Today I was sad first thing in the morning, so I had coffee, turned on extra lights, stripped Henry down to a diaper to nurse him (skin contact helps), ate a muffin, put on lipstick–and then went to Target, my lovely, lovely Target. This is the kind of therapy that can backfire if children are whiny and demanding, but it went fine today. Elizabeth did keep saying, “Noooo! Noooooo! Noooo! Noooooooo! Nooooo!” for no apparent reason, but I just kept stuffing snacks in her whine-hole while I browsed. Photos of my haul:

Wrapping paper, 75% off: 87 cents – $1.24 per roll. I was especially glad to find the birthday paper, since William is going to a birthday party soon. Also, I like girly paper better than boyish paper, so I end up with 50 rolls of pink stuff and nothing to use for the boys’ birthdays. I think if I wrap Paul’s presents in floral paper even ONE MORE TIME, he is going to retaliate by wrapping mine in SpongeBob SquarePants paper.

Candy, 3 for $5.

Reusable drink boxes with flip-up straws. I think these will fit in the boys’ lunch boxes a whole lot better than the bottles I’ve been using, and the flip-tops will please William’s teacher, who recently mentioned that most first graders can’t handle screw-off caps so please send pop-ups. 30% off: $1.18 each.

[Edited to add: These bottles were AWFUL! One of my boys got to school to find a puddle in his backpack: the bottle was still closed but had leaked its entire contents. The other boy said his had not leaked–but when he unpacked his lunch things at the end of the day, the leftover water HAD leaked (bottle securely closed–I checked it myself). I threw them both out. It’s not worth the trouble to return them (I don’t have the paper label things anymore).]

Candles for my dad’s birthday cake. The candles spell out “O V E R T H E H I L L”
This is COMEDY GOLD, BABY. 75% off: 48 cents.

Ooooo, QUTE! This lil’ bottlekins has pancake powder in it. You add water and shake it up. Then you pour into a skillet. You get 6-8 pancakes. The bottle feels nice to hold in the hand. WANTED IT. 30% off: 72 cents.

Set of two pink gift boxes. 75% off: 98 cents.

Initial cards for friends. 75% off: 98 cents each set.

Socks for Elizabeth. 50% off: $3.14 for ten pairs.

Rose-scented lotion, talc, and body wash. They were in that aisle of specialty products where they keep lines such as Bert’s Bees. There were two other scent choices, but the gardenia smelled like coconut to me, and the other one (lavender? jasmine? lily? can’t remember) smelled like banana. The rose smelled YUM. 75% off: $1.68, $1.98, $1.96.

Today I’m going from 50mg of Zoloft down to 25mg; soon I’ll be weaning off it entirely. I remember from the last time I went off it that I had headaches, listlessness, lots of sadness, lots of “what’s the point of anything?” and “nothing is fun anymore” feelings. Since I knew to expect that, it wasn’t TOO bad: I just kept reminding myself that this was the medication-reduction talking, not my actual brain. And before long, I felt fine again.

So! I am looking for ways to combat sadness. Here are some of the things that work for me:

1) Caffeine
2) Turning on lots of lights
3) Nice smells (scented candles, scented soaps, scented shampoo)
4) Funny books (Dave Barry, Colin McEnroe, Jeeves books by P.G. Wodehouse)
5) Treats, especially of the warm cookie sort
6) Exercise (sometimes: this can also backfire on me and make me more tired and also discouraged and weepy)
7) Hot food, especially creamy-chicken-casserole things
8) Shopping, especially at Target

More tips?

I have been cleaning all this month (in preparation for the mother-in-law visit, and to keep things tidy while she was here) and I am so sick of it. With so many hours spent in mindless activity, I’ve had time to think about how sick of it I am. And I have come to a happy and convenient realization: it is not good for my emotional well-being to have a clean house.

Having a clean house turns me into a FRUITCAKE. I snap at everyone. I hate everyone in my family because all they are doing is MESSING UP MY CLEAN HOUSE. I get all weird about tiny little spots. Must! be! perfect! I feel frantic and overwhelmed all the time, like I’m trying to keep back the tide with my bare hands. There is so much to do! THERE IS A CRUMB ON THE COUNTER!!! The more I do, the more I see that also needs to be done: cleaning the sink makes me realize the cabinet fronts need work; cleaning the cabinet fronts makes me realize the floor needs mopping.

You’d think that if cleaning several hours a day makes me frantic at how much more needs to be done, I’d feel even MORE than way if I WEREN’T making progress. But no! That is the wonder of it all! There is no logic here! When I do less, I feel MORE in control of things! Trying to keep the house clean IS like trying to keep back the tide with my bare hands. But if I let things go, it’s not like it keeps getting worse and worse until we’re waist-deep in garbage: it descends to a certain level of disheveled, and it stops. And a Cheerio falls gently to the floor, and no one freaks out.

So. Um. I’ve had about nine Oatmeal Scotchies, so now I have the Scotchie Courage to tell you what I did about Zoloft.

What happened, if you remember, is that I started freaking out increasingly as the mother-in-law visit approached. My mind turned to the half-finished bottle of Zoloft in my underwear drawer, saved because I hoard things like that, and because when I was trying Zoloft it was a $40 copay and so I didn’t want to toss it out lightly, and then the years went by.

I posted that the medication was probably expired (although the expiration on the prescription bottle has to be one year or less from the fill date; the actual expiration date can be much, much later), AND I was nursing a baby, AND taking it would be really stupid without doctor supervision.

And you commented, and nobody said, “You idiot, I can’t believe you’re even considering it,” and some of you even said you’d know it was a bad decision but you’d take it anyway, and for all of this I was supremely grateful.

Backstory, since we’re here anyway. That Zoloft prescription was from two mother-in-law visits ago; that is, not this one, and not the one before it, but the one before that. I didn’t realize that I was freaking out because of her impending visit; I thought I was generically losing my mind. I went to the doctor because I felt like I was going to jitter right out of my skin. He put me on Zoloft and also made me see a psychologist AND a psychiatrist. My mother-in-law left and I felt SO much better and went off the Zoloft. I went off it gradually and afterward had half a bottle left over, which I didn’t bother to throw out. End backstory.

That backstory was because I am postponing telling you that I DID take the expired Zoloft, WITHOUT consulting a doctor. I think that was a Bad Decision, even though it worked out well for me–and so I didn’t want to confess it to you, and I also didn’t want to advocate it to the internet at large, as if I thought it were a good idea when I think in fact it’s a pretty crappy idea.

I did consult Dr. Google to make sure it was okay to take while breastfeeding, and I also greatly valued the emails I got from several of you telling me of your breastfeeding/Zoloft decisions. I was glad to know that I was not the only one who (1) felt conflicted about taking it while breastfeeding, and (2) chose to take it. I also checked to make sure it wasn’t one of the few medications that becomes stronger or changes effect when expired (it isn’t: it just slowly loses potency).

There were several reasons for my decision to take the Zoloft all vigilante-style:

1) I didn’t know what to say to the receptionist, if I called the doctor. It seemed like a long story, and I seemed too far away from the birth of the baby, and I couldn’t think of how to begin. I still can’t. And I don’t even know if I’m supposed to call the OB or my regular doctor.

2) Last time I went on Zoloft, the doctor said he only felt comfortable prescribing it if I ALSO saw a psychologist AND a psychiatrist. They didn’t help me. The psychiatrist kept trying to put me on stronger, less-tested medications I wasn’t comfortable with trying and saw no reason to try since the Zoloft was working fine. The psychologist kept trying to make me complete sentences such as “If someone doesn’t like me, I think I must be ______” (hint: opposite of likable).

3) Since then, the practice has changed around, and my doctor is gone, replaced by a new doctor I’ve never met. So I can’t even start with “Here’s what we did last time; here’s what I’d like to do this time.”

4) I only wanted to go on the Zoloft for about a month. And I had about a month’s supply already in the house. And it was way, way easier not to mess around with phone calls and appointments and babysitters and explaining things to the doctor and arguing against treatment options.

So. For eight days I took 25 mg/day, biting off half of one-half tablet (taste: slightly bitter, not too bad). Then I went to 50 mg/day. I’m going to stay on that for another day or two, until the aftershocks from the mother-in-law visit have faded. Then I’m going to go down to 25 mg. Then 25 mg every other day. Then every third day. Then off. I go off Zoloft VERY SLOWLY, because people have had trouble with suicidal thoughts while discontinuing it.

I am pretty sure it helped me cope with the mother-in-law visit. I still did freak out, but I think it was less. It is so difficult to say, because when I am on Zoloft I feel as if I am the same as I always am–but when I go off it, I feel different. I think it is possible that when I go off it, I will think, “WAIT! I want that back!” And in THAT case I will call the doctor and get a fresh prescription.

Hey, you remember how I ordered new dishes, and they arrived and they were “Made in Columbia” instead of “Made in England” as advertised, so I sent them back and got a replacement set, and those were made in Columbia too, and so I sent those back, and Amazon.com said they wouldn’t try again and so then there I was with no dishes, wondering if Amazon.com is selling counterfeit dishes or what? And basically I flipped the flip out? Remember that?

So a couple of weeks before my mother-in-law arrived, I went out looking for similar dishes. I liked the highly decorated kind I’d found before, with pictures on them. I thought that if I couldn’t find anything like that, I would just re-order the Made in Columbia ones, since they were basically perfect except for not saying “England” on the backs, and the only reason they “had to” be made in England is that (1) they were advertised that way and (2) I think of English china as The Best, and I wanted these to be The Good Dishes and (3) my mother-in-law’s visit was nearing, and that makes my brain twist into crazy knots of irrational.

I found dishes in a pattern by Johnson Bros. called Old Britain Castles. I got them at either TJ Maxx or Marshall’s, I can’t remember which. I like them even better than my first attempt at dishes: these are thinner so they seem dressier, and the colors are sharper. Plus, they say “England” on them. I’m still worried they’re fakes (mugs instead of teacups–surely that’s not right?–and they don’t say “MADE IN England,” just “England”), but I’m happy with them.

Here’s a picture:

Except, as I said, I have mugs instead of teacups/saucers.

We used them all through the mother-in-law visit, and they were a success. I felt HAPPY with them, and happy to be using them, and pleased with the pattern and how the table looked when it was set, and fine with the idea of the children loving them and fighting over them after I died. Now I’d like to get some serving pieces, but they didn’t have those at the discount store, so meh.

Next time I need to get Good GLASSES, too: I didn’t think of that, so we were serving meals off pretty dishes accompanied by colorful plastic cups. Dressy!

I apologize in advance to all of you who, like me, have so many new posts to read you are clicking and skimming, clicking and skimming, trying desperately to get the number of unread posts down to zero so you can relax–and meanwhile new posts crop up every time the RSS reader refreshes. But my plan of the day is this:

1) Put out bottomless sippee cups and crunchie bowls for the twins and let them watch TV all day long.

2) Eat brownies and drink coffee with peppermint mocha creamer until I wish I’d never been born.

3) Blog. Repeatedly. I have missed you–nay, LONGED for you. And so you may need to click and skim. I don’t know how many times I will post today. Does “legion” work for you as a rough estimate?

Goodbye giant gallon-size container of cranberry juice hogging so much of the fridge!

Goodbye silent-but-palpable judgments!

Goodbye non-silent judgments!

Goodbye “duh” noise!

Goodbye noticing everything I do and buy!

Goodbye still not realizing in your sixties that different people have different ideas and make different decisions, and that that does not make them “idiots”!

Goodbye not liking our older children!

Goodbye eating in 2 minutes and not saying anything nice about the food!

Goodbye soft-boiled egg every single goddamned morning!

Goodbye wanting everything cooked without salt or fat!

Goodbye not realizing you like bland food because you’re OLD, not because “everyone” adds “so much seasoning to everything”!

Goodbye making critical remarks about everyone and everything in the world and then adding “But they didn’t ask me!”

Goodbye, “hamburg”! Also, it’s ground turkey.

Goodbye password-protect on my computer!

Goodbye having to hide my journals!

Goodbye implausible stories about how evil and stupid other people are, and even more implausible stories about how righteous and intelligent you are!

Goodbye claiming you need us to provide “plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables” and then eating nothing but the canned corn and the iceberg lettuce!

Goodbye sitting in the passenger seat with your purse neatly on your lap!

Goodbye sitting in a recliner telling me which children are crying or need their noses wiped!

Goodbye unkind comments about weight, you fat troll!

I am breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth. My mother-in-law gets more comfortable with each passing day, and the thin wall between her brain and her mouth continues to deteriorate.

Last night Rob came upstairs on the verge of tears, saying that he’d accidentally knocked the bag of Scrabble tiles off the table, and tiles had gone everywhere. He was despairing about having to pick them all up, since he and William had JUST finished cleaning up. I know exactly how this feels, so I was telling him some of the ways I cope with this kind of thing: (1) clean it up fast and get it over with; (2) make a game out of it; (3) take a few minutes to do something soothing before approaching the frustrating task. My mother-in-law said “quietly” to Paul, “OR, you could just PICK THEM UP.” She followed this with a duh-flavored “ckkk” noise, like, “Buncha idiots.”

This morning I put some already-made muffins into the oven to heat them. Normally I put muffins in the microwave, but they’re so much better if you can make the top crunchy again, so since we have company I put them in the oven. She said, “You know, Swistle, you can just put those in the MICROWAVE.” Oh! I can use OTHER SOURCES OF HEAT? I NEVER would have realized that if you hadn’t told me! So I explained in a light tone about how I wanted to make the tops nice again. She made her duh noise again, followed by, “It’s not that important to ME.” Tone: “You crazy, wasteful idiot.”

Paul made an experimental dinner that came out GREAT. I mentioned it no fewer than six times while we were eating, praising the seasonings, the colors, everything about it. Toward the end of the meal, he made a little joke about how awesome the food was. My mother-in-law said, “I guess you have to toot your own horn if no one else is going to do it.” Tone: “My son does his WIFE’S job, and she doesn’t even appreciate it.”

I was playing with Henry, telling him what a cute baby he was. My mother-in-law said in a “joking” voice, “Except for that spot on his head!,” referring to a patch of cradle cap. I decided not to get into it, and just went on playing with Henry. She couldn’t let it go, and said, “NOT his most attractive feature!”–still in her “joking” tone.

I made a batch of brownies, which mother-in-law really liked. I thought they were insufficiently chocolatey, so when I made another batch, I added an extra chunk of baking chocolate. My mother-in-law kept making little remarks like, “Well, you wouldn’t want to make them BITTER” and “They tasted chocolatey enough to ME”–with a little laugh like I was weirdly picky and possibly crazy. I brought her a plate of brownies when they were done, and she ate them silently. Then she said in an unpleasant tone, “Well, I wouldn’t want them any MORE chocolatey, THAT’S for sure.” I didn’t respond, so she said it again. I tried to pretend that we were just having a fun cooking discussion, so I said contemplatively that no, I didn’t think I’d add more chocolate that this, and that the only thing I might do is try half an extra square instead of a full one next time. She said flatly, “Yes. That would be better.” Tone: “This was a stupid idea. You ruined these brownies because you couldn’t be happy. Half a square will ruin them less than a full square did.”

She asked when Henry would start solids. I said that the current recommendation for breastfed babies was around six months, but that my pediatrician said it was fine to start as early as four months. She said, “Oh, because he’s nursing SO FREQUENTLY. I think he’s HUNGRY.” Henry is nursing six times per twenty-four hours, which is if anything INfrequently.

She said the twins were learning to talk so rapidly! And just think of how much more they’ll be talking in even just a month! And that’s even with Rob and William being “such poor role models!” Rob has a mild articulation delay; William does not.

She has referred to Paul many times as a “chocoholic.” Not only does this term give me a flash of Garfield posters and “funny” email forwards about how broken cookies don’t have calories, but Paul is not a big chocolate eater. He likes it fine, but can take it or leave it most of the time. She’s trying to say he’s fat and eats a lot of junk food: she always uses the word when referring to his size or his eating habits. She’d talk about Paul’s father and how much weight he’s put on, and then sigh and say that he was “a chocoholic, just like Paul.” I finally said, “Actually, Paul doesn’t eat much chocolate,” and she IMMEDIATELY jumped on it: “GOOD! Because he doesn’t need it! No, he SURE DOESN’T NEED IT.”

She was reading to the twins. They were bringing her the paperback Maisy books they like. She made a sarcastic remark to the twins, “Oh, ANOTHER Maisy book? Oh GOOD,” then rolled her eyes at me and said, “These BOOKS. There’s nothing TO them.” Oh, dear, are my TWO-year-olds not reading War and Peace yet?

We went to Target, and she told me about these wonderful cooking utensils she’d bought on her last trip to see us. She did not buy those. I gave them to her for Christmas. She never said anything about them; I assumed because she was too busy telling me that she had no use for the tea I’d also given her.

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One of the things that has always pissed me off mightily about my mother-in-law is the way she has falsely predicted my future behavior/feelings. She’s a terrible “Wait until you….” type. When I was pregnant, it was, “Better sleep now, because after the baby comes you’ll never sleep again!” When I professed to enjoy the new baby, she said, “Wait until he’s a toddler!” If we bought anything at all for the new baby (crib, car seat), it was, “First-time parents have to buy ALL the trimmings!” When I mentioned wanting another baby, she said she’d wanted that too until her second was born. Etc.

One thing I hate about that kind of prediction is that I can’t argue with her about it: I DON’T know how things will be later on, so even though I think she’s wrong, it’s hard to say so. NOW she has added a new spin: telling me false things about the PAST. She said, “When Rob was a baby you had a SCREEN over the nursery door to keep the cat out! Now the cat just walks right over the baby!” And: “When Rob was little you kept ALL the toys JUST SO on the shelves! But NOW look!” Merry laughter as she simultaneously mocks my past self and my current self.

But the fact is, when Rob was a baby we let the cat hop right into his crib–with my mother-in-law FREAKING OUT about it. And we had toys all jumbled together in a bin and on the floor next to the bin, with my mother-in-law saying “to Rob” things like “Let’s try to make some order out of this chaos,” and then “under her breath” (i.e., loudly enough for me to hear in the next room), “This is just IMPOSSIBLE!”

See, this way she gets me again and again. She predicts how foolish I will be and mocks me for that future behavior. Then she criticizes the way I actually do things, without noticing that she was wrong about how I would behave. Then she remembers my behavior hugely incorrectly and mocks THAT. Then she also criticizes my current, “inconsistent” behavior. And none of it can be argued with. Wow. She is a MASTER.

There were many who asked of my last post, How could I say this mother-in-law visit wasn’t horrible? And very gratifying it was, too, as were all the other comments, some of which made me cry-laugh. When I delete these posts, I always save all the comments into a wordprocessing document first, so that I may pet them and love them and hug them to me like little sweet hamsters of love.

And now I will answer the question. I have many, many answers:

1. Because it is relative. Normally she stays 2.5 weeks. At this point I would still have almost 2 weeks left to go, and black despair would be filling my heart–but instead I have only the weekend. I can make it to Monday.
2. Because I am getting used to it. Just as I now know from experience that for a month or so after childbirth I will require frequent hot meals to remain sane, I now know from experience that a visit from my mother-in-law will require certain coping devices: bag of candy per day; a nursing station in another room; liquor and tranqs if not nursing; caffeine every single morning in large quantities; scheduled activities; pushing her into interactive activities with the children.
3. Because Paul, too, is getting used to it. Just as he now knows to provide me with plenty of meals after a baby is born, he now knows to take a few days off of work while his mother is here–ignoring my protests about how much smaller his paycheck will be. He knows to take his mom and Rob and William to a museum a couple of hours away, so that they will be gone all day, giving me a day to enjoy my quiet, empty house. (Well, quiet and empty except for two toddlers and a baby.) He knows to invite his mom to play games in the evening, so I can go off to another room and breathe. He knows that when she says for the fiftieth time that we should “add a can of corn to stretch that hamburg,” he should reply, “Oh, gross! No, mom, we’re not going to do that”–rather than leaving me to flounder in politeness. He knows to TELL me that if we buy such-and-such she’ll make comment X, or that if we do such-and-such an activity she’ll make comment Y–so that I will not fall into traps. He knows she is HIS mother, and that he must not disappear to his computer, leaving me alone with her. He knows not to defend her if I complain later. And he knows how to make an excellent dismissive sound combined with a dismissive hand gesture, as if to say, “She is nothing to us.”
4. Because my expectations have changed. At first I hoped for good visits and a good relationship. Now I hope not to kill her, and not to have a horrible uncomfortable fight with her. I hope to GET THROUGH IT, that’s all. If I also manage to make things easy on myself by avoiding a feud, all the better.
5. Because I am selective in what I tell you. Do I tell you about the perfectly pleasant–if boring–chat we had over a breakfast of coffee and juice and fresh-baked muffins? No. Do I tell you how she several times praised the muffins? No. Do I tell you about how I got her talking about her job and thus passed several hours of nearly irritation-free evening? No. Do I tell you how she’s been going back to her motel around 8:00 p.m., giving me a couple of hours each evening to restoreth the soul? No. I just tell you the bad stuff, so that you will pity me and leave comments that further restoreth my soul.

Speaking of which, let’s have some more bad stuff. It’s more interesting to talk about, and it helps to vent to you–I don’t like to complain TOO much to Paul, since she IS his flesh-and-blood (*shudder*).

1. Paul and I went to pick up our car at the shop the other evening, leaving her in charge of the sleeping kids. When we returned, there was the STRONG smell of pesticide in the house. We were totally mystified, searching all around for leaking cans or outdoor breezes. Then we looked at each other, as both of us realized the most likely explanation was that his mother had sprayed while we were gone. Using the pesticide we use ONLY outdoors, and ONLY for severe infestation problems. We’d seen her making faces at the few flies that always manage to get into the house this time of year, and she’d commented on the fruit flies “all over the place.” To be fair, we don’t know that this is what happened. Those mischievous fairies could have been to blame.
2. I was running around this morning as the children cried and fought and needed things and the mother-in-law sat in her chair regarding the spin of the earth. Henry was fussing, so I gave him to my mother-in-law to hold. After awhile she said, “Could he possibly need to EAT again?” I figured he needed a nap, so I took him. And he was totally blown out, all the way up his back. She couldn’t have failed to notice: it was completely visible and smellable. Note: There was no way she could have won with me on this one, though. If she’d said, “Swistle! This baby needs changed!” (there’s evidently an Infinitive Conservation Initiative where she comes from), I would have been even more annoyed. If she’d changed him herself, I wouldn’t have liked her questions or her rummagings or her comments about it. So I fully admit it was a lose-lose-lose situation for her; nevertheless, I was annoyed and the situation seemed indicative of deep character flaws. In her, I mean. We can talk about mine another time.
3. The morning she and Paul went to the museum, she brought over a sack of dirty laundry for “if” I was doing laundry today. First: the dirty laundry was FOLDED, which irritated me immensely. What does it MEAN? Second: as I discovered after the first load and again after the second, she had tissues in most of her pockets. Surely I was not expected to check her pockets. (You might think I’d mind doing her laundry at all, but again, this is lose-lose for her: if she does it herself, I resent her “snooping” my laundry.)
4. She keeps making these fake-laugh comments about how riDICKulous everything is at our house. The counters are SO HIGH! The changing table is SO HIGH! The cupboards–she can’t REACH, because they’re SO HIGH! She TRIED to set the table, but she just can’t REACH that HIGH! It’s riDICKulous! Shrill fake laugh! She is five feet tall. Pardon us for having standard counters and changing tables.
5. She keeps doing things I can’t interpret. I find a few clean cups from the drying rack in a little stack of unmatched types on the counter. Is she trying to…help? But also commenting on how riDICKulously high the cupboards are? I can’t tell. What does it mean that all our shoes have been lined up by the door? And the FOLDED dirty laundry. Like crop circles, the meaning defies interpretation.
6. This afternoon, she commented, “Whooo, we’d better get a start on dinner!” If you think this means that the two of us work side by side to get dinner ready, you would be SADLY MISTAKEN. This was her way of telling me that she thought I should be starting dinner.
7. This morning she and I went out shopping with the three littles. She commented that I could do this now that I had another adult to help me out. I can’t explain to you how VERY HELPFUL she was. Like when we were getting ready to go, and she got her own coat on and sat quietly while I got all three children changed and coated, the diaper bags gathered and readied, the house ready for us to leave it–and then she remarked with a laugh how FUNNY it is that it takes SO LONG to just get ready to go anywhere! Or like when we came out of the store and she got into the car and sat there with her purse in her lap, tactfully not complaining about how long it was taking me to unload the shopping cart of the three children and all the purchases. Oh, she is such an excellent and helpful companion! How DO I manage without her?

With not quite four days done, and more than three days remaining, I am beginning to lose my joie de vivre. The mother-in-law visit is not horrible. But I am counting days.

Tuesday night I had a bad dream that my mother-in-law was visiting. Then I woke up, and I thought, “Whew.” Then, “OH NO!!!”

She is getting gradually worse with each day, as usual. Yesterday evening, she told two little anecdotes about pregnancy weight–both after looking at me consideringly. One was asking me if I’d heard Barbara Bush’s story about how she gained 60 pounds during pregnancy and unfortunately the baby didn’t weigh sixty pounds. Second: “I know why your cat is so fat! She never lost her pregnancy weight!”

She’s made several negative remarks about Rob’s overbite. Opening sally was “What are you going to do about Robert’s teeth?” in the demanding tone of voice a manager might use with an underling who had committed a grave error and was being asked how she was going to fix it. Another day: “Whoooh! Robert’s TEETH! My GOODNESS!” Later she said to me, “So Robert gets his teeth from you, I guess?” I wasn’t sure what she meant, and I said, “Paul had braces too, right?” She said, “Oh! Yes! But not for anything like THAT! My word!”

She said, “Who drinks HEINEKEN??” the way you might ask, “Who hired this HOOKER??” When I said we kept it for my dad when he was working on the house, she said, “Whoooh! Because I knew PAUL didn’t drink it! Har har!” So I guess she assumed it was mine. As if there’d be anything wrong with that. And since Paul hasn’t lived with her since pre-drinking age, I can’t imagine why she thinks she knows anything at all about it.

She is wearing her coat inside. She keeps saying she should have brought her winter jacket but hadn’t realized she’d need it.

We went to Wa1mart and she said she needed to buy antacid. She said she usually doesn’t need it at home, but when she eats “so late” she has trouble. We’ve had dinner twice at 5:30, once at 5:45.

She asked Henry if he is getting spoiled. She asked him, “Oh, is the WHOLE WORLD not paying attention to you?”–when he fussed lightly after an hour of silence in his bouncy seat. She’s informed him loudly that his socks were falling off. She asked him if his mother was going to change his diaper in the living room in front of everybody.

Last night she was silent when William mentioned he was out of pull-ups (he wears them to bed). Today she told a story of some CRAZY mother she knew whose child still wasn’t fully potty-trained at age four. IF YOU CAN IMAGINE IT.

She was watching me help Rob with his homework. Rob is learning cursive. He and I had to work for awhile on his lowercase B, which he was doing like a lowercase L followed by a lowercase R. Later, my mother-in-law said to me, “Swistle, I heard you telling Rob about his cursive B earlier.” I said, “Mm?” She said, “I see YOUR B looks like an H with a line through it!” Merry laughter. Oh, I see: clearly it was ridiculous, then, for me to correct Rob.

I told William to come outside to get his hair cut (I do his with clippers). My mother-in-law called out immediately, “Robert could use one too.” Oh yes? Should he also get a real job? Also, perhaps she could notice that he does not have 2 years’ hair growth; therefore, we are managing to get his hair cut even when she is not here to tell us he needs one.

She’s been telling the kids what to do, and then criticizing the way they do it. She says to us, “They’re getting pretty GOOFY,” in a hard, disapproving tone. Yesterday at the store she said exasperatedly, “You need a whole grown-up just to take care of Edward!” I’m trying to breathe deeply and remember that this probably will not cover them in emotional scars. She’s an old bat, and it’s good for children to learn of the existence of old bats.