Good for you about choosing a better time for the visit. I also agree about writing out a letter for your Mom. But chances are real good that she won't have a clue about what she did wrong. My situation is a long story, but my Mother lives a few 1000 miles away and the last time I saw her was about 6 years ago. My choice since then. I don't invite her here, nor give any impression I will go back to visit. She was horrible as I grew up and had a lot to do with the present mental health of yours truely. She went nuts on the last visit after 5 days and wanted to talk to me about MY bad attitude as she waggled a big knife at me from across the room. The proverbial ***** hit the fan at this point and she dredged up everything ever since I was a teenager. She left 40 hours later, 3 days before her actual plane date, forcing her to lay over in Toronto. But before she got out of the truck, she threw $50 at me, for my troubles.

You know, I never really saw or knew how bad she was until I made plans to leave the country to follow the man I loved. She became ugly and blaming, forcing me to leave two weeks early.

For you I would think that only seeing her for the children's sakes, outside of hers and your home is a good idea. Always meeting at some fun spot for the kids, where you can also be active with them, to get away from personal confrontations. If at some point she started to get ugly, you could simply say, well, we have to go now. I did this with the phone calls after she had left that bad visit, she got demanding and ugly, I said I had to go, and would quickly hang up.