All Hail Mikhail!

No, this post is NOT about Mikhail Gorbachev. This was what I envisioned when I heard the name "Mikhail" as you'll discover when you read below. Photo from Picasa Web Images. 

I don't know if I have ever mentioned before that during this semester, the school had me teach one of the pre-K classes for 30 minutes in the afternoons. I really didn't want to do it but they compromised with me on some other demands of mine so I really was left with no choice. It hasn't been too bad, honestly, though I'd prefer not to have to teach the wee ones. I have to admit they're pretty darn cute. They are only 4 years old. And there are 4 of them. Well, there were 4. As of today, there are now 5 adorable children in this class.

When I walked in, armed with books to read and stickers for rewards, the children all smiled and waved. And I smiled and waved. And that's when I noticed the new little face sitting with the others. Eun Ah, the Korean teacher for this class, was starting out the door. I stopped her to inquire about the new boy.

"Oh, we have a new boy?" I say. Eun Ah, looks confused. It's no wonder. Her English is truly terrible. Of all the Korean teachers in our kindergarten, she has the worst English skills. I try again. "That boy there," I say, pointing at the new child, "new." It helps sometimes to use really broken English with her. Somehow, she understands this.

"Yes, yes," she tells me, smiling away. And then she starts out the door again. "Um, wait a minute!" I block her path. "What is his name?" After all, I need to know what to call the little guy and ESL children of this age usually have a hard time telling you their name when you first meet them.

"Name?" She repeats. Oh come on, Eun Ah! I know you know that word! Often, she looks like she's in some far off land. She reminds me of a Korean version of Miss Lippy from Billy Madison. Then, suddenly, she seems to snap back to it. "Ah, name! His name is Meek-hail," she informs me.

"Mikhail?" I repeat, dubiously. It seems an odd choice for an English name. Especially since it's Russian.

"Yes, Meek-hail," says Eun Ah. And now, for the greatest amusement of my day, Eun Ah, spells "Meek-hail" for me as visions of Gorbachev run through my head."M-I-C-H-A-E-L. Meek-hail." she tells me.

I have to try very hard to be professional and not blatantly laugh right in her face. It's not her fault. How would she know? Knowing Korean, I can see just how she thought that too. When she said "Meek-hail," my brain immediately pulled up the spelling for "Mikhail." And then it wandered off into facts about Mikhail Gorbachev. And then it snapped back into the moment with her spelling of it. As all of us Americans know, "M-I-C-H-A-E-L" is a very popular name. But it is not pronounced like "Meek-hail," but rather "Maikel."

"You mean 'Michael,'" I tell her as kindly as possible. "Mich-ael?" She says slowly, looking more confused than ever. "Yes," I explain, "it is pronounced as 'Maikel' not as 'Meek-hail. I know this because it is my father's name."

Come to find out that the mother of this sweet little boy chose his English name. And in doing so, she mispronounced it as "Meek-hail." Because the director doesn't have the best English skills either, she didn't realize this mother was incorrect in her pronunciation. And because Eun Ah never knows what end is up, she of course didn't object to "Meek-hail" either. After class, I showed them the difference between "Mikhail" and "Michael." Which unlike "tomayto" and "tomahto," it does truly matter how you say it.

DIY FIL

My  FIL can sometimes be a very handy guy. Emphasis on the SOMETIMES. He's successfully repaired some things around our home. Like the light in the bathroom. Or the laundry rack (which I had MacGyvered with some package tape, though my friend Tommy Peek would likely say my fault was in not using duct tape as the package tape didn't hold). Or the window screens. Or the dresser drawers. Yes, he's fixed quite a few things and I've certainly appreciated it.

But today just wasn't his day for do-it-yourself handiwork apparently.

Yesterday, Jeremy and I noticed the cable connecting the satellite box to the satellite was sticking out from the wall. The satellite was coming in fine but the only explanation for the cord jutting out from the wall in such a fashion was the baby. Raelynn is now quite mobile. If she's not sleeping or in the playpen, you HAVE TO be right there with her to make sure she doesn't touch something dangerous or make a mess. It's not her fault. She's a baby. To her, EVERYTHING is her toy. EVERYTHING is something to eat. And EVERYTHING belongs to her. Of course! So while we were at work, the stupids must have been too slow in stopping her from yanking it up from the wall. All last night until I put her to bed, she kept going back over to the cable and trying to pull on it. My husband told me he would fix it tomorrow.

And now that it is tomorrow, which means it's today, I should have known that Jeremy meant that he'd have his father do the fixing when he said what he said. Even under that assumption, I am still perplexed by FIL's home improvement. Or rather, home unimprovement. Take a look...

Here you can see the cable, which runs from the TV (not in the frame but to the right) through our bedroom to the connecting satellite outside. The cord ran along the baseboard and up the crevice between the wall and door. I thought that my husband would simply run it back along there again and secure it with pins this time. But instead, my FIL, bless his heart, tried to be helpful and this is what we get. He has taken that piece of wood, which is actually a door to a cabinet in Raelynn's room that I have been pleading with anyone who will listen to put back on the cabinet where it belongs, and he has TAPED it to the wall. No fucking joke. Here's a closer look:

Do you see the fucking tape? DO YOU?!? Tape didn't stop Raelynn from ripping a cable off the wall so do you think tape will stop her from yanking a plank of wood from the wall? She's one strong baby. This won't stop her. She'll get around to destroying it, if it lasts that long. Jeremy promised me he'd have a talk with his father about this. Not only is it ugly but it also isn't very effective.

And here is the cabinet in Raelynn's room where that piece of wood is missing from. Yeah. Nice try, FIL. But you have plenty of room for improvement in the field of home improvement!

Oh, Husband, No!

What's wrong with this picture? Read on to find out!

Ever since we had Raelynn, there is no such thing as sleeping in. For either of us. And ever since I started teaching again, that means every morning, like it or not, I must get up at 6am. On weekends, we try to go back to sleep but since Raelynn is used to the routine of waking up so early, she's ready to play at 6am. Though lucky us, this morning, she decided 5:30am was a great time to wake up and play. I can't be too mad at her though. The sun has been rising earlier and earlier, so I get why she thinks it's okay to be awake.

Jeremy and I played with her a bit but then we both wanted more sleep. Into the playpen she went. A while later, she cried and Jeremy went to check it out. She'd apparently pooped but that was as much as I heard about it. I rolled over and went back to sleep. My sweet husband took care of things while I slept, unbeknownst to me. When I woke up, I was greeted by a happy baby who was running around the house in her sneakers. And an outfit that didn't match. Oh Jeremy! It reminded me of the last time he dressed her himself. There is a reason why I pick out Raelynn's clothes each day. If I don't have time to dress her, fine, but my husband (or his mother if she is here watching the baby) are not allowed to pick out her outfits. Please click here to see what he dressed her in last time. Go on. You HAVE TO see it. I'll wait. Done? Ok. Yeah. Ugh.

So here is my poor mismatched baby from this morning:

It's awesome that Jeremy put her in her USF (Go Bulls!) jersey from Joel and Andrea. After all the Florida Gators (coughcoughSUCKcoughcough) crap my parents bought for her, it was nice to have her wear a shirt promoting where I'd graduated from college. And the pants are from my wonderful Auntie Jill. The pants are grey with pink polka dots. Separately, there is nothing at all wrong with these 2 garments. 

The problem lies, as you can see from our little pouty model here, in that these 2 items together do not at all match. They don't even slightly go together. No. It's like my husband just groped for them blindly in the dark which he couldn't have since the sun was up and Raelynn's room, even with the curtains drawn, gets plenty of light in it. Because we were going to the QICF anyway, I just waited until we got ready to leave to change her into a cute dress and tights.

See? Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch better! Poor Raelynn. We'll have to train her daddy on how to match clothing. Her grandma is already a lost cause of course.

Adorable Engrish

I'm so behind on blogging this month and for that I apologize. Not just to you, but to myself. This is my sarcasm safe place where I can bitch and moan about all things MIL and make fun of anything else that gets in my way. And of course, where I can lovingly poke fun at my precious daughter, handsome husband and precocious kindergarteners.

This week has been rough in the Qu household. MIL broke our baby chair (which she has since thankfully repaired by the hands of a welder) and to top it off, Raelynn has 2 teeth and one coming in. So, if you are aware of all the hell that teething brings, you know how little sleep I got. And if you have no children yet (or don't want any) then just imagine that every time your head hits the pillows and your eyes begin to flutter shut, the smoke detector goes off, wailing loudly, uninterrupted, for hours on end. But unlike a smoke detector, which I would have bashed to bits with a broom, I cradled Raelynn in my arms all night. And as soon as I'd get her back to sleep and start to doze off again, the cycle repeated itself. Thank GOD for coffee. Anyway, I've been busy and tired between Raelynn, events I have to prepare for at school (spelling bees and something called "English Village" which my boss, bless her heart, pronounced as "English Billage") and regular school stuff, so I'm in full on Mombie the Zombie mode. That's probably why I didn't notice the red carpet or the high school seniors throwing flowers when I got out of the taxi on Tuesday morning.

Bleary-eyed with sleep I shut the door of Hao Shufu's taxi and made my way toward the front steps of the school. That's when I nearly fell over as the children shouted, "Happy Teacher's Day!" How did I not notice a fucking red carpet? Flowers? Loud, fanfare music blaring from giant speakers flanking the stairs? Oh yeah...teething baby. Despite being startling, I was genuinely delighted. What a beautiful surprise! And it was only just beginning!

They pinned a flower to my shirt, then I ascended the steps into the school and made my way to Kindergarten. As my children began to arrive, I became inundated with presents. I couldn't even believe it. It was better than my own birthday! I had flowers and cards and beautifully wrapped goodies that I couldn't wait to open. I have to say the parents are incredibly generous people. I received 3 different cups: a Hello Kitty one intended for Raelynn, a special locking thermos in pink and a Starbucks mug that came with ground Starbucks coffee. I also received lotions from Oil of Olay and L'Occitane. Pretty pink lip gloss by Dior. Sweet and summery Kenzo Amour perfume. A beautiful tan canvas bag with black leather trimmings. A jade green colored parasol. A handkerchief imported from France. And one of the most delicious cheesecakes I've ever had.

Yes, the gifts I received were incredible indeed. But of even greater value? Oh the adorable Engrish that came on the cards of course. Check it out:

Ok, so there is nothing too horribly funny about this one so much as it makes my heart melt. It's from one of my absolute favorite children ever, Justin. I mentioned him (and his brother) before in this post. How could I not smile when I read, "I love Teacher." Awwww!

This next one is from Iris. She's a cute little thing, the smallest one in my class. But she makes up for size with her loud mouth. She's quite precocious which is sometimes precious and sometimes problematic. But in this note, she's just darling. Here is what it says, verbatim:
"To. Teacher Jennifer
Hi teacher. I am Iris.
I am writing letter to celebrate teacher's day.
I always think you are good teacher and I wish you to be healthy.
Congraturation!
by Iris"

First let me start by saying I love how she puts "I am Iris." This makes me giggle uncontrollably. I also love that she wishes me to be healthy. That is SUCH an Asian thing to say. It's delightful, really. But the clincher for me is the "Congraturation" at the end. It makes me think of the "rah rah rah rah rah rah rah rah rah rah" at the end of A Christmas Story when they go for Chinese food and the staff sings "Deck The Halls." It is very common for Asians over here to confuse the "r" and "l." I have no idea why Chinese people do it but for Koreans, I surely do. One letter in their alphabet makes an "r" or "l" sound depending on the word. When my kids first saw the word "frog," about half of them said "flog." I had to spend an entire lesson making "r" and "l" sounds until they finally got the hang of it. At least they can say it right now. Or should I say light now? Heheheheh!

Here's my note from Peter who is one of my little misbehavers. He is such a cute little thing too. He'll run up and hug me and kiss my cheeks. But during class, he makes a lot of noise and distracts the other children. I'd punish him but he would only behave temporarily before returning to bad behavior. So the day before Teacher's Day, I'd sent a note home for his parents because I'd simply had it. His mother came in for a meeting (and I am happy to report he's been on his best behavior ever since) and brought a cheesecake as my gift, along with this note. It says:
"Dear Teacher
Thank you for Teacher.
I will become good boy.
From Peter"

I love the "Thank you for Teacher." I also love his promise to "become good boy." It's too cute. Let's hope he keeps behaving himself. Or that he keeps bribing me with fantastically delicious cheesecakes. That would work too.

This note from Ella is pretty ordinary. And sweet. Except she spelled my name wrong. She wrote "Janifer." Which I know she got from her mom. Her mom spelled my name like that before too. Sigh. Oh I can't blame them. When I write in Korean, I misspell everything.

Camille's note, "Always thank you for your teaching. I love you," is really sweet. I love how she drew me a heart in there too.

Little Matthew is the son of one of my coworkers. Her English name is Ann and she works upstairs in what they call the Western Office. I'm eternally grateful to them for helping to bridge the communication gaps between us all. Matthew made me forget the reason I hated his English name as that was my horrid ex's name. And when I used to hear it, I cringed. But now when I hear it, I think of this sweet and kind little boy. His mom was the one who gave me the lovely bag. Yay little Matthew! I love teaching you to read!

Let's wrap this up with Tony who has a mother who dresses him in the most absurd outfits. But man is this kid a doll! His note is just fine. It is very sweet with the "I love you Teacher," and the "Thank you for teaching me." It makes my heart happy. This part is sweet. The funny part is not Tony's fault at all, except for that he chose to put his note inside of this envelope:

Under "Bear's World," it says:
"very wonderfolly and more peasantly"

I imagine it was written by that pretentious twat, Gwyneth Paltrow. She needs to go play with an enema.

I will always treasure the cards I receive from all my students. But the greatest treasure of all is really in teaching them. Honestly, teaching a child to read, in my opinion, is one of the most heartening experiences ever. To watch their little faces light up when they realize they're reading is absolutely amazing. It's nice to repay their kindness in gifts with one of my own. A gift they can use for a lifetime. The gift of reading.

Now She's Really Done It

Dear GOD. That stupid woman has done it. She's broken the Baby Bjorn. She somehow broke the metal frame. How the fuck did she do that? Maybe with her crazy, moldy, rat-like fake teeth? Who knows?!? All I know is that my former worst fears have become a reality.

8pm. Bedtime for Raelynn. I scoop her up and take her to her bedroom. I put her in her Baby Bjorn chair, give her a pacifier and read her a bedtime story. But something seems off about the chair, I notice. The lights are off in her room but it's lit up enough from the lights outside of it. The chair seems awfully low to the ground. I figure she's been getting bigger so maybe I should use one of the higher settings. I take her out and adjust the chair. But when I put her back in, it reclines so far that it's almost completely touching the floor again. I inspected the chair and that's when I discovered that stupid old troll had somehow snapped the metal frame.

I yelled for Jeremy who attempted to repair it with tape. It didn't hold. As I seethed with anger, I now had to rock Raelynn completely to sleep without the chair to help ease the weight from my arms and back. I told my husband how angry I was about this and that I at least expected an apology from his mother. I'm furious because I have begged and begged him to remind his parents to take care of our things and be careful to no avail. Maybe I should go to their house and break things and see how they fucking like it. But then again, we've seen how they live so I'm not sure how much good that will do. They should fucking replace it but you know they won't because they're old as Jeremy says. His fucking excuse for everyfuckingthing they ever do. "They're old!" His mom puts the knives back with the blade up. "She's old!" My FIL makes a mess and doesn't clean it up. "He's old!" You know, chronologically, my father is older but you'll never hear my brother or I (or even my father himself) blame his age for something he does. I love my husband dearly but I am getting beyond sick and tired of hearing him defend their blatant stupidity and ignorance with his sorry blanket excuse of oldness. THAT is what's getting old.

Of course, I'm sure she'll have another golden excuse of her own. Just like when she blamed the stroller. Hey, maybe she will blame the stroller for this too.  Yes, that's it. The stroller broke the chair. Maybe the stroller will have a heart and retaliate against her as well. Go stroller, go!

The Stroller Did It!

I've just come home from work, which is usually when I like to play with my daughter. But she'll have to enjoy her toys by herself for a few moments while I angrily type this post because if I don't vent and get this out, I will explode. And MIL will have broken kneecaps. But she fucking deserves it.

It's not often but some Tuesdays, we have a Kindergarten team meeting after school. We haven't had one in a while but due to many upcoming events, we had to have one today. So instead of Raelynn off in the land of naps when I got home, she was awake. Her troll grandma had her on her lap while sitting at the table. Doing nothing. Just staring into space. God, she is SO dull! After I set down my things and wash my hands, I take my precious baby into my arms and MIL starts flapping her gums.

She tells me Raelynn has a cut on her hand. I look and on the top of her left hand, I see a nasty cut. Nothing too horrible requiring stitches mind you, but it looked like it had definitely hurt her. She tells me she was using the new stroller we got Raelynn which I'm not sure why she was because I don't want that fuck of an excuse of an old lady taking my daughter in public. Raelynn deserves not to be in the company of hideous and/or idiotic people in public at the very least. How humiliating for her! But I give trollface the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps Jeremy had relayed to her that we were having trouble getting Raelynn to sit in the stroller without having a meltdown of epic proportions and she was just trying to help Raelynn get more comfortable with it.

MIL then BLAMED the stroller. "Zhe ge che bu hao," she says, pointing at it, which means "this car is bad." It's not uncommon for people here to refer to strollers as cars, incidentally. I stare at her like she's deranged. Well, for one, she is. For another, how the fuck did my daughter get cut up on that stroller? What was MIL doing wrong that Raelynn would have hurt herself on it? The stroller my husband and I bought is far better than the ugly, clunky mass of metal that MIL and FIL bought us. The one they bought us has all kinds of sharp edges. I can't find anything obvious on the one we bought. I wanted to punch her rotting fake teeth down her throat. OF COURSE she blames the stroller. OF COURSE. And of course, she finds fault with the one Jeremy and I bought because she HAS TO bad-mouth anything that makes even the tiniest bit of sense. Like that we want a stroller we can open and close easily and that doesn't weigh so much it's impossible to get up and down the 6 flights of stairs with it, a baby and a diaper bag, not to mention any other items we might happen to purchase while out and about. But now it doesn't even matter because if Raelynn just mildly disliked strollers before, preferring to be in the carrier close to Mommy, well, now she's traumatized for life on strollers, that's for sure. Thanks MIL.

It took all my self-restraint to keep calm and not scream. I promised Jeremy I would be nice but damn! She is a fucking moron! I want to tell her that the stroller is fine and it is SHE that is no good. I want to tell her I can't stand her and I wish she would go back to hiding under the bridge she crawled out from and stay there. I want to tell her I can't wait until I can pack us up to move to America so we never have to see her again. I want to tell her she is so useless she needs to hie thee hence to the nearest glue factory because even horses with 4 broken legs are more useful than she is. But instead, I think of Jeremy and I hold it all in. I do wonder aloud how she could be so stupid, but I say this in English, which she does not understand. From my tone though, she knows I am ticked off. I do not scream or make a big fuss. I do feel a twinge of sympathy when she says her heart feels heavy for having hurt Raelynn. But it quickly dissipates when I look at Raelynn's hand again. I told her she should feel bad, but again, I said it in English.

When Jeremy gets home from work, I'll be asking him to find out from his mother exactly how fucking hard it is to not maim our daughter. She should be more careful. Her negligence is appalling and I hate that I have to leave Raelynn with this incompetent fool everyday. A fool who doesn't deserve the son she has or our beautiful daughter as a grandchild. She can blame the stroller all she wants but I place the blame squarely on her homely head.

My Rookie Mistake

This is a true story and is dedicated to all the other new moms out there. And for all of you who have been parents longer, I am quite sure you will enjoy a good laugh at my expense.

One evening after work last week, I was busy trying to balance spending time with Raelynn while preparing dinner before Jeremy got home from work. It's a daunting task at times as she'll just shriek her little head off because she's missed me all day. Yet if I don't at least start making dinner, my husband and I will starve. I usually hop in the playpen and play with her for a little bit and then, when I've sufficiently distracted her with a toy, I sneak off into the kitchen and begin getting everything ready.

On this day, Raelynn predictably began crying again. It sounded like she'd made a poop although she'd made one about 45 minutes before. Some days, she is more like a poop producing factory than a little girl. I don't even need to check as I approach the playpen. I can smell her a mile away. I scoop her up and bring her into her room to clean her up and change her. And that's when I notice this is no ordinary poop. Oh no. It's one of her super poop explosions. And it's everywhere! Dear Lord! How does something so cute make such disgusting and smelly messes? I have no choice but to bathe this stinky creature right away.

And that's when I made the ultimate rookie mistake. I began with cleaning her up the best I could with wipes and then tossing those and the diaper away. And instead of putting another diaper on her, I just left her to frolic around in her crib for all of 2 minutes while I filled up her bath tub. That was my downfall. I'd gotten her bath ready to go and now I was ready for her. What I found was a very happy and energetic baby who had been running back and forth in her crib. While doing that, she evidently peed. And because she was running back and forth, she peed EVERYWHERE.

It's well after 6pm. I've got nothing finished for dinner. I have to give Raelynn a bath. And then when I am finished, I have to clean her crib mattress and wrangle clean sheets on there (which is a total nightmare because MIL had them made and they are a wee bit small so it makes it quite a challenge to put them on). Fortunately, my husband arrives home with a roasted duck. It's like he read my mind and knew we needed something for dinner. Together, we teamed up to prepare some vegetables to accompany it. And Jeremy took care of putting new sheets on the crib mattress.

I learned my lesson that day: Never ever ever leave a baby in the crib (or on your bed or any place that you don't want to scrub urine out of) without a diaper for even a second. Of course I know this could have been much worse. She could have taken another shit.

Here's the pee pee monster taking a bath (this is not from the bath on that fateful pee pee day though):

Give An Inch

I mentioned in my last post how I had been so sick I'd had to stay home from work. And that my in-laws came over and were actually helpful. But just like everything with them, it's one step forward and 10 steps back. Come on! You KNEW this would happen. Their stupidity is as predictable as the sun rising and setting each day. You can set your watch to it.

So at stupid o'clock, here's what went down:
On Friday, I'd come home from work. Raelynn was asleep and MIL offered to watch her some more. As politely as I could, I told her no thank you and that I was just fine. She could go on home now. Oh, but wait, she tells me. She's going to make wontons for us to have for dinner. She's already got the fillings all made up and before I've even answered her she's making a mess in my kitchen. I know my husband will be angry if I tell her to shove her wontons up her ass, so I let her make them. There was no sense in letting them go to waste anyway.

The thing with my in-laws is that once you need their assistance, they think they can and SHOULD always help you. They don't understand that just because I might need you to help me on one day at a certain time that I do not need you every day at the same time (which, as you may have guessed, is half past stupid, of course). So over the weekend, Jeremy and I took Raelynn shoe shopping. I got some new shoes too and we all had a marvelous time shopping away. Shortly after we got home, the head troll herself called my husband and tried to finagle her way over. He told her if she was going to come over, to call him first because he was about to head out to a work meeting. My Chinese isn't very good but I can understand what people say. My husband knew that I'd understood that whole conversation completely from the scowl that had taken over my face. Why the fuck is she coming over here? It's the weekend. It is OUR time as a family. This is MY time with Raelynn. I nearly hit the roof. Thankfully, that bitch backed off and didn't come but honestly, I was a bit pissed with Jeremy (yes, you my dear) for not telling her no. Use those fucking testicles of yours and tell her NO. N. O. NO. She is not the boss of you. YOU are the boss of you. And if you let her be the boss of you, she will try to be the boss of me and I gotta tell you, that woman is going to lose that war.

The rest of the weekend passed without incident. It was a lovely 4-day weekend thanks to the Chinese Labor Day holiday. Today I went to work and came back home. MIL was sitting at our dining table, staring at the door, just like a dog with nothing better to do. Why she doesn't watch TV or read a book I will never know. I squash the urge to repeatedly thwack her in the head with my breast pump bag and instead smile and say hello in Chinese as best I can for someone who just hustled up 6 flights of stairs on the first hot day of the Spring. As I set down my things, just like on Friday, she says oh I'll watch the baby. I stab myself with my nails and swallow the scream that is about to blast from my lungs. Instead, I smile even bigger and tell her as kindly as I can that there is no need for her to be here and thank you so much but please go ahead and go. See you tomorrow! The smile is frozen on my face like it's carved into a block of ice at a bad wedding. Until she leaves and the door clicks shut behind her. Then it melts off into pools of angry. Quickly, I use this rage to fuel a vigorous kickboxing workout while Raelynn still naps.

But it's not long before Raelynn wails away, letting me know she's awake. I feed her and then hop into the playpen with her to play. And that's when I notice something is not quite right. There are crumbs in there. TONS of crumbs. And some larger pieces of stale bread in chunks that could cause Raelynn to choke. There are also dry tea leaves in there, another choking hazard. Like, WHAT THE FUCK?!? Seriously. I know I ask this all the time but what in the hell is wrong with this woman? Why is she eating in the playpen? Why is there TEA in the playpen?!?! Why is it so hard for her to clean up after herself? WHY WON'T MY HUSBAND JUST FIND SOMEONE WHO ISN'T A COMPLETE CATASTROPHE TO WATCH OUR DAUGHTER?!?

It's too bad that she doesn't take that fucking inch I gave her and take off running with it. Run far and fast, Old Yeller. Off to that glue factory. Just off somewhere so I don't have to deal with you. Yes, that's what you can do with those miles, MIL. And while we're at it, you know where you can shove your wontons too.