 |
| Grandma Kleiboemer holds Max while we wait for the pediatrician. |
The former is because I am relaxing on the couch, my feet propped up on an ottoman, with a warm and cuddly infant sleeping on my chest.
The latter is because my mother-in-law in on her knees, cleaning all of the dog nose prints off of the glass coffee table.
Before Mom flew in from Arizona, she told us that she was coming to help and work and care for the baby, and that she would brook no refusal. She's a petite little thing, but she can be as formidable as my own mother when it comes to being determined to do what she wants to do.
Dan may have pledged to cherish me during our wedding vows, but it's really his mother whom he puts on a pedestal. I at first had to convince him that it was entirely appropriate to let his mother do chores around our house because I really needed the help after major surgery to bring forth our son. I reminded him that my mother had stayed with me for 10 days after Gabe was born, making meals and doing laundry and changing midnight diapers, and that it made all the difference in the world in me being a capable mother of a newborn.
Mama had been helping me my whole life, though, and it was easy to let her do those things. After three days of labor, comfort and assistance from my mommy was all that I desired anyway.
But now that my mother-in-law is here, tirelessly dusting furniture and folding laundry, I have to convince myself that this is good for our household. I'm perfectly content to let her hold/rock/walk/change the baby so that I can prepare a meal or write. But watching her be Miss Molly Maid is disconcerting. In some ways it just reminds me of all the ways I'm not a good housewife.
She sternly reminded me that my job was to take care of her grandson -- her first and only -- and that she'll dust as much as she pleases.
Apart from the housework, it has been marvelous for her to get to spend time with Max. Well, with the rest of the family too, but let's not kid ourselves. She's soaking up some serious baby time in between these chores.
We're all loving that part.
Lucky you!! When our first child was born, my mother (my sister and I called her "the prom trotter") came to "help" and was more concerned about whether my husband got an evening cocktail (we never had evening cocktails), and why I was still schlepping around in a bathrobe and slippers three days after delivery than whether the laundry was done! ..........We hired a woman for a week after the second and third children's births!
ReplyDelete