The Parents Descend

My parents haven't been able to visit E in VT since her birth due to lots of craziness on both sides of the lake.

In NY, Mom was dealing with her own round of surgeries, and both she and Dad were handling matters with my grandparents' deaths. You know about the craziness in VT with my surgery and new-mom life.

Didn't my counselor tell me I should start a family calendar? Yep. Would have been very useful yesterday. I actually have a family calendar, but just FYI... It helps if you write your appointments on it.

My already stressed-out Mom and Dad arrived Sunday evening. I had made a crap load of veggies late in the afternoon with the intention of reheating them while baking a half ham. Voila! Easter dinner!

I cheerily texted "Happy Waster!!" (Thanks, auto-correct!) to all my friends as I bopped around the kitchen, wasting my few moments of post-surgery energy on dancing. E enjoyed the show from her bouncer but conveniently got bored right as the veggies were done. I figured you can't over-boil potatoes and carrots, and let them sit another hour while I tended to the baby beast.

Mom and Dad arrived early. I put E in her crib to keep her busy a moment, changed her diaper, and Dad called me into the kitchen to assess my veggies. I forgot about E and returned 10 minutes later to find her pantless and chewing on her fingers peacefully. She was 100%, totally fine. In other words, she was "neglected" (per my high standards of parenting). Dinner proceeded normally but so began a parental visit with a general feeling of blah-ness at realizing I couldn't babysit my guests and tend to my daughter at the same time.

We all chatted for awhile after dinner then Mom and Dad headed to a hotel at E's regular temper-tantrum-inducing holy-crap-I-gotta-go-to-bed?! time. E also got creative and paired this parenting challenge with the holy-crap-it's-2am-let's-have-a-party!! wake-up call and feeding frenzy which led straight into the holy-crap-I-gotta-pee-5-times! diaper-changing marathon. I concluded that having a baby is like taking care of a drunk college friend every Friday night... for the rest of my life, and I cried a little bit.

Late-morning came quickly, and Mom and Dad arrived at 9am. I got E fed, dressed, and ready to head out right in time for Dad to decide he wanted to do our taxes for us and take care of some other errands. He proceeded to search the entire house for the papers he needed, and I panicked, doing the same. This led to a series of panic attacks especially when he didn't find them but instead found the other hidden, crumpled pile of letters he had sent me explaining how I needed to organize my finances after Mark and I got married. He gave up and retired to the sofa while I had a mini meltdown.

The good thing? As a mom, I couldn't resort to crying. I had to pick myself up, call the Town Clerk for those missing papers, make two other calls to rearrange some appointments, and get E ready again for our outing. We had to stop at her day care, eat lunch, and run a few other errands. Mom helped, I re-fed her, and was just getting her car seat ready when there was a knock at the door.

I mumbled a "Who the hell...?" and opened the door to find the housekeeper. I forgot that I had scheduled one more cleaning session with my housekeeping gift certificates.

I'm supposed to ready our house first - just a minor pick-up for floor/counter cleaning, etc., but I had completely forgotten. I gave the woman freedom to do whatever needed to be done to clean, and ushered all four of us out of the house, while my mother insisted E wasn't dressed warm enough AND while explaining to the cleaning lady that she doesn't know why her daughter keeps her house this way, that she certainly wasn't raised this way, that me (the strange one) just isn't the "domestic type." Humph.

It's true, I am no Bree Van de Camp. I'm not even a Lynette Scavo. I'm probably some mix of Susan, Gabi, and one of those moms you see crying in the freezer section at Walmart.

However, my baby gets the best of me, and my parents had to get the leftovers. I calmed myself, insisted to Mom that she didn't embarrass me in front of the cleaning lady, and headed out with my family.

We went to lunch, visited the day care, shopped at the craft store, went to Walmart (no crying in the freezer aisle), Babies 'R' Us, Starbucks, and home. I had to breast feed E in the car. She peed all over her only blanket and the bench at the restaurant. Me, who never wants to ask for help, had to have Dad get her stroller and Mom get paper towels.

Everyone survived, barely. We came home to a gorgeously cleaned home. We had dinner, and Mom and Dad went to their hotel. Mark came home from work and put E to bed. I plopped down on the couch to RELAX.

Mark offered to rub my feet and legs. I graciously accepted under one condition: that he would not give me one look of romantic anticipation, not one hopeful touch that this leg rub would turn into anything more physical. And after he promised me that, then halfway through the leg rub broke that promise, I told him this exact story, word-for-word. He hugged me and sent me to bed. Alone.