MIL & other Friday updates

I am definitely not 2kg lighter - there is something wrong with that scale :)

Thanks for all the support on the new blog.

And, sadly, the great romance is not to be. I heard yesterday that he knows who it is and is not into her. Poor girl.

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Okay, so remember this post about how little time my MIL spends with the babies?

Well, I've always said the comments are GOLD - if you don't read the comments, you really should :)

What I like to do is subscribe to the comments of posts I'm interested in on blogs I read and blogger conveniently sends them to me by email. Because I almost never go back on a blog to check what other people have to say.

Anyway, a dear reader emailed me rather than posting in the comments because she had such a lot to say. Rachel often does this and I love emailing back and forth with her - she is very wise and totally not cared about what people think which I always love.

I asked her if I could share and she was okay with it. I have removed personal bits about her family. The V is broken on her keyboard :)

Read this:

just read the question about the MIL. Some things to consider, she might not be a "toddler person" just like you are not an "infant person".

Also, just from experience, L (Rachel's baby) is totally NOT a people person. T's parents see her weekly or more at church, and ha^e interacted with her since birth - yet she still cries if either of them pick her up, will hide her face, or stare at them stoicly. When we go to their house, it sometimes takes an hour for her to "warm up", less time if they come here.

On the other hand, she sees my dad (who li^es next door) almost daily, and still often gi^es him the "cold shoulder" for 10 minutes or so before warming up. Based on the e^ents at Preschool (and other things you ha^e said) - I would guess Connor may not gi^e granma much more than a passing glance (e^entually, he will grow out of it - somewhere between 2 1/2 and 4 - as he remembers e^ents after they happen, so that each encounter is built on the one before rather than seeming like a brand new experience for him each time) and that's not totally great for a Gramma ego.

On the other hand, Kendra appears to be more of a social butterfly. If Gramma is not into toddlers, her constant chatter and attention may seem like hours after only 30 minutes. This doesn't mean that she doesn't want to see them ... it just means she feels exhausted because she isn't in rhythm with them. E^entually, they will get to know each other and she will make her ^isits longer, and if she doesn't, she may be trying to force herself into a mould of what she expects a "granma to be" rather than being herself.

How many kids did she raise? How "hands on" of a mom was she? She may not know how to beha^e because of how strict you are with them ... as in, it's not the way she thinks, so for her it's like being in the ocean to swim, when she's use to being in a backyard pool. E^en a good swimmer from a pool, will find themsel^es tired after being in the ocean for a short while. ... and on the other hand, If you are use to the ocean ... a backyard pool may seem boring and tame.

(Think about her personality ... and allow her to be herself. And remember, she raised the guy you lo^e ... she must of done something right. Right?)

I love, love, love this email because it challenged me to be more open-minded.

My MIL raised two kids WITH a lot of help even though she was SAHM. She is not a very hands-on person at the best of times and prefers to read rather than do anything else.

I do know she was a little miffed when Connor wouldn't kiss her at Christmas............ even after I told her he won't kiss us either (now he's Mr Kissy himself... slightly worrying).

She is definitely an I so I'm sure the kids' constant talking would drain her.

Speaking of I's, my friend, Nat, is constantly amazed at how much my kids talk and she said, "it's probably because you talk so much to them. D and I can play for hours without talking" LOL - I love it :)

I don't think our strictness is a deterrent as she likes to know exactly when to do what - I was told to leave detailed notes for her and she texts me if she's unsure :)

The best thing Rachel said was this - Think about her personality ... and allow her to be herself.

Amen!

Thank you, Rachel, for being honest and for challenging me. I appreciate you.

There were TONS of comments from people with similar stories on my original post - does Rachel's email help you too?

P.S. Blackhuff, can you somehow attach your email to your comments? I can't reply back to you but I so appreciate hearing from you!

Mother-in-law drama and family "help"

My mother-in-law is one of those people who discovers something and then goes after the fad 100%.

Like if she decides cider vinegar is the new elixir, well, that's it. We will hear about it forever and a day.

So she is on a mission to have me not use table salt for the babies.

She came over once when I was cooking rice/ pasta (something like that) and told me that sea salt is best, not table salt.

At the time, I said something like "I really don't care" (not as rude) but basically that.

The reason being... I really don't care. I have FAR BIGGER things in life to worry about. And secondly, I hardly use salt. I have low blood pressure because of my salt aversion, for goodness sake. And of course, the babies don't know any difference so still hardly get any salt and definitely no sugar in their food.

So last week she sent me and D a "helpful article" about the table salt again, and also the article said that plastic containers should not be microwaved.

Again, I don't really care. What's 30 seconds here and there?

(also the point is not the content of her email, it's about the interfering which I'll get to in my roundabout way soon-ish)

I asked D how he wanted to deal with it; he said to ignore it. I like to tackle things head-on so I told him I'd reply.

And I did. I told her that we prefer not to live in fear and also (again!) that we hardly use salt so it is not an issue.

I didn't hear a thing back.

But I know she's upset because I feel the tension.

Granted, I'm a little to blame as D said my email was cold and "could you not have put a Love, Marcia or something?" I said, "no, I want the tone to be firm and cold."

Reason being, she is the type if you're not VERY firm, it's an invitation to engage on the topic again and again, and I'm not going there.

I am their mother and I make the food rules. D knows I'm doing the best I can for the kids so he's happy to go along. We have a policy where the one who feels strongly about an issue gets their way if the other one is indifferent.

Anyway, so Friday.

On Friday last week we had a public holiday in South Africa.

I (now) love having an extra day on the weekend because it allows us extra social time :)

I said "now" because when the babies were little, I'd dread the weekends simply because we'd have no help and we'd both be dog-tired by Sunday night.

It has not been that bad the last 4 months or so. We're actually enjoying our time together - who would have thought?! :)

Anyway, back to the public holiday.

I prefer to pre-empt social plans as I then have a measure of control so I suggested to D that we get together with family so that we'd be done til Christmas.

Yes, I'm bad.

D phoned his sister who's always game for socials and we invited ourselves over since his mother was going to be there too. Something about killing two birds with one stone.

I decided to take the kids' lunch, snack and supper with us as well as their bath things and pajamas so that we could feed them, bath them and then put them in the car to fall asleep while driving back from Pretoria, about an hour away from our house.

A couple of things happened to make us realise we really can't depend on anyone else to help with the babies.

D's sister told him on the phone that we can just relax and chill and she and his mom would watch the kids.

Well, his mom watched the kids for 15 minutes while we quickly ate our lunch.

The rest of the time we were "on". Yes, there was some playing with the babies but certainly not that either of us could really "relax".

My expectations were not high so I wasn't disappointed but D was ... he is also highly protective and kept thinking the dogs would attack because they were barking in Connor's face. He was crawling around FAST like a little boy on steroids :) D's point was ...it didn't look like anyone cared about the dogs possibly biting our boy.

I said, "of course no one cares like we do - they're OUR kids"

Anyway, last MIL story.

She has it in her head that Connor loves strawberries so she brings out this bowl with strawberries LIBERALLY covered with sugar.

"Here, Connor"

I said, "he can only have strawberries if the sugar is rinsed off" so D went to rinse off the sugar.

Connor is, in fact, not a lover of strawberries and duly spat them out (I am quite proud that I kept a straight face).

She then tries to keep feeding him these darn strawberries so eventually I said, "no, he can't have anything to eat now. Snack time is over"

Those of you who were reading when the babies were real, tiny babies will remember how Kendra used to graze - 25 ml here, 30 ml there.

Since that's fixed, I am STRICT. No more grazing. We eat 5 times a day and that's it. Not on the hour!

So she said nothing but gee, it's exhausting.

I mentioned the salt and microwave thing to a lady at work who very rightly said, "she means well". That is true and I'm aware of it.

But where does the interfering stop?

She is actually not a bad person, she's a good granny; it's just these one or two things that keep cropping up.

What's your relationship like with your MIL? If you've had issues, tell me what worked for you?

P.S. Did my 45 mins last night at gym. So far so good... But abs very sore from those 140 crunches on Monday night.