Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The best defense is a good offense

Floors vacuumed - check
Kitchen clean - check
Horizontal surfaces dusted - check
Bathroom sparkling - Uh, not yet, but it will be (Right after I finish writing this. A girl's gotta have her priorities)
Clothes picked up off the floor - see above
Child sufficiently napped and in appropriate clothing - She will be, dammit, if I have any say in the matter (which I don't always have, but today I'm willing to take up that fight)

ETA - 5:30pm

Who's visiting? Heads of state? Foreign dignitaries? V.I.P.s?

Not quite.

My mother in law is coming.

(The mother in law is coming! The mother in law is coming!)

My mother in law is coming over this afternoon to watch Chicky while I run off to play - ahem - work with dogs and my husband plays in an Ultimate Frisbee game. She'll be here for a grand total of about two and a half hours but as of this morning my house could have been considered a Superfund sight so it must be thoroughly cleaned.

It was a long weekend after all and no one wants to clean house on a beautiful, three day weekend. My yard looks fabulous but my house? Eh, not so much.

Why must my home be squeaky clean? Well...

First of all, I love my mother in law, let's be very clear about that. I love both my in-laws. They're really great people who have been extremely helpful since Chicky came along. My MIL stayed with me after Chicky was born, helping keep the house orderly and making sure I was getting the hang of breastfeeding (she is a former La Leche League leader). She and my FIL have never declined to care for Chicky if we have a scheduling conflict - like tonight - or if we need a night out to ourselves unless they have other plans that couldn't be broken. We rely on them quite a bit.

But, let's face it, she's still my husband's mother. Mr. C can convince himself that his mother doesn't judge me on any level, but he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. My MIL is as judgmental as any other mother. And us mothers? We're a tough bunch of bitches some times.

She's actually a fairly easy going person. For instance, she knows we have a lot of pets and pets mean lots of hair, so it's not like she's running around my house with a white glove testing the piano for grime. But this is the woman who, shortly after Chicky was born, told me how she painted her entire house when she had an infant and a pre-schooler at home. You know, because she felt like it.

With an infant and a pre-schooler.

Needless to say, my MIL would not be understanding of the time I spent blogging or catching up on celebrity gossip when I could be reading "More, More, More, said the Baby" for the six hundred and eighty second time or digging around in the yard educating my child on the wonders of nature. Or at the very least, keeping my house clean. Not spotless, just clean.

And my house is still far from that. Only four more house until she arrives. Better get crackin' on that toilet.


(Thank you for your reassuring comments on my last post. Your words of encouragement meant everything to me. For real. I wish I could send you all cookies.)

26 comments:

Avalon said...

WOW. If having a MIL makes a person clean their house like that.........maybe I should have considered marriage.

Wendy said...

1. I think she is not remembering something correctly. You know my mom remebers how easy going she was and everything went smoothly. Uh, yeah I was there and that is not how it was.
and
2. If they had the internet, their houses would look much like ours.
;)

Anonymous said...

A MIL is a tough crowd, no matter how well you get along. Even if they are not judgemental, enough time has passed that they tend to forget about the messy houses, etc. that come along with little ones.

J. A. Blackburn said...

woah boy... I am RIGHT THERE WITH YA. My MIL is threatening to come Thurs night and that means frantic housecleaning. Sigh.

Magpie said...

I send my kid to her grandmother's house instead of cleaning my house!

Anonymous said...

Been there, done that. Just last weekend.

Anonymous said...

Between me, my mother and my mother-in-law, my house is probably the cleanest and I have a toddler.

I think as my mothers get older they aren't able to get to the cleaning as much.

Plus, my mom is a packrat who never throws crap away.

Anonymous said...

Delurking to say, OMG, that is so me! My husband can't understand why I go nuts whenever his parents visit us, but my lord, their house is spotless so that means ours has to be too. They're actually coming to visit us this weekend (they are awesome, helping us to renovate our bathroom), so that will be me running around like a vacuuming/dusting/floor scrubbing fiend on Friday night. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who does this :)

Anonymous said...

I can totally relate! I spend days cleaning up before my MIL arrives.... it makes me (and the rest of my family) C-R-A-Z-Y!!!!!

flutter said...

ahhhh Have fun with the MIL, she acutally sounds quite badass

Girlplustwo said...

in laws are invaluable. yours sound terrific.

and hey, what kind of cookies?

Lawyer Mama said...

I'm a cleaning demon when my in-laws are coming as well. I just have to!

And Dear Sweet Mother of God, she painted the whole house with an infant and a pre-schooler?!

Anonymous said...

I don't clean for the MIL...she dirties it up even worse than I ever could. And the kid. Even dirtier.

OhTheJoys said...

My MIL is astonishingly not judgemental. I think it's because she's maybe 10 years in recovery... not one to cast stones. She's easy to be with and that's great.

Buffy said...

You had me at 'mother in law'.

PunditMom said...

I LOVED More, More, More. Unfortunately, PunditGirl is a bit old for that one now. Enjoy the clean!

wayabetty said...

I'm so totally there with you Mrs. Chicky! Even at 7 months prego, when the MIL came for a visit, you could practically eat off of the floor, AND I was cooking up the storm. WHY? Well, that's to show her that her son is being cared for and we don't need to have any roommates (i.e the in-laws) in the near future.

Anonymous said...

Once more reason why you should be horribly envious of me (besides my good looks, charming wit and ownership of the World's Greatest Dog. Ever.) is my mother in law is not only a nice woman, a world class cook who drops in with precooked meals to lighten my load on a regular basis and is a built in babysitter (willingly) as she lives down the road.

She is a pig. She abhors housekeeping of any kind. So when she comes to my house she marvels at how clean it is, even if it filthy. It is always clean compared to hers. And she marvels at my pantry. My DISORGANIZED pantry.

She makes my feel like Martha Freaking Stewart.

You gotta love that!

Kara said...

When you have inlaws with raging unmedicated OCD, EVERYTHING is a mess to them. I tidy up, and we have a weekly cleaning lady, but I now know that nothing I ever do will come close to their expectations because I am reckless enough to engage in such violently unsanitary behaviors as preparing food that is allowed to be consumed outside of the kitchen/dining table, pet ownership, a full time job, and giving birth to their grandchild who is allowed to play with toys and organize her room the way she wants to.

I just drink a lot. It makes their visits seem much shorter.

Tuesday Girl said...

I am on a high alert because my in laws are coming next week and STAYING WITH US for a week.

I will die trying to keep this house as clean as it needs to be with cleaning wonder woman coming.

Oh your MIL judges you too!? So strange. : )

kittenpie said...

I totally am the same. My MIL is very nice, but her house is always spotless, and doesn't seem to have been much different when she had three small children. And now I am not keeping her son in the same style? Unh-unh. Scrub on, dear.

mamatulip said...

This is me. At the very least, the kitchen and bathrooms must be clean, but I prefer it if my home is sparkling with such force that my MIL has to wear her sunglasses while she's here. And it's not like she's that kind of MIL, either. She's totally cool, very laid back, very understanding of the fact that I have a daughter and a Wrecking Ball for a son that tears my house apart on an hourly basis. It's just...me. Something I picked up from my mom, I think.

And when my Gram ventures over? WATCH OUT. I spend the week in cleaning mode. The fact that she's nearly blind doesn't even matter. Good thing she doesn't come over much...

Cara said...

I have the same issue, I felt the need to make my house (when I had one) spotless before both my MIL and my mother would be coming. If my husband told me his mother was coming and I wasn't there to Clorox the bathroom I would feel ill.

Blog Antagonist said...

Oh yeah. I'm so with you. I probably judge my MIL more than she judges me (long story) but I'm still not going to let her see my house looking like a stye.

Because I am the mother of boys and I KNOW how judgemental *I* will be.

No, no, no. Hell to the en. oh.

Ruth Dynamite said...

I think we have the same MIL. It's terribly exhausting, but she is so lovely. She gives out Easter baskets with grass she's grown from seed, you know. Last year she gave "vanilla" as gifts. She made it herself. It took months. I'm hoping she can knit something with all my animal hair.

Damselfly said...

Wow, I'm impressed she was an LLL leader. She sounds great in other areas too. But I know what you mean -- after 12 years of marriage I still feel I have to make a good impression on my in-laws.