Completely Clueless

When you know you're moving away from your moron in-laws, life seems rosier. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. And you tend to overlook some of the annoying things, reasoning with your brain that soon, very soon, you will be flying over 8,000 miles away from them. Of course, my in-laws seem to really want to help...help me go completely insane before we leave that is.

Today, I came home and discovered this...

Yes, that's part of a green bell pepper on our dish drying rack. Why? Lord knows what ever goes through the head troll's empty head except a constant swirl of sawdust.

As I took the baby back into our bedroom, I noticed something less amusing...amongst all the toys in there, there was an open box of Raid plug-in mosquito repellent discs. Really? Because she has absolutely nothing else to play with. Let's give her a freaking box of poison! I holler to MIL and ask her what the hell is up with this being in the crib and she of course blames her idiot husband. OF COURSE! Not that I doubt he's probably the culprit but if you see your nutsy husband giving the baby something unsafe like that, how about telling him NOT to do that? Or taking it away? No, this couldn't possibly occur to MIL because she has such an alarming lack of common sense it's frightening.

But soon I will have the last laugh. It turns out that maybe they don't know quite when we are moving away. Jeremy confessed that he simply told them we were leaving this summer. So that will be interesting. I told him not to tell them until the day we leave. Ha! Bye Felicia!

That Does It

I know it's been a while since I've written about MIL. I seriously and very sincerely mean it when I say I have been trying so hard to be nice and just let things go. But if you've been a reader of this blog for any amount of time, you know that sometimes I need to vent before I explode.

On Fridays, MIL knows she isn't supposed to cook. It's my night to cook. But still, she asks me if I want her to cook. I gave her the are-you-completely-crazy-or-stupid face and she nodded in understanding. Yes, go away. Now. Please. Before I throat-chop you. I've had enough of you for this week. You have no idea how hard it is for me to be nice to you or to restrain myself from hitting you over the head with my frying pan that once was nice but is now scorched on the bottom and is dirty because you didn't wash it.

I take Seoul, who is so happy I'm home that she's clapping her hands, into our bedroom and nurse her privately while Raelynn plops down on the sofa in the living room to watch Nickelodeon. I hear MIL making some cleaning-type sounds in the kitchen and then I hear her leave. Good, I think to myself. I don't have to look at that woman for 2 whole days.

When I'm done attending to Seoul, I come out and discover there's not much she's really done in the kitchen to clean up. It's the typical messes. Vegetables on the floor. Crap all over the counter. You know. Except for this...

What IS this, you ask? Your guess is as good as mine. It could be tofu.  It could be meat. The liquid looks like milk but is very likely oily fatty yuckiness. She just left this nasty, unappetizing crap sitting out all day and couldn't be bothered to take it away with her. Like any of us will eat this.

And then, for good measure, she left this apple core. On a dirty oven mitt. WHY would you leave that out? WHY would you save that? And why would you put it on something that is in desperate need of a wash?

These 2 things completely set me off and I realized I could no longer keep quiet about all the stupid shit she's done lately.

Like when she inexplicably dug through my wardrobe. Why the hell was she in there? I have no idea. But she found part of my vortex. I know this because when I'd gone into Raelynn's closet, there staring back at me were 4 of the ugliest pants ever, all of them with polka dots and all of them I'd shoved into the vortex last year. I confronted her on it and she said Raelynn should be wearing these things under her clothes because it's so cold. Not like she doesn't have a shit-ton of other non-vomitous garments to serve that very same purpose. I used Google Translator to tell her that I'd tucked them away because Raelynn refused to wear them. Before MIL could say anything more, Raelynn chimed in with how much she hated them. So take that, Goatface. Oh and yes, I also used Google Translator to tell her to stay out of my closet. Don't touch my personal items. Cow.

And of course, there are days I come home from work and I notice she's given Seoul some of Raelynn's toys to play with. This wouldn't be a problem if the toys were safe for babies. But they aren't and this is why I have repeatedly told her not to do that and repeatedly shown her which toys are for Seoul (honestly, it's quite obvious but MIL doesn't seem to grasp this concept). Yesterday, I came home and found a small box with a shower cap I'd had stashed away on the upper shelf in our bathroom now out in the living room. When I asked her about it, she told me her idiot husband, my FIL, had given it to Seoul. I just can't even with these people.

The list goes on and as you know, one thing here or there doesn't get to me but after suppressing my annoyance constantly I feel a full-on rage boiling over. Bits of luo bo left out everywhere. Insisting Raelynn eat some snack after school when she's already had one. Telling me everything is "hao chi" which is Chinese for delicious and telling me "hao chi" about everything when it clearly is not "hao chi." Putting an extra shirt on the baby to keep her warm inside the house now that Spring is here and city heat has turned off the radiators but NOT putting socks on her feet. Her hagly voice. Washing the dishes with cold water (thankfully Jeremy saw her too and shouted at her). Drinking tea out of an old rinsed out jelly jar which I don't know why it bothers me so much but it just DOES. Using so much oil when she cooks that she ruins everything she cooks.

And so the story goes. There's more of course but I just don't want to waste another minute of my weekend complaining about her. I feel better after venting, for now at least. Until she leaves another bowl of grossness on my counter that is.

Girl, Interrupted

If you've been reading my blog for a while, then you are fully aware of how annoying my in-laws can be. But if you're new around here, perhaps you think I might be a little too harsh. I'll concede that I'm sometimes a bit of a bitch, but in my defense, I really do try to be nice. I mean, why can't I be nice to someone who comes over to help me with the children and cook us some meals? Shouldn't I be grateful?

Largely, I am. Even if she continues to cook vomitous bowls of things that perhaps once resembled food but now would be considered partially digested (you be the judge...click here). I try to smile, remembering that she just wants to help. And that soon enough, I'll be freed from her cooking catastrophes.

That being said though, there are just some things she does that take me from zero to stabby in .0001 seconds. Try as I might to conceal my rage, it just boils over. I'm hoping that by typing out what really gets my goat about the old goat right here, that maybe it will keep me from completely blowing my top.

Soap.
After we had Raelynn, Jeremy trained MIL on how to use soap. Watching him stand in the doorway to ensure she used soap and scrubbed her hands properly made me so happy. Perhaps it's not entirely her fault. In many places in China, you will be hard-pressed to find soap in the bathrooms. Unless you're at an upscale establishment, don't be surprised when you go to wash your hands and find there is no soap. And only cold water. My husband once explained to me that Chinese people falsely believe that running your hands quickly under cold water is good enough for cleaning them. Um, no, China. No, no, no. Get some soap. So MIL uses soap, which is great, but every single time she reaches for the bar of soap. The one Jeremy uses in the shower (I use a shower gel). We have a big soap pump of anti-bacterial soap right next to the sink. It's by Walch and it's in Chinese even! Yet, she pushes it out of the way and grabs the bar soap. I have no idea why. Remember, we have a typical Asian bathroom where there is no shower stall but still, on our counters, I have moved the soap tray all the way by the shampoo and conditioner in hopes that she gets the hint. Jeremy can't change her but he did put in an anti-bacterial bar of soap which makes me less annoyed but only slightly. JUST USE THE PUMP SOAP!

Cold Water.
The other day, I was quite thirsty. I made some green tea and so I could drink it right away, I added cold water from our filtered water tap. She began squawking loudly about how that cold water was bad and hot water is better. I just gave her my patented bitchface and told her she's crazy. I'm thirsty. I need to drink something now and scalding hot beverages are not refreshing when you are parched. Of course, we already know how she feels about cold things though, don't we? Ugh.

The Refrigerator.
Our refrigerator could definitely be more organized. But when MIL comes over, trying to keep it orderly is absolutely impossible. This morning, I opened the door to get eggs out to make for our breakfast. As I did, I was greeted by a plate of uncooked fish filets, a bag of raw meat in the same bag as raw dough, and all kinds of atrocities peppered in with OUR things. She just shoves her barfy bits up in there and now there's hardly any room for real food. Oh, and for good measure, she left vegetables outside of the refrigerator. My level of stabbiness is through the roof.

Here's her pile of vegetables. Outside of the refrigerator. On top of a box of beer with one beer removed for whatever reason. And three...THREE! Three different containers of oil. When she came over less, our oil lasted so much longer.

My beautiful cream cheese from Australia is shoved to the back to make room for her fish filets. She has made us fried fish for the past 2 nights and I highly suspect she will do the very same thing again tonight. Ugh.

Here is the raw meat coupled with the dough. I just can't even. Looking in our refrigerator makes me so incredibly sad. The only consolation I have is that it must be way better than my in-laws' refrigerator. You do remember their kitchen, right?

Interrupting.
And this one is without a doubt THE worst. Just know that it pisses me off when ANYONE does it. Less so when it's Raelynn just because she is learning how to use "excuse me" but thinks that she should say it any time and not only when it's important. For example, she'll pester Jeremy and me while we're talking, repeatedly saying "excuse me" over and over until we acknowledge her and then she says something like, "I have a red shirt!" Annoying as that is, we're working on it with her. She is, after all, just about to turn 4, so we cut her some slack. But you know who doesn't get any slack on this? MIL.

Seriously, the woman just talks and talks and taaaaaaaaaaaaaalks. She never shuts up. It's the worst when my husband comes home from work. He and I will be talking and she will just come up and start talking in Chinese over what we're discussing. I know he's annoyed by it too but he says nothing. He just ignores her. I shoot her my patented megabitchface (even more severe than regular bitchface) and she nods and retreats. But then, seconds later, she's blabbering away again. I HATE BEING INTERRUPTED! Why can't she tell her son that she needs to talk to him when we're finished with our conversation? Or just wait for us to finish talking before she says something? She does it EVERY SINGLE DAY. No joke. I about flipped the table yesterday when she did it. Between her interruptions and Raelynn's interruptions, I'm amazed Jeremy and I actually get a chance to speak to each other.

She also just blabbers on and on from the kitchen, as if anyone is listening to her. I asked my husband if he was listening to her. No why? Because I think she's been talking to you for a good 5 minutes from the kitchen. Either that or she's completely batshit crazy now, thinking she's Belle from Beauty and the Beast and conversing with the dishware. It honestly could go either way.

Cup O'Luo Bo

I made this discovery last week but it's only just now that I've been able to write about it. I've been too busy writing about the endless construction from hell, cheapskates and crackpots that we encounter on a daily basis around here. They kept me so busy I barely had time for the main crackpot in my life, MIL, and her inability to refrain from being a slob.

This was what my counter looked like on the night in question. There are only so many times I can ask "what is wrong with her?" before I give up and chalk it up to a head full of sawdust. In this photo, I'd like you to spot the green cup. See it?

Ok, next, I want to show you what was INSIDE that green cup. Are you ready?

You know you want to see it, don't you? Of course you do!

 I had to move it to our table to get good lighting. Can you see what's inside? 2 slices of luo bo, that annoying Chinese radish!

 Come closer...closer! Gah!

As if it's not bizarre enough to find shit like this in a cup, here is an even closer view of the 2 slices of luo bo. As you can see, these are not fresh. They had a rubbery texture and were not fit for eating. Yet that old cow is saving them. I think she needs to start eating the shit she leaves out. Jeremy won't make her though. "It could kill her!" Well, I could kill her too, especially if she keeps leaving my kitchen like this. Oh but my husband loves his troll of a mother so I have to let her live. Hopefully soon we'll be able to move away and she can cut up 20 luo bo and leave them around her house to keep her company.

Well, I'll Be!

Sometimes, MIL amazes me. Like when she made this...

Why, it's not barf in a bowl! It's yu xiang rou si, my favorite pork dish! It's thin slices of pork, potatoes, green peppers and carrots in a spicy yet sweet sauce. It rules. And hold on to your hat because I'm going to say something I very seldom say: MIL rocked it.

Yes. She really did. It was better than in any restaurant. No, I didn't bang my head on anything. I really, truly mean it. Remember, she does a wonderful job cooking for the Chinese New Year celebrations. So why then does everything else she makes look and taste like vomit? Jeremy may have found the answer.

She's lazy. He said he was talking to her about her cooking. She expressed disappointment that I was unhappy with her food. She didn't know what to make for me any more. So Jeremy reminded her that I don't like to eat the same things every single day and that I like variety. She complained that I don't like Chinese food and that's where he set her straight. No, Jennifer loves GOOD Chinese food. You keep slopping together things like you don't care about the ingredients. He told her if she made this dish, I'd be thrilled. Good job, Honey!

I wonder how many times she'll make it this week though. Oy.

MIL might have had some success with her cuisine this evening, but she did leave a bunch of questionable crap in the kitchen of course.

 A severed luo bo! Oh joy! Thank you!

 A partially used carrot. If we had snow (oh how I wish!), we could use this for a snowman's nose.

I'm not quite sure what's up with this. It seems to be the mixture she'd put into a dumpling in the same bowl as a raw egg. It's rather odd, even for her.

$10 says this hot mess is still out when I come home from work tomorrow.

WTF Is In My Kitchen?

In case you're wondering, "shagua" means "stupid" in Chinese. 

Just once, I would love to come home from work and find my house up to par with my level of clean. It's a pipe dream, I know, but I still secretly hope each day as I unlock the door that when I walk in, I will find Mary Poppins instead of Trollzilla holding my baby and greeting me with a sparkling house that doesn't reek of the lingering greasy smells of fish she fried for lunch, and left out alllllllllllll day on the counter.

After working all day, all I want is to spend time with Seoul, and once she's sleeping, hang out with Raelynn. I also wouldn't mind something that wasn't nasty for dinner. Instead, I get things like barf in a bowl and a psychotic mess of random napkins on the floor, sofa, table, chair, under the table, under the sofa, on the kitchen counters - basically everywhere except for the garbage can - that I am now either forced to clean up or leave in place which only enrages me more and also encourages my in-laws, as if to say, "Hey, I like garbage on the floor. Please throw some more down there. Also, add more vegetables and dishes to the countertops because I can still see some of the counter peeking through. I'll just prepare dinner on the floor on top of your garbage pile."

Jeremy had a work meeting this evening so once MIL finally buzzed off, I was left with the aftermath of her whirlwind half-assed cleaning spree. Which, as you probably know from previous posts, means I had to clean up after her. While Raelynn played with some of her toys and Seoul slept, I began tidying up the kitchen to MY standards of clean, not hers. And I found some interesting things because my mother-in-law is Chinese and apparently, that means I should just tolerate her bizarre-borderline-insane habits of leaving out things like this...

 This is a plate of fried tofu. It has been sitting out since yesterday. I left it to see what would happen and I was not at all surprised to find it still there today. I know, I know. I expected a miracle I guess since I thought someone would dispose of it. Why leave a whole plate of food out like that? Why make it if you're not going to eat it? It's this cultural confusion I can't get behind in this country. I've lived here 4 years and I still have yet to figure this shit out. It's as mystifying as those bloody Chinese characters themselves.

I told Jeremy I was going to throw it out and he implored me not to. See, because if I do, then MIL will be all like, "Hey, where's my mummified tofu?" And he'll tell her I threw it away and she'll get angry. But if he TELLS her, "Hey, your tofu has fossilized after sitting out for so long. You should throw it away because if you eat it, you'll get sick," it's less upsetting to her. I asked him why she doesn't eat it and he said, "Are you crazy?!? She could die!" And that my friends, is when I facepalmed. Seriously. This. Culture. Makes. Me. Nuts.

 Half an apple. WHY would you do that?!? Why wouldn't you just eat the whole thing?!? She cut half up for Raelynn because every day she HAS TO do this. Because she's an old zombie who can't do anything different a day in her life. The world will go to pieces if Raelynn doesn't have an apple! And that bag? That is a dirty bag full of raisins. Urgh. I want to cry.

 Look how dirty. WHY is it here?!? Go back to MIL's house, you!

Finally, we have a tupperware filled with an assortment of plastic bags, garlic and luo bo. FUCKING LUO BO! You know, I went through this tupperware and I found 4 - yes, FOUR - completely different cut up luo bo. That means she cut up one, ate some of it, then cut up another...oh! And she left some out on the counter too in another bag and I threw that in the refrigerator. WHY CAN'T YOU JUST EAT ONE WHOLE LUO BO AND THEN CUT UP ANOTHER ONE??? WHY DO YOU KEEP LEAVING RANDOM PIECES OF LUO BO AROUND MY KITCHEN AND HOME??? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?????????????????????????????

I Am Not Alone

Have you ever read my blog and wondered if my Chinese in-laws are the only mess-making slobs or if other Chinese people behave similarly?

Well, wonder no more, because today's post revolves around a photo my friend/Western boss, Patrick, gave to me. See, we are both official members of the unofficial Chinese Spouse Club. Sometimes during our breaks, we wind up trading horror stories about our in-laws. I'm not sure who has worse in-laws...Patrick or me. I'll let you decide. One thing is crystal clear though as I scan our apartment for more dough in random places...I am not alone in my suffering of incompetent boob-brained Chinese in-laws reeking havoc on my personal habitat.

Let's take a look at this photo of Patrick's kitchen. He explained that he has given up on cleaning the kitchen because moments after he cleans it, it resembles Chernobyl once more, as shown below.

There is SO much to discuss about this! Where to start? The green onions and other assorted vegetables on the floor. And is that a cigarette I see?!? Random green pepper on the window sill. Oh look! They have a luo bo on the counter too! Garbage on the floor. Every dish in the cabinet out on the counter, probably with food in it and even more probably left out for days. Geez! Patrick, I feel your pain, bro.

Apparently, this is what his in-laws consider to be clean. Only in China! Also, Patrick's MIL has some foot condition and when he gets angry with her about something, his wife gets upset and worries that his telling her to clean up after herself will make her die. Just like MY husband worries about his mom breaking into pieces should I happen to ask her to not treat our home like a pigpen.

Even though Patrick has the aggravating task of hiring a replacement for me when we get approved for Jeremy's visa, I think he's secretly rooting for me to escape the hell that I must endure with my husband's parents. Meanwhile, Patrick is surely counting down the days until he and his family go to the US for winter vacation, aren't you? Thanks again for sharing your kitchen katastrophe with us!

Long Time, No Yuck

I've been up since 4:30am so I'm going to get right to the point.

May was the last time I found a yuck in our home. Not counting MIL's cooking. Yucks are generally hidden somewhere. Today's yuck was hidden in a cabinet, much like the first yuck.

Unfortunately, I have no photos of this. I was reaching into the cabinet, which, as it turns out, was the same cabinet I'd found the first yuck in, groping for a large Tupperware container to hold crab shells. See, MIL made crab for dinner, which was mighty kind of her, so we needed something we could toss the shells into as we ate. I grasp a rectangular one and yank it out and suddenly, SPLASH! My feet and the floor are bathed in some sort of liquid. It's opaque and slightly resembles chicken broth. There's no smell that I can detect and I'm surely not going to put my face close enough to check it out. I scream. Jeremy runs in and sees it. He just shakes his head and tosses me a rag. Shouldn't he be the one cleaning up after his troll mother? Yeesh. What the hell was that in there anyway? Someone help me.

But wait...there's more! After dinner, I have Raelynn clean up. I'm helping her and that's when I discover THIS on my sofa:

What. The. Fuck. Do you know what this is?

It's d'oh! I mean DOUGH! Yes, dough. Stupid cow left a blob of dough on my sofa when she was making her baozi (those retched steamed stuffed bun things).

Dough.

How does one leave shit like this on someone's sofa? I'm not upset about the sofa as it's pleather and coming apart. I'm just upset that I seriously almost sat in it and that she makes messes like this and couldn't be bothered to clean it up. No, no. Really, that's ok. I'll just work all day after getting up at 4:30 in the fucking morning to feed a baby and put her back down to sleep and have her wake up 30 minutes later wanting to eat her little hands and roll over and laugh and play and all kinds of cute shit while I feel like I might drop dead from the exhaustion AND THEN I'll clean up after you because Lord knows you can't possibly put the baby down in the crib for 1 minute to clean that up. Or do that while she sleeps. Oh no. It's so hard FOR YOU to watch a baby AND cook food.

And you know what sucks? She left one of her ugly scarfs on the sofa because heaven forbid she would use the fucking coat rack by the door and I was thisclose to using it to wipe up the dough. I should have just done it but me and my big mouth had to tell Jeremy what I was plotting to do and although he laughed, he turned to me quite seriously and told me not to do that. Ruin my fucking fun why don't you? Gah!!!!

Kitchen Nightmares

I've got lots to blog about but am too tired to really get into it now. But don't be sad because I have this short and sweet post to tide you over with.

Remember what my kitchen looked like the other day? Yeah. I didn't have to clean that up. But I did spend a considerable amount of time cleaning our kitchen this weekend. Because I don't want a kitchen like MIL's kitchen.

Despite this though, MIL is determined to convert our kitchen (as well as the rest of our home, from what I can tell) into the kind of grotesque hellish mess that her entire abode is full of. And I'm powerless to completely stop it because there aren't enough hours left in the day by the time I return from work to correct it. Any steps I take are completely destroyed the next day. Like when you write your name in the sand near the shore on the beach. Swoosh. Gone. And thus, so are my cleaning efforts. My wonderful husband does all he can but even working together, we cannot completely rid our home of the yuck that she constantly spreads around.

So today, I go crawl into bed early and attempt to catch up on the sleep I so desperately need, and while I do that, please enjoy these photos of what MIL left in our kitchen...

Do you know what I love about this? The fact that there are giant jugs of oil right by the stove? Ah, safety first, my friends. No, no. Not that. I looooooooooooove that there is an insane amount of apples piled into an enormous bowl OUTSIDE of the refrigerator. Not that there's room inside it for all 100 of her apples she brought for us. At least it's cold enough outside to leave apples out without them spoiling but we'll never be able to eat all of these before they go bad. Maybe I'd better whip up a pie...

Also, I just want to point out the green onions that she's also left out.

And the dried crud on the cabinet doors. I just cleaned those! I am the only person who wipes those down. I'm so glad I wasted my time doing that this weekend so she could gunk it up already. Thanks MIL.

Hurricane MIL Destroyed My Kitchen

Hurricane season just ended in my home state of Florida, but that doesn't mean I'm immune to Category 5 disasters right here in Qingdao. I cannot even begin to stress to you all just how happy I will be when my kitchen no longer winds up looking like this:

Or when we live in a place with a whole different kitchen. One that doesn't suck. One that isn't constantly being invaded by people who do THIS to it.

Please note that the above photo was taken AFTER she did some cleaning. Yes, AFTER. I had tried to snap a photo before but got caught up with the baby. She must be catching on that when I say, "What the fuck is this shit?!?" I'm talking about the unholy messes she's created.

Let's discuss this mess, shall we? She's piled a ton of cookery on the stove. She's left 2 giant containers of oil out. She left an assortment of dishes on the counter, next to her jumbo board she uses for rolling out dough for dumplings and that sort of shit. And that dirty rolling pin...memo to myself: go check the fucking drawer of kitchen utensils because you know old batshitcrazy MIL has probably thrown it in there without washing it. Oh and dig the dirty oily rag on the counter. I was just discussing that with an avid reader of my blog in the comments on another post. No matter how quickly Jeremy and I snatch up dirty rags and throw them in the wash, she will even more quickly grease up and grungify another one. If we didn't do that, I shudder to think how long she would go without washing a rag. Hang on. I almost threw up thinking about that. I think that will be what I use when I feel myself overdoing it on sweets. I'll think of the rag and I'll gag. And then I won't want to eat anything. Hmmm...it's just crazy enough to work! Goodbye, last bit of baby weight!

This is the other counter. The dish rack has been moved here, thanks to Jeremy. Don't ask. I hate it here. Although it DOES free up a lot of space on the other counter. You know, so MIL can stick random shit by the sink.

Anyway, just look at this shit. She never puts anything away. A bag of flour. A bag of peanuts. A pot filled with some meat dish. She served it to Jeremy but didn't even think to serve it to me. Pity, because it actually looked and smelled decent. No, no, no. Better serve Jennifer the baozi I know she hates. Baozi and cucumber sticks. Yes, my lovely daughter-in-law won't lob them at my big, fat lopsided head. NOT. You can see some of the baozi (those are steamed, stuffed buns by the way, in case this is your first time here) in that bowl by the electric kettle. And hey, by the blender, dig the beer mug FULL of green tea leaves. No joke.

 I moved it to the kitchen table to take better photos and show my husband. Lest anyone ever complain about the price of tea again. Or have any questions about who is wasting it. I'll give you a clue...MIL!

Just look how much tea is in there! Sweet Lord! And why are you using our beer mugs?!? My in-laws are so bizarre. Instead of using the countless coffee mugs we have, they use beer mugs or a glass I'd use for cold water to make their tea.

Half of that beer mug is filled with tea leaves! Gah! I give up. I'm going to throw in the towel. Or in this case, the oily rag.

Great Going, Grandpa!

Thank goodness for Google searches so I can find the perfect images to illustrate my posts. This one's from here. 

Please read the title of this post with as much sarcasm as you can drip from your voice. Because FIL has outdone himself yet again in undoing the positive progress we've made in Raelynn's behavior.

Despite my repeated pleas, FIL comes to meet us at the bus drop-off each day. When I was pregnant with Seoul, this was very helpful because I couldn't carry a sleeping Raelynn and our bags off the bus, up the hill, down the street and up 6 flights of stairs. But now that I'm not pregnant, I welcome the strenuous exercise. It's the only workout I've got time for at the moment and FIL ruins it every day by being there. But with any luck, we'll be moving to the US soon enough so I think to myself, "What's the harm in letting him come to greet his eldest granddaughter when she gets home from school?"

Oh silly me.

I should have known there would be great harm in allowing this. After all, we remember what a maternity leave of daily outings to the park with her grandparents resulted in: crazy behavior at the US Embassy in Guangzhou.

Today, Raelynn had fallen asleep on the bus. Some days she doesn't, but today she did. I tried to wake her which resulted in a groggy toddler. She started to follow me but FIL came on board and she didn't want to go with him. I keep calling her from the door to come with me. The bus driver looks dull-eyed and annoyed. Certainly he wants to move on from here and go play mahjong for hours on end while drinking tons of beer and smoking tons of cigarettes, or whatever he does when he's not driving the bus. Finally, FIL just scoops her up and she kicks and screams and goes into full-blown tantrum mode.

We get her on the side of the road and she's completely flipping out. And then, she bites FIL. On his thigh. Savage. So, still carrying all our bags, I snatch her up and carry her, telling her things like "No!" and "We don't bite people! Wait until Daddy hears about this!" And she's upset but she's listening to me. Until I put her down a block away. Because I am wearing high-heeled boots and I cannot keep wobbling in them, with our bags and carrying her on this lumpy craptacular sidewalk. She's furious about this and flips out. She wraps her arms around one of my legs - classic toddler tantrum move - and I have to hobble down the sidewalk the rest of the way. Now instead of not wanting her grandpa, who she was saying she didn't like moments before, she says she doesn't like ME. Because I won't carry her anymore.

Of course that idiot feeds into this and allows her to behave this way, carrying her like a baby and giving into her demands. Once up the stairs and away from nosy morons on the street who kept trying to butt in (and were abruptly cursed at by yours truly), we enter our home. MIL is naturally curious about why Raelynn's crying this time so I explain to her what happened from the whole biting incident on forward. I tell Raelynn to go to her room until she can come out and tell her grandpa she's sorry, which she STILL had not done because he gave in to her.

She screams and carries on, while the actual baby in the house serenely peers at me from MIL's arms. She wiggles and reaches toward me and I'm so happy to see her little face again. She wants her milk boobs so I tell MIL to have Raelynn stay in her room until she says sorry to FIL.

I can hear everything from the bedroom but I can't do anything because Seoul is blissfully latched on and enjoying breastmilk straight from the tap. All I can do is send Jeremy WeChat messages from my phone, telling him all about it. Once Seoul finishes her meal, I take her with me to talk to Raelynn who has now stopped crying her eyes out.

She's fine, actually. And as I try to talk to her about why her behavior wasn't good, she tells me, "Grandpa gave me a piece of candy!"

"WHAT?!?" I say, stunned. And then I turned to him and asked him in Chinese, "Ni gei ta tang?!?" And that total imbecile says yes, because she was crying and he didn't want her to cry. Oh. My. GOD! What is wrong with him?!? I actually ask him this. I then tell him as politely as I possibly can in my poor Chinese that I don't want him to give her candy when she's been bad because then she thinks she can act out like that and get rewards. And he harped on the whole "but she was crying bit." Augh!

Jeremy gave him a big lecture when he got home but FIL didn't understand still. I asked my husband to explain to him that if he loves Raelynn, he sometimes needs to let her cry and be disappointed. One day she'll be in America and I don't want her acting this way. I would be absolutely embarrassed if she acted like this at my parents' house. Then again, my parents wouldn't be giving her candy if she'd been that rotten in their presence.

But one good thing did come of this incident - FIL said he won't wait at the bus stop tomorrow to punish her for biting him today. I don't know if that will work but hey, I'll be happy to not have him mess up my parenting.

Oh and in case you're wondering about MIL, let me just bitch about her for 2 seconds. See, I'm finishing this post after Raelynn's bedtime routine and after hanging out with my husband in the living room. We enjoyed some ice cream together while watching TV. When I went to serve him that ice cream though, I noticed something odd on top of our mammoth refrigerator. I tried taking photos but the flash whites it out completely and without flash, you can't see it, much thanks to the pathetic, paltry little light in our kitchen, so you'll have to envision what I'm about to describe...

On top of the refrigerator, I noticed a plastic food container (calling this wonky thing "Tupperware" is a stretch) covered with a clear plastic bag. Because she just can't ever figure out how to use lids. I saw it when I was opening up the freezer to get the ice cream. I opened the freezer door and stopped. I closed it and reached up to this foreign object. And I noticed with disgust that it had a leftover cooked fish dish inside of it. Leaving food out is totally MIL's calling card but this is a new one. I mean ON TOP OF THE REFRIGERATOR. You know, I'm not a tall girl at five-foot-four but I'm not short either. Still, I had to reach up to grab this thing. It required effort on my part. MIL is not taller than I am. She's not shrunken and short either. So she had to actually work at putting this container of food up there. Jeremy just laughed. And I'm sure you are too but I'm not. Because only a crazy person would do that and we are stuck leaving that crazy person to watch our precious baby. Lord!