Throw The Book At 'Em!

If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, you are probably well aware of the fact that my in-laws are colossal morons. Neither my MIL or FIL seems to possess even a shred of common sense. It truly is a miraculous thing that my husband lived to be an adult while being in their care.

I have been trying to be nice to them as best I can. Hey, you would find it hard too if you repeatedly (and politely, I might add) asked somebody to please do (or even not do) something only to come home and discover that your wishes were not respected in your own home. And to add insult to injury, when you come home, your house is a complete mess. I'm not talking a few things out of place. I'm talking torn up papers on the floor, crumpled up tissues everywhere (some of them shredded into teeny tiny bits), my near-empty cup of coffee STILL on the dining table (now with tangerines dropped into it, because hey, why bother to tell the baby not to do that or not prevent her from doing it!!!), dirty counters and tabletops, food sitting out for hours in the kitchen, dishes put back with visible filth on them...I could go on and on. And on. And on. AND ON.

In other posts, I have mentioned how my in-laws leave out Raelynn's books, though I'm not sure which posts and I'm too tired to go sifting through them now. I have asked both MIL and FIL to please not touch Raelynn's good English storybooks. There is no reason for them to take them down off the shelves for her. Raelynn likes ripping things. She doesn't understand that we shouldn't rip books. Her Beauty and the Beast: Friends Are Sweet book earned the first scar a while back when I accidentally left it within her reach and then took a phone call. Luckily, I was able to tape the page she tore back together. It was from then on I pleaded with my husband and his parents to never let Raelynn alone with one of her good books.

But yet, I would come home from work and find the good storybooks strewn on the floor, easily accessible to Little Miss Destroys Everything. And yet again, I would tell them not to touch those books. I confronted MIL one time recently and as politely as possible told her not to touch those books. She can't read English! Why in the world is she taking these books down to show my daughter?!? I read them to her when I come home. I show her the pictures and then, when I am done, I put it safely out of her reach so I can read it to her again and again.

Despite my kind pleas to cease and desist, these 2 blundering buttholes did it yet again. This time though, they didn't leave the books all over our living room floor. Oh no. They put them on the most attractive nuisance of furniture in our home...Jeremy's desk.

Jeremy had decided that he wanted to move his desk out into the living room. I found his logic a bit moronic, as he stated Raelynn would come bother him too much in our room. But she bothers him and his things even more so now than before because he is so readily available. She takes EVERYTHING she can grab from his desk. Honestly, I am waiting to fart out a big "I fucking told you so!" when she breaks something important of his.

Well, MIL and FIL put Beauty and the Beast: Friends Are Sweet and Toddler's First Pop-Ups: Opposites on top of Jeremy's desk. They couldn't be bothered to put them back where they belong, could they? Oh no, because they're old! Gah! So just after they leave yesterday, I am putting our laundry in the washer when I hear the tell-tale sound of paper being torn. I run out into the living room and discover Raelynn sitting in the middle of the room, tearing up the last page of the pop-up book. Thankfully, the Disney book survived without any further damage. When I'd confiscated the pop-up book, I scanned the room and had found the other one laying on my husband's desk.

This page was the one I saw her ripping:

Sure, I can tape the doghouse and dog's head back on but it won't pop-up anymore. Look, I know there are worse things in life. For those of you that aren't married, just you wait until you do get married and your spouse has the most idiotic people in the universe for parents. And then when you have kids and they endanger your precious angel with the stupid things they do or they neglect to follow what you have asked them to do in your absence, then you come tell me I'm being bitchy, ok?

This book was a gift from Phillip and Kimmy. I really appreciate all the gifts we get from them but books, even more so. The reason is that here, original copies of children's books in English like the one you see here cost A LOT of money (anywhere from 50 to 150 yuan each, which in US dollars is cheap but you have to remember we don't get paid in US dollars). You can get some paperback covered books that are in English and Chinese but the English is very clinical and boring and not at all how the original stories were told, like in our Hansel and Gretel or Puss in Boots books we have. Here is an excerpt from Puss in Boots: "There is a miller. He has got three sons. One day the miller dies." Yeah. In these kind of books, they love to make use of "has got" and also constantly use the word "clever" to describe people. It's lame.

Anyway, for shits and giggles, I decided to check the whole book to see if Raelynn had damaged anything else, and lo and behold:

She must have destroyed this page a different time because the moon is completely missing. It was nowhere to be found, which really pisses me off. Her stupid grandparents just let her tear up a very nice book and didn't even try to fix it or at least tell us about it. This is perhaps the most ridiculous thing about this culture - that younger people (coughcoughJeremycough) won't confront even in the most polite way possible an older person when they have done something to upset you and that older people don't apologize for things they do wrong. On my end, I won't let Raelynn grow up like that. If she's got beef with someone, I will teach her how to constructively and courteously speak her mind to that person. And if she is wrong, I will teach her how to admit it without shame and how to learn from the mistakes she makes. Jeremy might be content to bury his head in the sand but I am not.

Here is a closer shot behind the cloud. You can see the moon was torn off and, judging from the fact that I have been unable to locate it in our home, it is safe to assume one of two things: 1) Raelynn ate it (less likely) or 2) MIL or FIL threw it in the garbage, which is most likely though incredibly ironic as they leave all kinds of garbage all over the table and the floor when they are here. Grrrr!

Next, I found this nearly-decapitated flamingo. His head is still there but doesn't pop-up with the rest of him.

Jeremy was mad about what happened to this book too but when he told me to calm down, it just made me feel stabby. I am even more pissed since he kind of insisted I give those vomitous miniature old lady shoes back to the old hag. I didn't think that was very fair. He said she was upset. Oh boofuckinghoo she's upset. I'm upset about all the crap she's fucked up in our home and hasn't even bothered to say she's sorry about. The thing is, I wouldn't be so pissed off and wound up if she simply offered an apology. Now this old goat gets to trot our daughter around in those disgusting boots AND destroy our things. I should throw the book at her and my FIL too for that matter and never allow them here again though I think I'd have more success actually lobbing a book at them, preferably a volume of Encyclopedia Britannica.