At Your Service

I thought I'd start with a few teasers, some of the small stuff my MIL pulled while on our trip. Whet the appetite a little bit.

Like my daughter puking the first day we were there. I sent the in-laws to the store for crackers to settle her stomach. They came back bearing cookies for my girl and a present for her brother. No present for the puker, and apparently cookies are supposed to help with nausea.

Or my MIL telling me all about the time she visited us for Christmas when our daughter was three. Um...they've never been to the US for Christmas, and the last time they were here girl child was 19mo old. This incident prompted me to email my husband telling him I'd fallen down the rabbit hole and not being able to find my way out.

I can tell you about how my MIL never read to my children, bathed them or made them a meal. FIL brought her breakfast in bed, on a tray, every morning we were there. I didn't get coffee unless he made it for her, one morning being told that if I wanted a cup of coffee there was leftover coffee in the thermos from yesterday.

I'm sure I'll remember more to tell in a future post, but let's cut straight to the finale. Hubbie was only able to come for two weeks Read: I was alone with inlaws for one week, he was to join us for the final two. The entire last week we were in their home my MIL did not speak to my husband. This woman, who had not seen her son in a year and a half, got mad and did not speak to him for an entire week.

For real.

What egregious error had my husband committed to warrant that silent treatment? While I took my parents on an errand, my husband had the task of checking out of the hotel and packing our week's worth of luggage into the car, all the while watching our two preschool children. Mother-in-law, whose baggage was next to the reception desk, wheeled said baggage to the front door to be loaded into her car when it was returned from the train station.

Apparently, my husband should have moved it for her.

He only found this out later that night when we couldn't figure out why his mom was avoiding us. When he asked his father, the response was that she was upset that Hubbie hadn't helped her move her luggage.

For real.

Let me elucidate:


There were no stairs involved. She did not ask my husband to help her (which he would have been glad to do if he even knew that she needed help). All he knew was that sometime during the time frame of packing our car and chasing after our kids, the suitcases were wheeled 25 feet from Point A to Point B. This generated seven days of silence from his mother.

One would think the story ends there, but here we sit two weeks later. We on our side of the ocean, they on theirs. Husband Skyped with his parents yesterday; or, as he corrected me, parent. FIL talked on camera to Hubbie and the kids. MIL? Refused to come on the screen, much less talk. Translation: She did not talk to her grandchildren. She "said hello" through my FIL, but sat there with her elbow in view but sat in stubborn silence the entire conversation.

I told Hubbie I was going to buy him a t-shirt with a bellhop on it that said "At Your Service" just to be an asshole. When I asked him how to say bellhop in Swedish*, he said he didn't know. And that, I told him, was the reason he was in this mess. If he were the dutiful, prescient son he was supposed to be she wouldn't have to be upset with him. Or maybe, she's just a grumpy old bitch.

*It's piccolo, fwiw.