Overall, Things Are Good

Dinner with the in-laws went well enough. My mother-in-law and father-in-law showed up sober. My father-in-law and I didn't say much, just sat. MIL caught up with the kids, and my wife cooked. We ate dinner, talked a bit about how everyone is doing as we ate, and then in-laws left.

Earlier, my wife and told me her plan of taking her mother in another room and telling her that, from now on, if she takes one drink while we are around her, we will leave (usually, this will mean leaving their house). Anyone else can drink, but not my MIL. I told my wife that was not realistic, and since we know when she's going to get out of hand, we know when to leave. The problems have been when we've been in other locations where it isn't so easy to leave quickly without being rude to innocent people.

And then I learned a lesson I should have already learned:

Do not question. There's no point being anything but enthusiastically supportive of my wife's plans and decisions pertaining to her mother's drinking. Because I doubted the effectiveness and motivation of her plan, my wife got angry enough to once again liken my fornicating long before I knew she existed to her mother's drinking.

I have made this connection on this blog before. In my wife's mind, my not being a virgin when we married (very few men are, at that age), is all tied in to her father's adultery and her mother's drinking.

Warning: Gripe Session Ahead!

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

One of the stresses on the family for this entire calendar year so far has been the distance between my wife and her parents, which is especially irritating since perhaps the most important factor in why we live where we do rather than closer to my family and most of my work is because we are close in proximity to her parents.

More or less every week or two since we married, my wife and I have visited her parents. Her mother loves to have everyone over and to cook for everyone. Every birthday needed to be celebrated there, and if that meant celebrating a birthday twice, then so be it.

Once we had kids, I appreciated having my in-laws (mostly brothers and sisters) take the kids off of my hands for a while.

We continued to go the in-laws' even after the disastrous trip last year. But then, just after Christmas, my wife and the kids joined the rest of her family at the home of a family friend for party. I wasn't there; I was working. I was not avoiding the party, I was expected to work.

My mother-in-law planted herself in a spot and stayed there as my father-in-law continued to supply her with drink after drink, meaning my MIL was not much company. If this had been at their home, my wife would have packed up the kids and returned home. But because they were at someone else's house per that family's invitation, my wife and the kids stayed there.

That meant they got to see grandma, nearly passed out drunk, being dragged to the car by a strong son-in-law.

My father-in-law, in between posting picture after picture on Facebook (always of sexy, scantily-clad 20-something females), supposedly to get his photography business off the ground, "explained" to us that my MIL was not drunk, just tired for working herself so hard. He stopped short of trying to sell us a bridge, however.

The result is that none of us have seen the in-laws at all this year. My wife stopped taking their calls, and they stopped calling. The kids have been asking when we're going to go there again. My wife responds with "I don't know."

I appreciate my wife's desire to protect our kids. We have always agreed that our kids will never be left alone with her parents. I have questioned her reaction to this latest episode, reasoning that we can keep sticking to our plan: calling one of her siblings to see if MIL is drinking before we go there, and leaving if we see things going the wrong way. Her mother has distinct stages of inebriation, so we always have warning. Still, I'd rather her err on the side of protecting our kids than wanting to please her parents.

We currently have plans for her parents to come visit us in our home, as the air needs to be cleared somewhat before a pending family event that my wife does not want to miss.

This is one of those things I wish I had understood better and thought about more befoe committing to this marriage, and certainly before agreeing to buy the house that we did.

Family Drama For Christmas

How was your Christmas? What are your plans for New Years or, if you're reading this later, what did you do?

Our Christmas was generally good, spent with most of our immediate family on both sides.

The current plan for New Year's Eve is to go over to the home of my in-laws, which is in the same city. We got that call inviting us over yesterday. This is significant because we still haven’t exchanged Christmas presents. The reason we haven't is the same reason we can't ever count on my in-laws to watch our kids.

Christmas morning, my wife woke up before the kids and before me, despite having been up late getting things ready and not getting enough sleep. The plan was to go over to the in-laws' house after the kids opened their presents to have brunch and exchange gifts with my wife's parents and siblings. However, one of her sisters called to let her know that the Christmas Eve dinner over there (which everyone knew we were going to miss because we were with my family of origin) didn't go well. So we invited everyone over to our place, at least those who were sober and not getting belligerent on the phone.

As the story goes, everyone except us was over at the in-law house for Christmas Eve dinner and family time. My married sister-in-law and her husband had called it a night and took their kid with them, as they could see the drinking was getting out of hand again. That left behind my wife's parents, the brother who lives there, and the brother and sister who are joined at the hip and live together about an hour or more away. These last two were planning on spending the night there.

MIL wanted to play table games. The visiting brother and sister agreed to play games (instead of calling it a night) on the condition that there be no further drinking that evening. FIL, MIL, and the resident BIL objected. The drunken BIL got nasty with his language towards his sister, nearly resulting in a fight between him and his brother. The visiting brother and sister left instead of spending the night and crashed at the home of the sister who had already left. My melodramatic, drunk in-laws reset the locks on the house to make sure those who had left could not get back in.

The next morning (Christmas), they were still drinking.

So we didn’t go over there.

I'm still coming to grips with this alcoholism dynamic. My dad would drink wine after work every night... no problem. My older sister had her wild phase, but clearly wasn't an addict. And unlike how it often gets portrayed in media, there can be long stretches where drinking isn't a problem during our visits. But clearly it IS a problem. Sometimes it ruins a normal night. Sometimes it ruins holidays and special events.

I made sure to thank my dad the other day for being a responsible drinker rather than a drunk. My mother rarely drinks.

Joe Kurihara (Allegedly) Knows How to Get Smashed

So a dad leaves a wedding with his three-year-old kid, drunk or about to get drunk (the dad, not the kid). Then the kid ends up spending more than 24 hours missing as a result. This is Howard Blume's story in the Los Angeles Times.

Young Dylan Kurihara was found in his father's car, sleeping and strapped in his car seat, by Pasadena resident Rowdy Metzger, 39.

Metzger joined the search because, "he said he had some kids about the same age and needed to get out and see if he could help," said Pasadena police Cmdr. Darryl Qualls.

Good for Metzger.

Police said the boy was a little thirsty but otherwise in excellent condition and was taken for a checkup to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena.

That's a good place to go.

The child and the car turned up at 10:40 p.m. Sunday in a parking lot under a commercial building in the 500 block of East Green Street, only two blocks away from where police arrested his father, Joe Kurihara, the night before for public intoxication and resisting arrest. At the time, officers did not know he had his child nearby. Nor did Kurihara mention it.

He later told detectives that he was so drunk that he had no memory of his child being with him.

Father of the year? He had to be drunk as a skunk. At least he strapped the kid in.

Police had searched the area already but missed the car because it was not easily visible from behind a barrier.

Note to criminals: You have a new hiding spot for your contraband. (I kid... being a cop in Pasadena is no easy task.)

Dylan Kurihara was last seen leaving a wedding party with his father, a 23-year-old West Covina resident, Saturday evening.

Witnesses, including the boy's mother, last saw the child with Kurihara at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The parents, described by police as an "on-again, off-again" unmarried couple, had been attending wedding festivities at a Masonic lodge.

Young, unmarried... and highly irresponsible.

When Dylan's mother didn't hear from Kurihara for hours, she began to call police stations and hospitals. She reached Pasadena police about 8 a.m.

So the search for the boy didn’t begin until after that. Three-year-olds have personality and awareness. I can't imagine what the heck that kid was thinking strapped in there without water, without food, without seeing his parents, and without a bathroom break. Thank God the vehicle wasn't left out in the sun on a hot day.

Dogs traced the scent of the boy or his father to the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center, about two miles from the parking garage, officials said. But that turned out to be a blind lead.

Maybe the dogs wanted to go swimming.

Kurihara has two other recent arrests on record, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Baldwin Park police arrested him at 9 p.m. last Thursday for an unspecified misdemeanor charge and released him at 4:39 a.m. The same department had arrested him on another unspecified misdemeanor charge at 7:28 a.m. on Aug. 10, releasing him about three hours later. For each offense the bail amount was set at $1,155.

Go ahead, ladies – make more babies with him.

1. Don't have kids out of wedlock. (Or, if you do, give them up for adoption.)
2. Choose wisely, then marry.
3. Treat your spouse kindly.
4. Be responsible for your children.

How much better would the world be if people followed these rules?

Alcohol-Based Lubrication Gets Movement

Here's another reason to NOT have a roommate. CAN'T BELIEVE I BROKE MY RULE IN FLORIDA (a woman) wrote in to Dear Abby:

I rent a house with two roommates (both males) and have always followed a strict rule of not dating roommates or co-workers.

Good idea. Well, the rules, anyway. It would be easier if you weren’t living with guys.

One night, I came home after having a few drinks with friends. One of my roommates was up and we started talking. Then he started kissing me. I wasn't thinking clearly, and didn't object when he trotted me off to my room.

I do like him, but only as a friend. There are no sparks for me as there are for him.

This is exactly why men guy women drinks.

I don't want this to happen again, but I don't want to hurt him either.

Well, being rejected isn't fun, but if he is a typical guy he probably looked at it more as recreation than some sort of pledge of undying love; he won't be devastated. He'll just cross you off of the list until the next time you come home tipsy.

In an ideal world, I'd like to remain friends and roommates, not lovers. Do you have any suggestions?

Yes. Simply don't have sex with your roommates. If your drinking causes you to lose control, then stop drinking.

Are you really being honest with yourself, though? You were probably curious or horny or something, and using the alcohol as an excuse. Women who have casual sex do this all of the time.

Dear Abby responded:

Inform your amorous roommate that in the cold sober light of day you regret what happened and don't want to repeat it.

Why? It is her actions that matter, not her words (unless she says "no" or some variation thereof).

It won't "hurt" him; it will let him know where things stand, and it's important that he get that message.

Only if he starts acting like they are a couple, which I doubt he will. If you tell him it won't happen again, he may consider that a challenge.

Have you had an experience like this?

Simon Cowell Makes it Look So Easy

Apparently, in some circles, not being complimentary enough of your buddy’s singing warrants death. From LATimes.com comes this story by Ching-Ching Ni about people who have an interesting set of priorities.- or maybe they are just angry when drunk.

Julian Sermano, 58, of San Juan Capistrano and two other men had been drinking and singing together at a park in 2007 when the three got into an argument.

The victim, Blas Gutierrez, 39, allegedly did not like Sermano’s singing and suggested that he was a better singer, prosecutors said. Sermano apparently became angry at the snub and the two began fighting.

Some things are worth fighting and killing/dying over.

The third man, Maurico Molina, 34, also of San Juan Capistrano, intervened by pulling out a pocket knife and stabbing Gutierrez twice.

Then Sermano allegedly pulled out his own knife and killed Gutierrez. But ther'es more to the story.

At first, prosecutors say, Sermano missed Gutierrez and wounded Molina instead.

You can't make this stuff up.

As Molina fell to the ground and tried to call 911, Sermano allegedly chased Gutierrez through the park and repeatedly stabbed the victim, according to the district attorney's office.

What, no kids joined in?

Giving the Finger (Or Losing the Finger)

I've written before about my in-laws and their drinking. My MIL is great - when she is sober. My wife is very familiar with her mother's stages of drunkenness, so we almost always leave her presence before things get too bad.

Sometimes, after a family dinner and after we've left, my MIL will go into a drunken rage.

Recently, she and FIL got into it during one such instance.

A door was slammed.

Off came the tip of one of my MIL's fingers.

She ended up having the entire portion of the finger at the last knuckle surgically amputated.

Good times.

I wonder how long it will be before she asks again why we don't leave the kids there?

Hey Ocifer, That Other Driver is Drunk!

From the Orange County Register comes this coverage of an accident in Fullerton, a city that neighbors Anaheim. Adam Townsend reports.

Two suspected drunken drivers crashed into each other at Gilbert Street and Rosecrans Avenue at 2:26 a.m. Sunday. Police arrested one driver, Alice Moya, 20, at the scene, said Fullerton Police Sgt. Andrew Goodrich in an e-mail.

The driver of the other vehicle, Sae Koh, 55, was seriously injured, Goodrich said. He was found to have also been driving under the influence and was cited at a hospital, Goodrich said.

Wouldn't life be a whole let better if drunken drivers only ever hurt themselves or each other?

Alcoholism, Infidelity – Part II

This blog entry is the last part (for now) of a short series dealing with my gripes. You can read the introduction here. You can read the first part of this gripe (the entry immediately prior to this one) here. I wrote about the things I'm thankful for about my wife and our marriage in this entry.

My wife knew she wanted to save her virginity for marriage before she even knew what that meant. She was told her mother married her father (as his second wife) as a virgin, and so she wanted to marry as a virgin. She grew up pretty much being a churchgoing "good girl", and when she was born-again as a college student, she had all the more resolve to marry as a virgin. In this regard, save for her mother, she is the black sheep of her family.

She knew from date one that I was not a virgin.

Marrying a virgin wasn't one of her requirements in a spouse, nor was it one of mine. Yes, both of us actually had a list of requirements in what we needed in a spouse, and it was very helpful. Actually, all other things being equal, I probably would have chosen a woman with a little experience over a virgin, for several reasons - one of them being that... I was not a virgin. While I admire moral resolve and appreciate my wife saving herself for marriage, whether or not my wife was a virgin was not important to me in the same way that, say, having common goals was. My wife was (and is) very attractive, and she never lived in the boonies, so I know she must have had many opportunities to have sex. So I knew that her virginity meant one of two things: 1) She had strong determination and self control; 2) She was not very horny. I suspected it was #1. Makeout sessions later confirmed my guess. But I'm getting off-track.

On that first date, after she confirmed through her questioning that I was not a virgin, I told her if that if it was going to be a problem that I was not a virgin, we should call it a night, move on, and save ourselves a lot of trouble. She quickly said it wouldn’t be a problem.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have told her at the end of the date to seriously reconsider the issue about not expecting her husband to be a virgin. Obviously, her emphasis on being a virgin meant certain things that had implications for how she was going to view her husband, based on his history. The past doesn't change, after all, and so again, there's nothing I can (or could) do about the past. I need to deal with the present in planning for the future.

My past experiences and her father's infidelity (and the infidelity on the part of her revered maternal grandmother) have been somehow connected in her mind. That's my explanation for some of her actions and some of her requests of me - plus, she has told me that "if they could cheat, anyone can cheat". Also, my MIL didn't "allow" any talk of her husband's first wife, even though he had two children with her. MIL could talk about her ex-boyfriend, though.

My wife's explanation for her postnuptial behavior, which goes against her "it's not a problem" assurance, is that she had no idea that once she experienced the intimacy of sex herself, her feelings would change. She said she didn’t know it was going to be this way until after she experienced it herself. Thus, things that didn’t bother her before now bother her – that's her explanation for the change in her attitude that she admits to having.

The attitude change has manifested itself in various ways. She distrusts me almost as though I have behaved like her father. She wants me to report to her any contact (e-mails, instant messages, etc.) I have with anyone I dated, no matter how mundane, as I remained friendly with most of them – which she knew early in our dating. She insisted I drop all contact forever with one of them. There is one anomaly to this, where my wife is supportive of ongoing communication with my ex-fiancee and her husband. Usually that means the once-in-a-blue-moon phone conversation that takes place in front of my wife, as we all like to talk with each other. I suppose our ongoing contact with my wife’s most serious boyfriend from the past (whose penis she handled many times... they were together for years) has something to do with this, as she probably feels obligated towards some "fairness" in this area. Probably because of her feelings, I have let contact with all other past dates die off. While I know that a lot of people don't keep in contact, the thing is I was friends or somewhat friendly with a lot of these women before we started to date, and our partings were amicable.

She insisted I destroy "life drawings" (nude, in case you are not clued in) I had made with a longtime girlfriend as my model. (I was a de facto art major in college for a couple of years). She does not want me having lunch with female coworkers, saying that many affairs start exactly that way. There have been a lot of little things here and there where this attitude has reared its head.

I can’t see myself ever cheating on her, though I will be careful not to let my guard down anyway. I'm the kind of guy who enjoys pointing to my wedding ring, is quick to bring up my wife (positively) in conversation, and doesn't want to look at an adulterer when I look in the mirror.

The ironic thing I believe she is the one in our marriage more likely to cheat:

1) I honestly believe she is much more attractive to men in general than I am to women in general.
2) My experiences have revealed me to be a very loyal guy to the women I was with in the past without a commitment, and I take my vows extremely seriously.
3) Her family has the history of infidelity, not mine. As far as I know, nobody in my family (parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunts) has ever cheated.
4) The curiosity factor isn't there as much for me, due to my past experiences.
5) She is the one who is in a house with bedrooms, showers, etc. much of the day without me around, complete with visits from people like repairmen.
6) I have more to lose.

I don't know... maybe all of that doesn't matter because I was not loyal to what at the time was my unknown-to-me future wife. Maybe, statistically, I am the one more likely to cheat because she exercised more self control before marriage than I did. Regardless, I'd rather jump in front of a truck than cheat.

I have to believe that things would be different in our own marriage if her father had never strayed in his. Her father, past infidelity and alcoholism-enabling aside, is the sweetest guy. The infidelity is far back in the past now - his mother-in-law died and my mother-in-law, with her mother gone, finally cleaved to her husband, which she should have been doing since their wedding. MIL, by the way, is great - when she is sober. We simply can't count on her to be sober, unfortunately.

Lovemaking before I go to sleep is often not what it should be or doesn't happen often enough because, as I explained in my other gripes, I'm getting far too little sleep to begin with. My wife has never rejected me, but the routine is that we put the kids to bed, she puts me to bed, and then she stays up a few hours later. She doesn't want to change her sleep patterns to match mine, and I don't begrudge her that time alone at night, since she is otherwise always looking after the kids, and sometimes me as well. Unfortunately, because of our different sleep hours, we don't cuddle or spoon as we sleep. Ironically, (or is it paradoxically?) I did cuddle and spoon when I would stay overnight with the women I was involved with in my bachelor days.

Having me "nap" and then getting to it when she is ready to go to sleep (and I have had some rest) doesn't work, because her orgasms tend to fend off sleep much the same why mine (like most men), ease me into sleep. She has never outright rejected me (bless her), but she does worry that I won't get enough sleep, often bidding me goodnight with an insistence that I get some sleep and a suggestion that we do something the next day – even though the next day's schedule is often going to be the same. I suppose I could fix this (my end of it, not her worries that I'm not getting enough sleep) by being more demanding. I actually believe I would lose weight easier if I was occupying my mouth with my wife more, so there's an added plus to letting me spend more time bringing pleasure to her.

Two other relatively minor sex items:

1) My wife shot down using food/sweets (think whip cream, chocolate syrup, etc.) in our lovemaking. She says she doesn't want to associate those things with sex. I don't understand why she would have that reservation. Wouldn't that make eating those foods even more enjoyable? Hmmm, now that I think about it, maybe she thinks it would cause me to eat more stuff like that and gain more weight? But it seemed like it was about her, not me, and she already eats sweets without gaining weight. Maybe she's just really clever it that regard; finding a way of shooting it down without saying "you don't need any more calories." Part of my attitude towards marital lovemaking is that anything is fair game and should be tried at least once if a) the spouse consents; b) it doesn’t involve any other person or animal; c) it can be done in relative privacy so as not to be immodest in front of others; d) it isn't harmful. Experimentation and "mixing it up" are good. Not every session needs to be epic or follow the same pattern or have the same tone or pacing. Sometimes, it is just play; other times, an intense expression of passion. So, I would like to use this as playful thing, but she doesn't.

2) My wife "took something off of the menu". While we did make it to our wedding night as far as maintaining her virginity in the physical sense, things did get too naughty leading up to that. She did something that has to do with fellatio - something I really liked a lot. Although she claims she never did it (or fellatio in general) before, she did it three times with me - each time of her own initiative, each of the three times she performed fellatio on me prior to the wedding. Since the wedding, she has been "unable" to do that particular thing again - and I know, because I've asked and we've talked about it. Thankfully, she has not stopped fellatio in general. Perhaps she is feeling guilty for having done it while we were engaged, though she has no problem (thank God!) enjoying cunnilingus as I do that on her - even though that happened before we married as well - nor the fellatio in general. To my wife's credit, she discussed this with her mother (how many mothers and daughters discuss the finer points of fellatio? But then my wife's parents were forthright about where babies grow from the earliest ages of their children) and my wife says is willing to work on it... just not right now for temporary reasons I'm not going to get into. Unfortunately, this thing is strong turn-on for me.

Hey, maybe all of my other gripes would bother me a lot less as long at that one thing was restored to the menu. ;-)

Well, there you have it. My gripes. As you can tell, things are generally great, considering these are what I have for gripes. I mean, other some other husbands, by their accounts, are living in hell, while I am usually happy.

Maybe I can make things even better? What do you think? Do you see a need for my wife in all of this that I am not meeting? If I can make things better or me, then that will be good. If I can make things better for her, than that would be better. Like I said, I know she could gripe about a bunch of flaws of mine. I try to praise and thank her several times a day, and she does the same to me. For the most part, I do feel appreciated.

Alcoholism, Infidelity: Not My Problems, Except They Are

This blog entry is part of a short series dealing with my gripes. You can read the introduction here. I broke this topic into two parts, so this entry is part one. I wrote about the things I'm thankful for about my wife and our marriage in this entry.

Disclaimer: I actually generally like my in-laws and we get along very well. My wife claims they really like me (and I let her know that my family really likes her).

We can't trust most of my wife's family as babysitters. (We can trust my mother, one of my sisters, and my sister's husband, but we don't live close enough to them.) The one sibling of my wife's we have relied on before has a baby of her own to deal with now, and as our children get older we may not want to leave our kids with them anyway, as their worldview is so different than ours and they vocally deride much of our worldview.

The others are eliminated for general irresponsibility and substance abuse.

My mother-in-law's main excuse for drinking is that my father-in-law, the guy she chose to stick with despite California’s marriage and family laws being generous to divorcing wives with higher earning husbands, fooled around many years ago with some of their au pairs. Why they had au pairs when my mother-in-law was a stay-at-home mother, I don’t know. Possibly because she was so busy doting on her mother, which is one reason her husband fooled around on her, according to my wife. (Example: MIL married as a virgin, meaning that her experienced, previously-married husband agreed to they wouldn't have sex until they were married. My MIL was content to sit and talk with her mother into the night after the wedding reception – a sign of how the marriage would be.)

Or maybe she was already getting drunk. I don't know.

Of course, any excuse will do.

As a result of this substance abuse and infidelity in my wife's family, I get to suffer.

I have never been drunk in my life.

Neither has my wife.

In her case, it is because she's never touched alcohol. However, most of her siblings also have substance abuse problems - which is why they can't be babysitters.

It is also why I can't enjoy some wine at home.

My wife knew I drank occasionally before we even had our first date. She did not insist on a husband who doesn't drink.

My father regularly drank red wine in the evening, and I can't remember any ill results. Heck, it probably allowed him to stay with my mother as long as he did. My mother drank very rarely. She saw buying drinks as a waste of money. My paternal grandfather felt the same way.

With my family and personal medical history, I should probably be drinking red wine for the health effects.

My wife, however, insists that there won't be any alcoholic drinks in her home, because of what it did to her family while she was growing up. Maybe I just don't get her objection since it wasn't a problem in my family and didn't mar my childhood.

I point out to her that she stocks our kitchen with ice cream, candy bars, and various junk-sweets, even though I really should lose weight and much of my family has struggled with being overweight. She refuses to stop bringing that stuff home. She just expects me not to eat any of it - and, mostly I don't. I need to cut back on the ice cream, though. Yet she can't afford me the same freedom when it comes to wine, even though she has never personally had a drinking problem, whereas I have long had a problem keeping my weight under control.

She has told me that I'm free to drink wine when we are out at dinner or at a reception or whatever, and she can be the driver on those occasions. That would be too rare to have the desired health benefit, more expensive, and I have a much better driving record than she does anyway, so I prefer to drive.

Oh well... enough of this gripe.

We'll get to the good part - sex - in the next part; what I think will be the last part of this series for now.

One Reason We Leave the Nest and Build Our Own

EXPECTANT MOM IN WISCONSIN wrote in to Dear Abby:

I am a 30-year-old woman with a baby due in June.

There is no mention whatsoever in the letter about a sperm donor, one-night-stand, boyfriend, ex-husband, or anything. It is as if this baby just appeared out of nowhere.

This will be my parents' first grandchild, and they are over the moon.

I have a full-time job, but I live with them because I go to school part-time.

So far, so good – I mean, if you're not going to adopt the child out to a wife-husband couple, that is.

After paying tuition and other bills, I can't afford to live on my own. Moving out is not an option right now.

That's one of the reasons why it is good to conceive your children within marriage.

The problem is my father's drinking...I mentioned to my mother tonight that if he thinks I will let him hold my child after he's been drinking, he has another think coming.

Well, at least you have some sense.

I love my dad, but I have to be a responsible parent, and that means putting my child's welfare first.

Well, yes, except for the daddy-and-marriage thing.

How do I tell him that his drinking will affect his role as a grandparent?

"Dad, I love you very much, I appreciate your generosity and hospitality, and I want you to enjoy your grandchild, but I will not let you hold the child or supervise the child when you've been drinking." He probably won't listen, but you retain control over the child anyway. The worst thing he can do in that case is throw you out. Either way, he doesn't hold that child while he is drunk.

And look at what Dear Abby said:

You tell him in plain English, preferably in the morning while he's still sober, and do not allow yourself to be dissuaded.

Exactly.

We live a short drive from my wife's parents. Her mother used to ask us repeatedly, and "ask" our child (really meant for our ears) when we were going to let our child stay overnight with her. The answer, as my wife has told her mother repeatedly, is never. My mother-in-law is a wonderful, delightful, loving person and a very capable caregiver. When she is sober. Unfortunately, we're never sure when she's going to hit the bottle, and we know my father-in-law "can't" stop her. She has missed some very important family events because she’s been passed out from the booze. (And my wife, who knew from the start I would drink wine from time to time, won't let me keep wine in our house because she was so scarred by her mother's abuse of alcohol... but that's another story for another blog entry, one I hope I get to write before my family's history of heart problems does me in.)

I guess I'm blessed with not having the substance addiction/abuse tendency, myself. I don’t think I've ever been drunk, because I simply haven't ever had much to drink at all. Now, if I was as good about what I ate...