Day Four and catching up

Mac was taken to school by Granny today. I insisted and all but threw them out of the door. Then I felt terrible and rang Dawn, asking her to text me when they arrived at school. "Take a stroll along Nunhead Lane afterwards Amelia!" I said cheerily as they departed and I slumped onto the sofa. It's no exaggeration to say that it's been hell for the past couple of days. Those without in-laws (or those with nice in-laws) gape at me when I start snarling about Amelia but David left for work early today and was whistling.

Thursday, when she arrived, set the scene for her entire stay so far. David tells me it can only get better but, as he was telling me this from a restaurant at Tower Bridge and I was sitting here with her and a frugal ham sandwich, I'm not convinced. Apparently, he is looking peaky - amazing that she knew seeing as this statement was made three hours before arrived home on Thursday night. David's Ex Wife "knew how to look after him" - this was said as she sifted through the ironing basket after twenty minutes on the premises. I am also "ruining Mackenzie" by letting him have half an hour of television before David comes home. This from a woman who gave him three bags of Haribo sweets when he got home from school and refused to let me put some away for later. "Leave him! Children need to make choices". Mac didn't make any choices between the bears or the strawberries or the sour mix but poured them all in a bowl and got down to munching. Said bowl is now somewhere unaccessible for a five year old. She asked me yesterday what I'd done with them - I professed not to hear and turned the radio up.

On Thursday she asked to see the menu for the week - I gazed at her and mumbled something about "chops for tonight, fish and chips for tomorrow and stew for Saturday" which made her sniff haughtily and question my imagination on the "cooking front". The house wasn't up to her standards either - I could tell this by the way she ran her finger along the window sill and examined it closely. The speck of dust she found was then magnified immensely and she started asking me if I'd seen that "brilliant machine that gets rid of bed lice". I've had nightmares ever since of bed bugs the size of Amelia criticising my bed linen "which wouldn't look out of place in a bordello". The bathroom also came under fire: "do you need all this clutter in here?" she demanded, pointing to my glass sail boat and crystal seahorse who were minding their own business on the towel cabinet. On Saturday she tugged all of our coats off of the coat rack and into a heap and told me to "sort through these, surely you can ditch a couple?" I was so tempted to bin her hideous puffa jacket thing. So, so tempted......

She also seems to have mistaken me for an entertainments agency "I'm bored" being the continuous refrain. Mildly irritating when a five year old who has a whole room full of toys to play with says it, horrifically stressful when it's an elderly woman who once castigated me for "sighing" during a long walk in Hastings. "How can you be bored?" she whirled round and demanded of me. I protested my innocence but she was off and running about the "younger generation not knowing they've been born". I wasn't sighing because I was bored, I was inhaling because we were walking up a hill.

Ginny, her beloved only daughter, rang for a chat yesterday and David, wonderful man that he is, told Ginny to come up for the day on Wednesday to take Amelia out to lunch. Ginny agreed after a bit of hissing from David but Amelia is all for ringing up and cancelling "She doesn't want to do that! I'm okay here! I'll find something to do.". I've taken the battery out of her mobile and have not left her alone with the phone. Oh, and Lydia has refused to visit again until she's gone - Freddie is a bonny child, his health visitor is very pleased with him and he's giggling away like that very last baby on the Cow and Gate advert. Amelia, however, took one look at her great grandson and pronounced him "obese". Even Freddie looked unhappy at this and unleashed a nuclear nappy. Lydia has made an emergency appointment at the baby clinic and keeps sobbing that she's overfeeding her baby and is like one of those trailer park mums. Matthew was despatched this morning to "have words" with his Gran. Instead he spent the entire time with me in the kitchen whilst Amelia "channel surfed" looking for something "educational - doesn't your television show anything other than rubbish and foul mouthed presenters?"

According to Amelia the mothers at the school gates are a degenerative lot. She came back this morning looking horrified. "Piercings, foul language and chewing gum - and they wonder why children are potty mouthed and dress like tarts?" she announced as she got yet another Yorkshire Tea tea bag out of her special caddy. She didn't make me one, nor even offer by the way. We spent today at opposite ends of the house. Or, to be more accurate, she followed me around. My ironing skills were ripped to shreds, the fact that I use Flash Liquid was held up to ridicule, my hoovering arm "isn't flexible enough" and my "lick and a spit" in the utility room is the reason why "it smells like a raddled old tramp out here".

I've got at least four more days of this. At least. I think I'm going to start seriously looking at the suggestions in the comments to the previous post. Although. Between you and me. I did make her a caffeinated coffee instead of a decaff one on Friday night which gave her a teensy headache all day Saturday. It was an accident. Honest!

Day Three

Amelia is here until "at least" Friday. Friday. That's a whole week. Or it was yesterday. A whole seven days of hell on earth. I've taken on board all of the suggestions I've received, War Command has been set up on my half of the bedroom. Picture this, if you will:

A notebook is constantly at my elbow, not only to record the cutting comments aimed in my direction but also my thoughts. Token Gay Friend Andy suggested this as did Potty Mummy (apologies, but I've embellished your suggestion PM!). I'm currently sifting through the notebook, composing a post (it helps to share and vent) but all I'm doing is succeeding in getting myself into such a rage that I'm in danger of overdoing the

Alcohol: copious amounts of vodka (which set her off on a rant about my being an alcoholic) cunningly hidden in cranberry juice and coke but she knows it's in there. This was a suggestion from my darling sister and also Married With Four. I needed a double when I heard her say to Mac "I don't know what's wrong with your mother!"

An aura of serenity: sort of suggested by Nappy Valley Girl and Charlie who has herself, today, been on the receiving end of Amelia's cutting wit. "Have you still not got a man?" said my mother in law. Charlie inhaled sharply (her love life is something of a sore point) and rammed an entire Ayres hot cross bun (unbuttered) into her mouth.

Thinking happy thoughts. This from my beloved husband who is wearing a weary expression and keeps apologising for unleashing her on the household. I feel so sorry for him, I really do. I can't quite work out how somebody as lovely, generous and warm came out of that woman.

Eating: I've done nothing but eat Quality Street today. Of course, it's given her more ammunition ("Should you be eating that much chocolate? Those jeans are awfully tight already") but at least this way I get something good out of it. Or, as Janey pointed out, "you may just well put on half a stone and that's a great way to piss her off, turning yourself into a lard bucket". She means well.

Denial. This isn't happening. It's a bad dream, I'll wake up in a minute

Day One

Ameila is here and arrived at quarter past eleven with enough luggage to cover at least a week long stay. The clouds of doom are getting thicker and heavier around my head, the dogs are already moping in their baskets, knowing they're in for the duration.

Thus far we have the following:

Criticisms of my wifely skills: five

Criticisms of my motherly skills: eight

Complaints about my cooking/"lack of imagination in the kitchen": three

Comments about the "state of the house": ten (three bathroom related comments)

Suggestions that she is bored already: two

Suggestions for "fun" things for me to do to "entertain her": six

Sarcastic comments directed at friends/family/mums at school gate: numerous

Times I wanted to tell her where to go and what to do when she got there: far too many to even mention

Trying times

What is with the weather? After the weekend, in which we went to London Zoo to visit Mac's meerkat (explanatory post to follow), and spent the day in T-shirts and quaffing ice-cream, I've spent today alternately freezing my feet off, getting drenched, jumping at the thunder claps and not going near any windows in case I got hit by lightening.

It's been a bit of a week this week - I've had a headache since Sunday evening - and it's set to get worse. Amelia is arriving tomorrow for a prolonged visit while her flat in the residential home is being redecorated. Everything is currently beige: walls, skirting boards, carpets - I asked her what colours she's chosen this time and she answered "Magnolia". The words "why are they bothering" spring to mind but still, it gives her the opportunity to visit, criticise my cleaning ability, comment on my whites and terrorise me from dawn to dusk.

So she's relatively happy.

Oh my!

Forgive me for this slightly self-indulgent post but I just have to tell you that I appear in the list of Top 100 UK Parent Bloggers - now, how did that happen? And at number 38!

Like Married With Four, I'm surprised (but highly pleased natch!) that I'm even on the list. I haven't quite worked out the technicalities - believe me, that will take a little while due to the fact that I'm not technical - but wow! All this plus, MWF is back, back, back and I've found some new blogs to read and follow!

Funny?

Mac came home from school on Friday sporting a red nose, clutching a picture and covered in glitter. They'd had Red Nose Day at School which consisted in dressing in their own clothes (I always felt a bit wrong doing that when I was at school, like I was out of place), eating "funny" food (jam sandwiches featured heavily) and telling jokes. So here, at enormous expense is the funny that Mac unleashed on his school mates:

Mac, no doubt shyly: "Knock Knock?"

Classmates in one bellow: "who's there?"

Mac, doubled over with laughter: "Nobody!"

Classmates, surely in confusion: "Nobody who?"

Mac, exiting stage left "told you, haha!"

I must admit I didn't find it funny. And tried to convince him that he somehow had the joke wrong. "But it's not funny" said I in confusion on Thursday afternoon. "Oh it is mummy!" he giggled and then roared with laughter for about five minutes. Later, as I was tucking him in I broached the subject again by asking him to tell me his joke again, whilst I reprised the role of his classmates. More giggling followed the "joke" and I tried to slip in a few of my own funny Knock Knock jokes as a substitute. He wasn't having any of it. "No, my joke is funniest" he said adamantly, setting his chin in a defiant pose, just like his father.

"Did you get Mac's joke?" I demanded of said father when I returned to watch mindless television and drink red wine. "Yes, quite funny!" David said, channel hopping away from Eastenders in the vain hope that I didn't see it. I did. And tried to make the joke funny in my mind. I gave up after a while and concentrated on the unlikely story line in Easties.

"He'll be fine darling!" Bea announced the following morning when she bustled in to say she'd Done Something Funny For Money - she went into Claire's Accessories to buy some red wigs for Caitlin and Ian. "Lovely girl, it was awful. A slip of a girl with multiple piercings in her eyebrow and lip area asked me if I wanted my ears pierced as they were doing a special offer". For Bea, had she accepted this offer, it would have been her equivalent of scaling Mount Kilimanjaro. "They do it in the window of the shop!" she went on, shuddering as she handed over a set of deely boppers for her nephew. "I felt like I was in Amsterdam rather than Lewisham!" she went on, sniffing out the Earl Grey teabags and filling the kettle.

Lewisham? I asked my sister if she were okay, Lewisham not being her usual shopping destination. "I needed a key cutting place, Stephen has locked away my credit cards because of the credit crunch, I had to get a copy of his key cut and thought Lewisham was suitably, shall we say, suitable for such nefarious activities?" Talking of nefarious activities, I asked her if Stephen knew she had his key and had, in fact, copied it. "Don't be silly darling! He doesn't even know that I know he keeps it in his sock drawer! He thinks he has got the better of me, well, let me tell you, nothing separates me from my credit cards, not even my husband." She had taken on a crazed look at this point and started stroking her fringed bag like a Bond villain.

I need not have worried, Mac returned full of his "fun" day at school and revealed that everyone had laughed at his joke and he had won the Best Joke of The Day award. Whilst very proud of my tiny boy, I spent Comic Relief night, glued to the television, the words "now that was funny!" every time a joke was told forming on my lips.

Shopping frenzy

I've got so many birthdays coming up the next couple of months that I've decided to be extremely pro-active (unusual for me) and buy now (hoping and praying that I remember what the hell I've bought for who).

Shiny Shack came to my rescue - they do personalised things, jokey things, sweets, cards, charms - in fact anything you could possibly think of. I've bought Bea this, to make up for the lack of bling from the Tower of London.

Go on, visit......I bet you buy something!