Yes, I Do Know That I Sound Ungrateful. So What?

My mother-in-law arrived Sunday. “Arrived,” I guess, is not the right word. Several months ago, Mr. WG announced that he had a great plan.

“I’m going to pay for a ticket for my mother to come visit,” he said.

I was, somehow, somewhat… underwhelmed by the greatness of this plan. I would have preferred a plan where my MIL paid for her own ticket. I would have been over the moon for the plan where there was simply no visit at all and we could just be our happy family of six. But I would have settled for my MIL paying for her own ticket.

“You don’t understand,” Mr. WG explained helpfully. “It’s MUCH cheaper for me to buy her one ticket than for all six of us to fly to Israel.”

Yes, yes, that is true. But since we DID buy six tickets not even a year ago, I didn’t quite get the urgency. Whatever. Mr. WG took the kids and went to pick her up from the airport on Sunday morning. He made much of the fact that he was taking all of the kids, thereby leaving me entirely free.

Entirely free, with no car, and with a house that looked as though a tribe of monkeys had made it their nest for several years. I leapt into action, laundering, sweeping, scrubbing, and mopping. I didn’t quite finish before they got back, but I got pretty close. When I heard the garage door, I raced for the shower. By the time I got dressed and rejoined everyone in the kitchen, my MIL was unpacking her suitcase. In the kitchen.

You see, whenever my MIL comes to visit, she first spends a month or three cooking at home. She freezes everything she cooks, packs it into the suitcase, and brings it to America. Because we have no food her.

As she unpacked approximately 27 containers of various combinations of frozen meat and fried dough, a spool of thread and a needle fell out. “Is this yours?” my husband asked.

“Yes, the last time I was here, you needed a button sewn back on your shirt. So I thought that you might have some more mending.”

Good thing she brought that. They stopped selling such items, what, ten years ago in America?

Next, she began explaining to me about the proper care and feeding of my children.

“You know,” she said, “you need to toilet train D. You need to just take off his diaper and put underwear on him. Then, you just ask him every few minutes, ‘Do you need to go potty?’ And you put him on the toilet every twenty minutes or so.”

Well! Thanks for that helpful course. You know what? Knock yourself out. Go ahead. No problem.

Monday morning, the jet lag had her up at 4:30 a.m. So when I came out for breakfast, she said, “I figured, since I was awake anyway, I should get to work. So I organized all the kids’ closets upstairs. Also the playroom.”

“Great. Thank you. That was very nice of you.”

“Come on, I’ll show you what I did and explain how I did it.”

“I don’t climb stairs before I drink coffee,” I muttered. Understand, I don’t really like to speak before I drink coffee.

“But I want to explain it to you. See, I folded all the clothing and put it neatly on the shelves.”

“Fantastic.”

“And that way, it will all be neat.”

“Yep.”

“And I picked up all the toys and put them in boxes.”

“Excellent.”

“So now the playroom is clean.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And now, you just have to tell the children to make sure to keep it that way.”

“Right.”

Today, Mr. WG decided to go to a conference in the city. For the whole day. Which means that MIL will spend the day sitting on her bed upstairs. Just sitting, staring into space. That way, when Mr. WG comes home, she can tell him, “No, I didn’t do anything. She didn’t give me lunch.”

By far and away, though, my favorite part of her visits is that ALL OF MY HUSBAND’S SIBLINGS CALL HER EVERY SINGLE DAY. When she is here, I am like a secretary.

Deep, cleansing breaths. It’s all good. It’s all good.