My mum and I have been at loggerheads with each other for the past two weeks. I don't know how long more I can hold out.
Firstly, my mum wanted to help out for my confinement like she did the previous time. We knew that she would throw herself into this cleaning/cooking/"I'm so busy" frenzy, so we offered to hire a confinement nanny to help her. She said she could manage fine without one, so we didn't. But the hubby took 2 weeks of leave to help out with Junior J, just to make things easier. So she's been helping with the house chores like the laundry as well as cooking for us. I manage the baby (she goes back after dinner everyday) and hubby cares for Junior J, and I've also hired a part-time cleaner for two months just to help with the deep-cleaning. Even with this arrangement, she has been complaining. About how tired she is, and how busy she is, having to cook my meals and normal stuff for the hubby and her own household. She grumbles about cooking Junior J's food, when we've already told her Junior J can actually eat whatever everyone is eating, so long it doesn't have too much soy sauce/salt and MSG. She claims she doesn't get enough sleep, but she has the time to drag my MIL out to go shopping for toiletries (which they seem to go and buy every time my in-laws visit, which is almost once a month!). She even wakes me up in the middle of a much needed nap to ask me for my Body Shop card, because she wants to go shopping! But I bite my tongue, and try not to say anything. Its just one month.
Then there's the kitchen. Raw meat defrosting in open plastic bags shoved next to fruits, their meat juices almost dripping on the fruits. If you mention it to her, she says its fine since everything is in a plastic bag. Thus far, I've had 4 bouts of diarrhoea, but I've tried my best not to say anything, except for the time she brought a odd-smelling flask of red date tea that gave me a massive case of the runs (the hubby took one sniff at the flask and said it smelt of cockroaches). And everything we have isn't good enough for her, so she has to bring two of her own rice cookers, a kettle, plus a whole bunch of dishes, as ours are the wrong size/shape/colour whatever. Again, I just try not to go into the kitchen. Just one month.
Its her need for everything to be done quick quick quickly, I think, that really gets to all of us. Dinner time has to be peppered with many "hurry up, hurry up! swallow!" when she fed Junior J, while trying to shove large mouthfuls of food into his mouth. To the point that sometimes the boy would put his head down on the table and refuse to eat, point blank. The hubby took over feeding the boy, and as he's now back to work, I've been feeding the boy (with one hand while nursing baby). And for every mealtime, she would ask me what time I'd be able to eat. Give her an estimate, and she would bang open the door 5 minutes before and ask, at the top of her voice, if she can cook now. Usually that happens to be when I've just settled Baby J for a nap. So Baby J wakes, and I have to take another 15 minutes to settle him. During which she keeps barging into the room, and asking me why I was taking so long, and that she has alot of things to do (while totally not accepting the suggestion to just leave the food on the table). I got desperate and tried locking the door, which didn't work since she just hollered through the door... Deep breath. Just 4 weeks.
Oh, and she can never be wrong. Not when she borrowed a sewing needle and left it on the sofa after using it (she told the hubby some story about her leaving a needle on her clothes and that she was totally fine. I'm just glad Junior J didn't get hurt.). Not when the hubby got so exasperated one day with her "hurry-up"-ing that he asked her to relax and not rush around (to prove her point, she came over late the next day, saying we asked her to take her time).
And those baby theories... ranging from "babies will eat and sleep all the time" (and that I was selfish), in response to my request that she help me keep Baby J awake in the day (she wasn't the one who had to stay up with him during the 3-6 am stretch!), to all the fussing about his belly button protruding out (she kept trying to put a coin on it, despite us telling her that the area was rather weepy and needed to air lest it got infected). And the most recent one has been this constant poking of the little one's left ear, to "make it less pointy and less ugly".
Please don't get me wrong. I'm really grateful for her help. She is efficient at housework and she tries her best to do the chores and cook, and it's not easy having to run two households, so I'm thankful that she's willing to help out. Its just all this constant emotional hammering is getting rather hard to bear, on top of all the sleepless nights. I'm praying for patience and asking God to show me how to love her. Meanwhile... its just one month. Or rather... 1.5 weeks left!
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