Arrival of the in-laws.

Posted by mumormedic June 29th 2017

So, deep breath, the in-laws are coming today. Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually very lucky and could have done a lot worse in the in-law stakes, they’re kind, considerate, care about the boys and are willing to help if they’re able to (given my FILs ill health and the fact they live on the opposite side of the country this is somewhat limited, but the offer is there for occasional help.). Having said that the whole experience is always somewhat stressful.

My mother in law and I are very different (or maybe I wish we were very different, but actually we’re quite similar, don’t they say something about men marrying a woman like their mothers?). MIL was a full time stay at home mother who raised 4 children who did every extra curricular activity under the sun and, kept an immaculate house (and still does), her children always wore ironed clothes, they had an open house policy and the children always had friends over to play and for tea and her children all excelled at school, played several instruments, partook in multiple sports and could speak more than 1 additional language and this was all from having gone to the local village school. MIL didn’t require any additional help and did all this on her own and loved every minute of it (as we frequently hear). I, on the other hand, work 0.6% FTE and my husband is a full time medical registra. To try and make the work/children/life juggle work I’ve recently given up on trying to be superwoman and despite lack of finances have just thrown money (we don’t have) at the problem. We now have a cleaner, ironing lady and nanny. Despite this my house rarely looks clean, except possibly in the one hour after the cleaner leaves and before the boys get home, the children still don’t wear ironed clothes (but at least I now look less like I’ve just rolled out of bed) and I certainly don’t have an open house policy, in fact I don’t have enough fingers to count on the number of play dates we owe people. Luckily 5 year old boy is popular so despite having a mother who rarely finds time to host a play date, he seems to get invited to play at various friends houses on a regular basis.

 

Anyway, back to the in-laws, so having rearranged the cleaner to come today rather than at the beginning of the week like she usually does and ordered an online shop so we’d have food in the house, I got home from work to discover the boys have been playing in the garden with the nanny so their was a trail of sand and soil through the downstairs where they’d come in to go to the toilet, get snacks etc and the food that I’d ordered hadn’t arrived, or at least it had arrived, except the only things that had been delivered were toilet rolls, 6 bottles of wine and a case of beer-thinking about it I vaguely remember logging on, booking a slot and starting the shop a few mornings ago after a night shift, when I decided I was actually too tired to shop properly so I checked out with the plan to come back to it later-oh well, the in-laws will now just think I’m an alcoholic with a toilet problem. Off to the supermarket it is then with the boys in tow and hopefully we'll be home before the in-laws arrive and we won't find them sat on our doorstep on our return.