home safely

We're back home in South Carolina. My kids are in excellent shape, though my daughter found the two weeks staying with their grandparents, aunts, and cousins somewhat difficult. Partly it was having to compete with a slightly younger cousin as hard-headed as she is. Partly it was the expectation that everyone would do the same things. I don't think she got pushed too hard, but when I got there to pick them up I got a lecture about how I was a bad parent because I won't push her to play tennis, which is such an important life skill. Then after we left I found an angry message from my mother on my cell phone about how I had missed saying goodbye to one sister and her kids properly (there were 10 people in the family group there and four guests around at the time I was saying goodbye, not to mention two second-cousin families I was told it was important that I spend time with before we left at noon). I don't think my kids got hit with too much of that kind of thing; I suspect that it had been held back and that was why it got dumped on me so hard.