Best and Worst: How has your week been?

Worst: im finding my mother so draining and mentally exhausting to deal with. Just dont know what to do anymore.

Ever since i can remember her view of the world has always been that she has the hardest life ever and no matter what anyone else is going through she has always been through something much, much worse, she is always the victim. she has very little ability to feel empathy for someone elses troubles and yet she expects endless sympathy and comfort for everything tiny thing she is unhappy with .
if someone is having a rough time her response is always similar to "yes well how do u think i felt when I was going through such and such only unlike YOU i never had this this and this to help me cope i just had to suck it up and keep going, nobody gave me a second thought " etc.

Granted she definately has not had the easiest time, my father died suddenly when we were young and i cant even imagine being left alone with small kids. i am very grateful to her that she somehow managed to keep it together and raise 3 kids.

But since then and as we have grown up she has refused offers of getting out and doing things herself with friends and other family members who invite her places, things usually considered a normal part of growing up, ie. one of us going travelling or moving out she takes as a personal offense against her, and constantly reminds us how hard she had it and its almost like she considers we owe her a massive debt and should be paying her back forever.

My husband and i are taking our kids away for a week to see his family interstate , my husband works really long hours and we havnt had a family trip for a couple of years, as we have another little one on the way we thought it would be great to spend some quality time together as like many couples we both work so sometimes go days passing like ships in the night.

Mum's reaction when i told her we had booked a holiday away was to be offended and angry that we hadnt invited her to come with us , "so much for caring about and helping the family. its really nice to know im only useful when you want something" was what i had chucked at me.

we all tiptoe around her in an effort not to upset her but no matter how hard we try to include her and keep her happy its never enough, my brother is a tradie and bent over backwards getting lists of things done around her house in his weekends, then a couple weeks later she wanted something else done and he was flat out with his own business and wasnt able to do it in the two week period she gave him.... and the venom came out .." id NEVER rely on him, hes all bloody talk, after ALL I DO FOR HIM and he cant even be bothered to help me" . all the help he'd given her a couple weeks before was completely forgotten. Its just exhausting,, and it seems like shes getting worse and more bitter as we get older, and if you try and reason with her she gets offfended and hurt and will not speak to you for weeks. arrrgh. im so sorry for the massive rant, its been a very long week of having her bitching to the family about how selfish i am for going off on a holiday and how i must be made of money but never have time for her :/

Best : we go away tomorrow, so looking forward to having a week together with the kids and doing holiday things :)

Best : my oldest friend gave birth to her second son this week, he is beautiful and perfect and she looks like she has just been on holidays rather than having just given birth...shes glowing! she makes it look so easy!We've grown up together and im due to give birth to my second son in a few months, love that we are going through it all together. desperate to go and meet her little man however as my son has been a bit sick this week and I seem to catch everything he gets we are holding off till we are all healthy.

Worst: having a freak out about slapped cheek disease, my son had mild cold like symptoms the last few days which I didn't think much of as he wasn't too bothered, but then a friend called to tell me her son had just been diagnosed with slapped cheek disease and they played together a couple weeks ago, and then today my son had bright red cheeks all day.

I know its a fairly mild disease in kids, but Im a day shy of 24weeks pregnant and have no idea if im immune to it or not or how worried I should be because I know it can sometimes affect unborn babies. Wont be able to contact my OB till tues as she doesn't work Mondays, and we are meant to be flying out for a weeks holiday first thing monday morning... gaahh!! Trying desperately to avoid googling as the very first article I clicked on earlier tonight nearly sent me into a meltdown with its worst case scenarios :/