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The Nana Chronicles
My MIL is visiting again. She comes twice per year and stays for 3-4 weeks. It’s hard. Real hard. I can’t write about it on my own blog because I can’t risk the wrong person seeing it. So I write here, anonymously, because keeping this stuff in would surely be bad for my health.
These are the Nana Chronicles. In these chronicles, my 4-year-old son will be referred to as ds (dear son), my nearly 2-year-old daughter as dd (dear daughter), and my husband as dh (dear husband).
I Am The Law
Maybe I’m an over protective mom, but I just don’t think it’s OK to let a 4-year-old self regulate when it comes to the super fun activity of swimming in a freezing cold body of water. A just opened swimming pool in May is not a welcoming temperature in our neck of the woods. Ds loves to swim and if it were up to him he’d continue to swim until he died of exhaustion and hypothermia. It takes a grown up to see that the child’s lips are blue, that his teeth are audibly chattering, that his entire body is wracked with uncontrollable shivering. It takes an adult to step in when the child is crying because he’s so cold and yet he insists on staying in the pool. That is when a grown up lays down the law. Clearly, Nana is no grown up.
Ds has been in the freezing cold pool under Nana’s supervision. I went out to check on them and found ds in what looks like the beginning stages of hypothermia. OK, time to call it quits for now. Ds cries. What does Nana do? She argues with me. “He’s fine. Look, you made him cry. We were perfectly happy. He wants to keep swimming.” This is where I want to launch into a monologue listing the times when Nana fails to be a normal grown up. This is when I want my cracking, barely intact, fake-nice and welcoming exterior to just crumble away altogether and let the RAGE out. But I don’t. I don’t trust myself to even open my mouth. I turn around, walk inside, and tell dh that he is needed outside. I also tell him that ds needs to come in, per my absolute law which overrides all other laws.
In the end I’m the mom and what I say goes. That is just that. Generally, being a reasonable and normal adult (despite his upbringing!) dh is on the same page as me so the fact that my law is the end-all-be-all of laws isn’t really an issue. I out-rank him with regards to the kids. He probably knows that but it doesn’t come up that often. It seems to come up every minute with Nana. I out-rank her by so much and she seems perfectly oblivious to this.
Luckily, dh knows that I meant business. As I write this ds is in a warm shower. I am the law.
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Oh, how I feel for you!
My MIL lived across an ocean, meaning first child’s baptism was planned so they could come for it, only first child was a couple weeks late. Thankfully, she did not stay with us, although with a 10-day old, I was put out by my husband having to drive them back and forth from the hotel (40+ minutes each trip), not to mention her wanting to sit right next to me (and I mean thighs were touching) when I breastfed. First child is now 4 1/2 years old; second child is two years old. Thankfully I haven’t bitten my tongue off yet; it’s been bitten many, many times now.
Anonymous, I commend you for laying down the law! My 4-year-old does the exact same thing with the pool! I am fortunate that both grandmothers are pretty respectful of the fact that parents trump them. Just now it’s my dear husband making the crazy judgment calls and we’re having to duke it out, oops, I mean negotiate, a lot around that. (And related to the last post, he also sometimes argues with the 4-year-old like he is one.) .
Dear friend, I’m going to go out on a limb here and pretend I know you, like for realz. All I can do is implore you not to keep loaded guns in your home. If you don’t, brava. If you do, don’t start. Because the only law that trumps Mom Law is that nonsense about not shooting your MIL in the face.
Don’t be afraid to flash that badge, girl. Take charge!
YES YES YES!!! I believe in “grandma rules” (ie….cookies past right before bed, staying up a little later than normal, etc etc), but only to an extent! If it’s midnight and you are STILL letting my kids stay up and watch tv and telling me “Well now they’ll sleep in!” Ummmm, NO! No they won’t sleep in! My kids don’t work that way! They will still be up at the butt crack of dawn and will be little grumpy monsters for the rest of the day, weekend, week, until I can get them caught back up on their sleep. SO, when I say it’s time for them to go to bed, it means frankly….it’s time for them to go to bed! MOM LAW!