rate citizens and tell them to go away while the adults were eating like they always do when we eat at their place. So the kids and I are going to the IL's for lunch, DH is working dayshift and then the IL's are going to BIL and SIL's house for tea. BIL will be ****ed off because none of his family want to have Christmas lunch there, but SIL's parents are really painful people LOL. They are nice, but in small doses and are really fake and everything is 'darling' and they talk with plums in their throats LOL.
L had a birthday party to go to today at a friends place on a property about 1hr east of here and OMG the water I had to drive through to get there! There was still flooding in patches, but luckily it was only as deep as .4 of a metre so the car could handle it but it sure makes you appreciate the sheer volume of water they had out there! The property we went to still had crops entirely under water on part of their farm. Poor buggers, they can easily write off tens of thousands of dollars off their income.

