For those of you who might have been wondering, "Gee, Jenn's been awfully quiet about MIL lately," this post is for you. Yes, those of you who beg for more MIL are in for a treat. Not me of course. You can take her. Free shipping and handling. She speaks no English, doesn't use any cleaning products when she cleans despite having been shown them dozens of times by her own son and needs reminding to use soap but she does make outstanding dumplings from scratch. If you want her, she is yours. I think even Lane is getting sick of her too.
Anyway, I have been trying not to complain about her too much because I don't want to hurt my husband's feelings. She's a spaz and all but she's his mother and somehow by the grace of God, she managed to raise him into an adult. An adult that ultimately left the country to study abroad in Korea and perhaps this explains why he is so normal and non-country bumpkin-like. Also, since I have been working, I don't have to see MIL except for perhaps 2 minutes a day when I first come home from work. She leaves right after I put down my stuff and rescue my baby from Grandma's smelly clutches. So she is tolerable in small doses. Like for 10 minutes total per week. Anything more would be pushing it and luckily for me (and her) I don't have to see her foot-shaped face (wart and all) early in the morning. There is not enough coffee in the known universe to cope with such a sight.
But this week, I nearly hit the roof. We had a scare with our chair. Our baby chair that is. We have a Baby Bjorn Babysitter Balance chair, which was a very lovely and generous gift from our friend, Cherie. Not that we don't appreciate all the gifts we have received for Raelynn (you all know who you are and we can't thank you enough), but this chair was like a gift for the three of us. Gone are the nights of sore arms and lost sleep. The chair calms her down easily and is a great place to put Raelynn when we're busy around the house. I must admit that I love this chair and I cannot even fathom surviving without it. Neither can Lane. I love this chair like I love egg tarts. Oh yes. I went there.
It was fine when I left for work in the morning. Raelynn had sat in there next to me while I ate my breakfast and all was well. But by the time I'd returned from work, something was wrong. Lane was kind enough to make dinner while I spent time with Raelynn. I read to her and played games with her and her toys until she inevitably got sleepy and began rubbing her little eyes and yawning. I put her in the chair to rock her into a nap and that's when I noticed it. Creak, creak, creak, creak, creak. Like death itself creeping from the depths of hell, this loud creaking noise bellowed from the chair. Raelynn seemed a little confused by the sound but thankfully, was too wiped out from our play time to be bothered. I tried to figure out what was the matter and finally called Lane in for reinforcement. I held Raelynn and we watched her daddy try to fix the chair. I could see annoyance and panic set into my husband's face too. He had concluded the same thing I had: that his ignorant mother had not taken proper care of the chair.
It had me steaming mad. I mean COME ON you old bag! Seriously. How hard is it to not fuck everything in sight up? Let's count all the things she's ruined, shall we? My clean kitchen floors. The kitchen counters, which are permanently damaged from her when she and her husband lived in this house years ago thanks to her putting pots and pans from the stove right on top of it while they were hot. And speaking of pots and pans, she can take a perfectly nice set of cookware and ruin it and Lord knows how! Our new pots and pans were still looking good until my husband allowed her to cook in our kitchen again and guess what looks like it's 100 years old? I mean BESIDES my MIL! Our poor pots and pans! The kitchen sink faucet, which is loose because of her. The fresh and clean smell of our house when she is NOT here. The window screens. The kitchen cabinets. She put her stupid step-stool that she uses as a chair (for reasons I cannot compute) when she sits with the baby on one of the foam play pads and punctured it. Oh and she clogged the bathroom sink by putting tea leaves down there. This is just the short list, mind you.
What annoys me most about all this is that she comes into our house and treats everything with such little regard. She doesn't take good care of her things and that's why everything she owns, new or old, looks like it's been left for dead. That's fine in HER house but not in OUR house. And now, our beloved chair! Oh hell no! There was no way I was going to let her mess up our baby chair. Lane said he would tell her she needed to be more careful though I urged him to also tell her I was going to break her face with said chair too. But MIL's luck changed for the better since, after applying some pressure to the base of the chair, the creaking ceased and the chair seems to be just fine. She gets to live, until she breaks something else we care about. As long as she doesn't destroy our chair and our peace and quiet that goes along with it.
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