The British are coming! The British are coming!
I am having a bad week. Ed’s parents are descending on us next week like the wrath of some minor, nitpicking god and The Cold That Has No Equal is still here, having overstayed its welcome, filling my head with mucus and my brain with porridge. I have missed appointments, cancelled appointments, had more soothing baths than I have had in years in an attempt to soak myself back to sanity, not returned phone calls or emails, not blogged, not eated a proper meal or drunk enough water and I think I lost my lovely insulated coffee mug which doesn’t tip over no matter how much I whack it.
Yesterday was a case in point. In the morning I slept through the alarm and so didn’t go to the gym. I lurked for a while with the itchy feeling that I was supposed to be somewhere so when Kaela phoned and said, hey let’s go buy socks, I said sure. It’s not like I was going to paint the front door anyway (although that’s on my list of things to do before the in-laws arrive). We shot off to buy socks and that was actually successful although I saw several nice little black sweater things which I wanted but had to say, no no, I am a knitter, I must make my own damn black sweater thing and not give Macy’s all my money.
When I got home, I gave Helena baked beans for lunch but forgot to eat. Then we had to hurtle back out to school because Daniel had volunteered me to carve a pumpkin in his class despite the fact that I’ve only ever carved one pumpkin and I didn’t do that cushy a job on it.
The plan had been that the carving was going to be for just him and the other kindergartner in a cozy, let’s work together sort of way. In fact, I ended up carving a pumpkin as performance art in front of 12 small children, brandishing huge sharp knives and discussing Samhain and the history of the jack o’lantern in a crazed, nasal voice. Luckily (for whom!) I had spent the whole previous afternoon baking pumpkin stuff which Daniel had wanted to “help” with but he got waylaid by a pile of Christmas toy catalogues and I lost him. So I ended up snivelling and mixing all by myself and howling at Ed when he finally came home to make some dinner so the children could go to bed NOW. So there were pumpkin cookies and pumpkin pie which Daniel and Helena handed round while small children either demanded more or threw the goodies out. We also passed around toasted pumpkin seeds while I invited nicely dressed toddlers to plunge their hands into the pumpkin’s brain and scoop out his innards. Most refused with looks of horror. I actually hate slimy pumpkin brains but couldn’t lose face so had to seize multiple handfuls of seeds and membranes to entertain the class.
Daniel designed faces and allowed the class to decide what I would carve. Luckily, he used a classic design (three triangles and a zigzag) because that’s all I can do. Several near amputations later, voila. Pumpkin. I’m really unsure what the educational value of this little hooha was but now they have a protective idol from a forgotten past grinning on a table in their tidy, Montessori classroom.
Helena was so wiped out by the goings on that she needed to be elbowed, screaming into her car seat. Then Daniel had a piano lesson. Then I managed to put some supper on the table. Then Daniel and I went BACK to school to help host the open house in a Stepford Child “look I can read and hand out grapes, don’t you want your child to be just like me — send them here send them here” sort of way. It felt like false advertising since Daniel is really a bit of Dr.Jeckyll /Mr. Hyde and I tried to balance the situation by expressing my reservations about Montessori education to anyone who was unlucky enough to ask me a question. I brought knitting but did not have a chance to do anything. By the time we got home, Daniel was so tired he needed to be carried and decided he’d rather go to bed than have a cookie. I was so tired I nearly cried, except that makes my nose even stuffier. Ed saved us both.
Before Ed’s folks arrive I have a list of almost thirty things I think I need to accomplish so that when they (okay, she) criticizes me, our house, our life and our children, I will feel prepared and well-fortified. This insane list has me painting the front door and trim, caulking the foyer, painting the cellar stairs, cleaning the back yard and replanting the window box with pansies not that the cold weather is here. That’s in addition to actually cleaing the house and moving out of our bedroom and hiding the wool. I understand that I’m losing it but I’m not quite sure in which direction sanity lies, so I’m just going to keep on rowing towards what looks like shore.
Right now I’m trying to resist casting on a new knitting project since I know it’s just a stress reaction and will actually just end up as one more thing on my list of things to do.
Heavens.
If we add up all the things that moms do, ‘domestic engineers’ such as yourself would get paid like $180,000 a year.
After the in-laws leave, you MUST propose to husband:
“Take the children to the zoo. Bring lunch, snacks, sweatshirts, socks. Stay away for hours. I will be knitting.”
Oh, I feel for you and I am amazed by your list. It is an impenetrable fortress against criticism.
One visit, my daughter handed her paternal Grandma a toenail clipping that she had found stuck in the carpet. I felt like all my cleaning, tidying, and fixing had been completely futile.
Now, I think it was really funny, grotesque, but funny.
..no matter how carefully I plan my ‘house blitz’, the ‘in laws’ always manage to turn up just as I am hoovering…some things are inevitable.