The Mother Shi*

Okay, here’s an update on the Mother Situation. Naturally, we are having a big fight right around Mother’s Day; it just seems to happen. Several years ago I gave her a Mother's Day card within which I wrote: Thanks to you, I am now completely crazy. This year, I will just send her flowers with the generic greeting the florist includes with the bouquet. I am not going to bother with a personalized greeting at all; I am afraid of either apologizing for something I should not feel apologetic for, or I am afraid I’ll work up the guts to write another nasty message, and then I’ll have to spend the summer making up for it. Which is a drag.

Why the necessity for a nasty message you may ask? Well, the fish (see previous post) was not the end of it. On Thursday (the Fishy Story happened on Tuesday) I went to my parents' house to have lunch with the Parents, the Brother, the SIL, and their 2 and a half year old boy, all here from California. My brother is a nice guy and all that, but he can be really irritating with his superiority complex he likes to trot out whenever I am around. In his, and his wife’s, company I always feel like a big, fat, dumb, totally unfashionable and ignorant moose. And now that we both have children, I also feel that he is looking at my boys developmental stages and at their clothing and finding them wanting. (Mene Mene Tekel Upharsim indeed.) Also, oh, yes, there’s more, when my brother and his family are around my parents ignore me even more than usual, so I generally leave the party feeling as if I had wasted a nice afternoon and would have been better off having a root canal. Without anesthesia. Just for fun.

So, I arrive at about 10:30, the Brother and SIL were due at 11:30. I came a little early to let the boys get settled with my parents and play around a bit before the Cousin arrived, at which point the babies would have been pushed aside for the favorite child’s only child. (Smell a little snarky sibling rivalry here? I am mature enough not to deny it, but immature enough to still indulge. Hmm. A quandry...) I pull up and my Mother comes out. She looks in the window of the car and says in this disappointed voice,

“Oh. They are both awake. What are you going to do with them? I must get the lasagna in the oven.”

Gee, I don’t know Mother…what CAN I do with them? Maybe, I can take care of them by myself like I do whether you are around or not! How’s that?

What she actually meant by "do with them" was that I was not allowed in the sitting room, the kitchen, the bedrooms or the pantry, because she had not done any adjustments for the babies arrival. Gosh, we only planned this about three weeks ago! No wonder you and your housekeeper didn’t get a chance to move a few plants! Of course, salted wound lover that I am, I was dying to pee, as only a mother of two who is trying to drink her 8 glasses of water a day can need to pee. I told my mother this, and she sighed and started jabbering about the lasagna again. I told her I’d just wait until my father turned up, and my bursting bladder and I sat in the dining room with the boys.

Now the dining room is a large room, about 40 feet by 20 feet, with six birdcages, standing lamps, a million plants and a lap pool in it. Yep, this is the safest room in the joint, according to the Mother. When I turned my back, fool that I am, on the boys for one minute, they had both climbed up onto the ledge of the pool and were jumping on the cover, laughing and shrieking faster than I could run to stop them. Fortunately, the pool cover is designed to hold up to 70 pounds, so they were okay, but I was kind of annoyed. And I had to pee. And I was alone with them. Because of the lasagna, you understand.

Then my father shows up from work, and he walks past me and goes to change. Goody! I think. He’s putting on his play-clothes and getting ready to come out to see the boys. Well, he was actually doing what a lot of guys need to do when they get home from work; he was settling into the house and frittering around. Girls call it nesting/organizing/getting things done. Guys call it unwinding. Whatever, it meant that I was still unassisted in a room with a lot of attractive hazards and no age appropriate toys. Well, Mother has some Lego and some noise making Little People farm animals for them, but the pickings are slim chez Granny, toy wise. The Father eventually comes in and I get to go to the bathroom, but I am feeling annoyed and upset, and I have only been there for half an hour.

To re-cap, my mother was disappointed the babies were awake, not because she wanted to spend some quality time with me alone, no because when they are awake she might have to deal with them. The babies are bored already and mad at me for not letting them play on the “trampoline” and we are all hungry. Oh, and I forgot to mention I only got about 3 hours sleep the night before, it was just one of those nights the night before.

Then my brother arrives. I know it is absolutely my own fault for finding him and the missus irritating and exasperating, but I ask you – he was wearing chinos, a purple and white striped shirt, a tan corduroy blazer, black socks and maroon leather Vans. The SIL was wearing white pajama pants, an orange tee shirt, a grey satin Cheong-sang jacket and men’s bedroom slippers in brown leather. I just looked and said, “Hi.”

We all went inside and the babies got re-acquainted and then we went outside to throw around a few kick balls. Naturally, the way this day was going, there were only two balls and three babies, so, well, you know. Don’t forget I am really tired.

Baby A starts really hollering and making a fuss, so I have to beg my mother for some food for them. She gets me a banana and puts on some tortellini. (No, she didn’t just offer to get them some food, she just doesn’t seem to see that the twins gets upset and tired more easily than adults do. And since I was not allowed in the kitchen, I couldn't do it myself.) Anyway, lunch was ready by this point and my babies ate some pasta, and had some juice. My father made another of his classic statements, "Hey!" he exclaims "This one likes lasagna! You need to stop feeding him that baby food. He wants REAL food!" Um, Father, he eats cheese, steak, veggies, minestrone soup, lentil soup, black bean soup, Annie's Mac and Cheese, croissants, cold cereal, hot cereal, warm cereal, apples, pears, banana, olives, strawberries, avocadoes, mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, boiled potatoes, Swedish meatballs, ice cream, and something else, I forget what. Father, he only eats applesauce because he likes it. I pointed this out, and I was LAUGHED at, as if I had made a joke. Because I was tired and feeling fragile, I didn’t push the issue, but dollop on another spoonful of annoyance in the mixing bowl of the MOT’s “Nice day” with her Family. Mix well, and add the next cup of piss me off.

After lunch, Mister Baby A needed to nurse and take a nap. I pointed out to the family that if I was sitting with one baby on my lap I really, really, really needed them to keep an eye on Mister Baby B, and they actually did watch him. Oh, he pulled up a few plants, trampled some bulbs and got all wet in a puddle. They didn’t STOP him, but they did WATCH him. Mister Baby A fell asleep and I went into the Forbidden City to put him on the sofa for his nap. Then I took Mister Baby B in the car to get him to nap; after a ten minute struggle I could see he wasn’t going for the nursing-to-sleep thing. I drove him for ten minutes, no longer, and came back. I was feeling very tired and crotchety by now; I had had to bolt my lasagna and now had a tummy ache. I drive up the driveway, and guess what I see? Baby A standing by the plants, as awake as you can be. Man, there is no rest for the wicked. By that, I mean no rest for ME!!! Grrrrrrr…..

So, I am now chasing around Baby A, and I went into the kitchen to get a paper to jot down the naps. The DH likes to know how long they have napped and at what time, so he can get a handle on what he has to deal with if I go out or to the gym. It’s a habit, writing down their naps, and besides, I tend to forget the details myself, being so freaking exhausted and all. I am scribbling - 12 to 12:30 Baby A - on this paper and the Mother leans over and says in this sarcastic VOICE:

“Do you HAVE to time EVERYTHING they do?”

It was as if she had stabbed me in the back with an ice pick. I literally saw red and turned to her and said in an equally nasty voice, “I write down their naps for the DH, so he knows what he’s dealing with if I am not around. Besides, I forget when they nap, and...” She totally interrupted me (I wasn’t being clever or funny or listening to her, so why should she stick around, right?) and walks off saying, “Oh! Don’t bite my head off! Dear, dear.” She goes into the dining room and stars telling my brother that I was rude to her for no reason, she said, "I just asked her - What are you writing?”

I stormed in and said, “NO, you were not asking me a question, you were teasing me, hassling me, making fun of me as usual and I won’t have it! Stop it! ! Stop it! ! Stop it!” I held up my hand like you do with a hysterical toddler and said "stop it" until she shut up so I could talk. I took a breath to explain exactly why I was writing down the naps and I had intended to tell her, yet again, how much it bothers me when she gets on my case like this, and she walks off again!

Then I realized, there is no way she is ever going to listen to me, no way she is ever going to stop making fun of me and my children, and there is no way I am going to take this lying down. I know it is my own fault for putting up with her baloney and mind games for so long without making too much of a fuss. I mean, you spend 35 enjoyable years smothering someone one day, ignoring them the next, telling them they are your favorite child because their college tution was the cheapest, then saying, "Well, you were supposed to be a boy, but we had to keep you! Ha ha!" and generally not treating that person as of they have any feelings, and I can imaging it’s pretty hard to stop. Have I told you about how she calls my children Trolls? I said exactly this, “Please don’t call them Trolls. I don’t like it, it’s insulting and it hurts my feelings.” She said, “But I like calling them Trolls.” In other words, “ But I like insulting you and hurting your feelings.”

Anyway, I got my things and I got ready to take the eff off. As I was leaving I said, “Mother, I am not going to bother to explain why I am so upset and angry, because you don’t hear me and you don’t listen.” She says, “Okay, byeee!” And I left.

We haven’t spoken since. Maybe I’ll send her a box of chocolate with the flowers on Sunday. Do you know if they make chocolate covered TROLLS?