Twinkle: Clearly My MIL Needs Jesus

 

Tonight is the Christmas dinner for the women in my church. A friend from church asked me to make one hundred little candy bags with festive ribbon for each place setting. I just went to where the dinner will be held, at one of the local country clubs, to put the favors at each place setting so that everything would be set up for tonight.

Before doing this, I was thinking about bailing on the dinner itself, because I really want to support Middle and her bracelet venture tonight at the evangelical church. I was debating it while setting the candy bags on all the tables, and then I remembered that going to the evangelical church event would also mean seeing MIL, and then I made the connection about setting the tables.

You all know that, on every holiday, my MIL will invite every woman and girl in the family to come set up the tables, except me. I have asked to be included, and offered to help. I want to be part of helping. There have been a very few times when she gave me assignments, like flower arrangements, and then decided to do it herself instead without telling me. I was thinking about that as I put out the candy bags.

How is it that a bunch of Arab and Serbian grandmothers are nicer to me than my own MIL, even (especially) with my last name being what it is? My friend asked me to make the candy bags, and get them there, and then she let me do it. She didn’t tell me how. She didn’t make different candy bags at the last minute because she figured I wouldn’t do it. She didn’t say, “Never mind about the candy bags. We don’t need them as fancy as you’re going to make them.” (And for the record, they were a normal degree of fancy.) She trusted me. I got them done. She has one less thing to do and I get to feel more invested in the event because I actually helped.

Any time there is a dinner, someone has to get there early and set the tables. It’s such a normal thing to want to help with that I was halfway finished before I realized, “Hey—look at me, helping set the tables before an event.” It’s something I’ve wanted my MIL to let me in on for years, but MIL makes a sport out of keeping me out. The church ladies actually like me, want my help, and trust me. So, I do support Middle’s bracelet efforts, and she knows that. But tonight I’m showing up for the church ladies who have shown me kindness and acceptance.

Twinkle: Exhausting Bracelet Drama

 Sigh.

First of all, I had to see MIL yesterday at drop off for stupid Hebrew School, which I hate, but what can you do? I think learning Hebrew is worthwhile, but they don’t do much learning of Hebrew there, so all the kids in Hebrew School also have to be privately tutored. It’s actually a huge waste of time for everyone, so why don’t we just skip Hebrew School and do the private tutoring? Yesterday was a three-ring circus, as every day after school is. I dropped Youngest and Middle off, and told MIL that I’d be picking up Youngest in a half hour because she had too much homework today, and when I picked up Youngest I’d be also dropping off Eldest, who works there with the little kids. MIL’s reaction was to say, “I can’t keep up with all the players here.” No shit, MIL. That’s why I have asked you repeatedly to let me in on the plans you make with them, so that I can keep up with all the players here, because keeping up with all the players here is literally my only job.

Middle came home from Hebrew School with an envelope carrying $350. These were, presumably, the proceeds from the bracelets MIL has made and sold. Sigh. I have no idea where this money is from, who paid, if we owe anyone bracelets, what people paid for them. I just have $350 cash, which I guess will be a nice Christmas influx of cash on hand, but, as I said before, I really wanted to make the donations in $100 increments because it’s just easier to keep track of that way. 

I went to an event last night with a couple of friends. It was a Jewish philanthropy event at a certain store we all love in Butchertown, where a jewelry designer from Chicago would be speaking. I heard “wine” and “shopping” and was in, and I heard “Jewish jewelry designer” and thought it would definitely be something to make fun of. I was wrong about it because this jewelry was gorgeous. It turns out this girl is an actual diamond cutter with Jewish Moroccan heritage, and it was fine jewelry that was both classic and modern at the same time. I would wear it, and I’m picky. She spoke about her family’s story, her business, and the antisemitism she has faced since Oct. 7.

All that to say…one of Husband’s cousins was at the event. She told me she’d gotten her bracelets and she loves them! They were packaged so beautifully! I had no idea she had ordered bracelets. MIL took the order, made the bracelets, packaged them, and sold them to her. I guess her payment was part of the $350 in cash I received yesterday?

The most infuriating aspect of this is what MIL is taking away from Middle. She’s sending a message that Middle can’t do it herself, that MIL can do it bigger and better. Husband thought it was sufficient to say to MIL, “You know the bracelets are $5, right?” And “Middle has a certain way she wants the bracelets to look.” MIL has trained him (and his sister, and everyone) to talk to her, and to dance around any issue that might upset her. I do believe she thinks she is helping. If we said, “Please back off and let Middle lead this,” no matter how nicely, she would hear, “Stop helping.”

I have no idea what to do. Husband won’t talk to her and can’t do it effectively when he tries. I make it worse every time I try to have an interaction like this. I want to stand up for Middle but I don’t want to ruin her relationship with MIL over this. Is there a more difficult and impossible woman on earth? I truly believe God put her in my life to help me work on my patience and mercy, and MIL certainly tests me on those every chance she gets.

Tonight there is some pro-Israel event at an evangelical church. Middle is selling bracelets there, and has worked hard between school, sports, Thanksgiving, and everything else to build up her stock of bracelets. What are the odds MIL shows up with hundreds of bracelets that she made herself? I have a dinner for church, so I’m not going, but I know how this is going to go down before it even happens.

Twinkle: Charity Bracelets and My MIL’s Inability Not To Take Over Everything Anyone Does

Middle child had a very sweet idea in the wake of the Hamas attacks on October 7. She’s making “I love Israel” bracelets out of clay beads, and selling them for $5. We cover the cost of materials, so 100% of the profits are donated to the local JCC Israel Emergency Fund. 

It’s a simple business model: she sells from her stock of bracelets, or makes custom bracelets for people who want them. She keeps track of how much people owe and who has paid. Every time we reach $100, we donate it to the Emergency Fund. It’s simple and sweet and Middle Child is leading it. It’s her thing, and we’re on hand to help make bracelets and make the actual donations in her name to the fund, but it is her project.

Or it was, until my MIL found out about it.

MIL just loves it of course. She has to tell everyone about it, and is taking orders and payments faster than Middle Child can make the bracelets. This complicates matters because, with Fun Sink and Mr. Fun Sink taking payments, suddenly there are all these extra adults involved with the money collection, and it’s gotten really confusing. Before, I would see physical cash, or see that people had Venmoed me, and I could make a simple donation when we got to $100. Now I have no idea who got bracelets, who paid, or where that money is. It’s really confusing, and I want to make sure that every $5 donation actually gets donated. I also would rather make donations in $100 increments so I don’t get stuck with a larger one-time donation, but now I have no idea how much we have taken in, or where the cash is. It was working well when fewer adults were taking money and orders.

A couple of weeks ago, Fun Sink told Middle Child to make a sign and set up a table at some Jewish parent mixer. Fun Sink wanted the sign to say, “$5 or larger donation” (something like that). I didn’t love the wording. People know it’s a donation. They can give more if they want to, but the bracelets are $5. I didn’t say anything about the wording, and the next week there was another mixer. Fun Sink didn’t even ask Middle Child to make the sign. This time, Fun Sink made the sign, and she charged $10 for the bracelets. So…what about all those people who paid $5 for bracelets, and suddenly they’re $10? It makes Middle Child look bad. It makes our family look bad. I have no idea who paid $10 for bracelets, or if anyone did, or how I can refund them now, since I don’t know who bought bracelets and who paid what.

Fun Sink also ordered her own beads—different beads from the ones Middle Child uses—and is making her own bracelets to sell for Middle Child’s charity. It’s obnoxious. It was a sweet little project that we were all handling with ease, until Fun Sink had to come in and take over.

I know she means well. I’m trying to give her grace for wanting to help. If she wants to make her own, different bracelets, we’ve decided not to stop her, because it would be hurtful for us to turn down her help. But the whole thing is so annoying. It would have been better if she had said, “Hey—can you show me your technique and materials for making the bracelets so that I can do it in the style you’ve developed? Maybe you could come over one day and we could do it together.” (If she were nice, this could be fun.) But she can’t collaborate, or let anyone else take ownership of anything. She has to take charge. No wonder her children have issues. 

It feels like Fun Sink just wants it to be about the dollar amount at the end of it, so she can go around bragging that Middle Child raised $50,000 or some other huge amount for the Israel Emergency Fund. I don’t think the final dollar amount is what it’s about. That’s part of it, but it’s also the learning experience of taking ownership of a project, keeping track of orders, making the bracelets, promoting the project in manageable ways that are Middle Child’s own ideas. By taking over, Fun Sink is robbing her of valuable lessons, and I just wish she would stop, back off, and let Middle Child learn something from this experience. Instead we’re just reminded of what we already knew: that Fun Sink cannot bear to let someone else be in control of anything, because she thinks she can do it better.

Twinkle: Seven Months Have Passed Since I Burned it All Down with Fun Sink, and I’m OK

It’s been seven months since the fateful text message I sent to Fun Sink, in which I asked her to loop me in on the plans she makes with my kids. There never really was a resolution to any of it, but looking back I think it has been a net positive, because it exposed who Fun Sink really is, and what she really thinks of me. It’s liberating, because I truly no longer care about what she thinks. This is especially convenient as we approach the Christmas season.

We don’t see Fun Sink as much as we did before. I look at it as a natural consequence that she has to face for the way she acted. When I see her, I’m nice to her, and she’s nice to me. But I know how she really feels about me, and she knows how I really feel about her, and we both know the other one knows. When the kids have activities or plans with friends on Friday nights, those take precedence. If Fun Sink wants to schedule a Friday night a few weeks ahead of time to celebrate something special, that’s fine too. I’m not trying to keep any grandkids away from any grandparents, but my kids are onto her too. (More on that in another post.) Just like the consequences that resulted after the way she treated my brother-in-law, she has only herself to thank for seeing my kids less.

I am so excited for Christmas this year, and I realized a big part of it is that I don’t care if she sees our tree. I. Don’t. Care. I used to be really stressed about it because I didn’t want to damage her relationship with my husband because of the tree that I insisted on, but now the damage has been done—by her—so WHO CARES? She also already knows about the tree. In one of the conversations my husband had with her about how awful I am, she said to my father-in-law, “Yeah…Twinkle had to have a Christmas tree because her mom died and her dad needed somewhere to celebrate Christmas so they just had to have a tree.” She is an awful person. This year I’m Christmas-ing it up, and not the *slightest* bit stressed about what she thinks about it.

I guess, this many months later, I feel like I know who she is. I know she’ll never like me. I know she never even tried. She tells herself that she’s this wonderful, giving, kind person, who opens her home to everyone, but she put me down since Day One, and she still does. She did it at Thanksgiving. She does it every chance she gets, and now when it happens, I know what’s going on, so I don’t let it bother me so much. Or at all.

I do feel bad for my husband. We watched a dumb Lifetime Christmas movie last night starring Terri Hatcher as an influencer who finds love post-divorce with a man who runs a family business chalet resort in Aspen, and in the movie his French mother was so sweet to her. It actually makes me sad, what could have been. I’m a nice person; I get along with everyone —except Fun Sink. If she had just accepted me and treated me with basic kindness, if she had received me with gladness since I make her son happy, if she ever once gave me credit for these wonderful children that Husband and I have raised, it could have been a normal, loving, equal, friendly, mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship. It makes me sad when I see mothers-in-law being kind to their daughters-in-law, in movies or in real life, because I wish I had that. I also can’t BELIEVE it when I see a mother actually accepting and being nice to the girl her son likes. It could have been so different. 

I also know how much it hurts to lose a mother. I don’t want my husband to have any regrets about his relationship with his mother after she’s gone, and I certainly don’t want to be the source of that hurt. So that’s a real concern for me, and it’s something I’d like to figure out before it’s too late. I don’t know how, because she hates me, and keeping my distance from her is an act of self-preservation. That one aspect is complicated for me. 

More on Thanksgiving and Fun Sink’s controlling ways in a future post…

Julep: Friends, I am tired of cooking.

To be clear, it is not just the act of standing over the stove that has worn me out. That alone I don't mind so much. But I am tired tired ... 

... TIRED of deciding what nutritious combination of foodstuffs this whole family is going to ingest in a given evening. Tired of making sure I pick the right components up at the grocery to assemble seven reasonably healthy dinnertime meals every week, tired of figuring out which one I can throw together in the limited window before somebody has to be at Scouts/ sports practice/ piano lesson/ dance class, tired of fielding the complaints from the children. WHY didn't I remember since the last time we ate this six months ago that you don't LIKE ravioli, you only like TORTELLINI.  

Once upon a time, this family had two adults who cooked. One of them was better at cooking planned meals, and the other was the one who could throw together a meal from practically anything. He actually looked forward to it and bragged about his Iron Chef worthy skills. So there were some days a week that I planned a meal and cooked it, and other days that he just nosed around the kitchen and generated dinner. Those days are long since past. Ever since the COVID period where he worked 20 hours a day, he stopped appearing regularly at the dinner hour. Now he's like a special guest star - and his cooking is limited to his particular specialties like chili or grilling steaks, almost always on the weekend so that he can spend hours on it and dirty every dish in the kitchen for me to wash, after assuring me that he'll "get to it later."

Today was a long day at work. I realize it is only Tuesday, but I swear and affirm that somehow I have already filled four whole workdays this week. The last thing I did before leaving the office tonight was document my discussion with an employee for HR, which tells you plenty. When I got outside, my car was approximately ten thousand degrees Fahrenheit, since the deceptively pleasant weather lulled me into forgetting that if I don't put up my sunshade, the western orientation of the parking lot means that I will broil upon entry.

So with this as a background, I called Mr. J to ask if he would be home for dinner. "Yes," he confidently announced. [Reader, observe: nine times out of ten this confident announcement is followed by him getting home well past dinner time.] Great, I replied; what are you cooking?

Mr. J: Well, what do we have?

Me: I have no idea. I am just so tired of figuring out what to eat every night. This week is particularly bad because I have all the easy dinners I could think of lined up for Sitter [who is staying with the kids for three nights while we celebrate our anniversary in New Orleans]. 

Mr. J: I mean, I guess I can figure it out.

Me: That would be awesome. Thank you. I'll see you at home in a little minute. Bye! [I quickly hang up the phone so that he cannot back out.]

Less than one minute later - the phone rings back.

Mr. J: Hey, when you get home, why don't you look in the freezer and cupboards and see what we have. Then you can let me know if I need to stop at the store on the way home for something.

Me: If I have to do that, I might as well cook myself. If you're not home by 6, I'll just find something for everyone to eat except for you.

It's 6:09. Guess what I'm about to start doing. 

Twinkle: Sigh.

 Sigh. 

Today Husband and I went to the football game. We had a nice time. The kids stayed home and Middle had plans to go to a friend’s house to practice basketball drills because she and all her friends have recently joined the basketball team. 

I made plans with another mom to get Middle to and from this gathering. I’m always happy to take anybody’s kid anywhere. I want to help moms and I want my kids to have their friends around, plus there are three of them so when I help out, I’m paying into a larger system of goodwill. Today I called in a favor to a mom I have helped a lot. Not that it has to be so transactional, but I needed help today. She agreed to take Middle to and from this friend’s house. It was all planned. Middle was to be picked up at around 1:30 for a 2 o’clock arrival at the home of the friend who was hosting the basketball meetup.

When we got back from the game, we stopped at a family party where I saw MIL. She mentioned that she had taken my kids to lunch. They were at lunch at 1:25 when Middle mentioned that she was getting picked up by a friend’s mom at some point soon. MIL had no idea about this plan and had to rush back home to get her there for her pickup time.

Sigh.

This is what I am talking about, y’all. Has anyone ever thought of looping me into the plans? Has anyone ever thought, “Their mother probably has a plan for them—let’s ask her.” I can arrange rides for my kids ALL DAY LONG. I can coordinate the logistics until the cows come home, but until my in-laws GO THROUGH ME ABOUT THE PLANS, I will be screwed every time. And what I really feel bad about is this other mom, who I had coordinated with, who was going along with the plan we agreed on, and there were wheels in motion NEITHER OF US EVER EVEN KNEW ABOUT. MIL and FIL took the kids to lunch, and no one thought even to tell me about it or to ask me if there were other factors in play.

The other thing that is super annoying about it is that being nice to me should be a basic prerequisite for spending time with my kids. Sorry not sorry. Go through me. I am so frustrated. 

Twinkle: My Kids Love Me, Leaving MIL Baffled

I love hanging with all my kids. Oldest and Middle will hang with me and want to talk sometimes, and when they do I drop everything, because it doesn’t happen all the time. Youngest, on the other hand, always wants to hang. She’ll talk to me in the pool for hours, analyzing everyone in the 5th grade, discussing the friend groups, or just throwing a scrunchie back and forth. She wants to play cards each night. We’re really enjoying reading Anne of Green Gables together. If I need to run an errand, out of the three of them, she will always be the one to go with me and then want to keep driving around listening to music.

Today when we met up to hand off the kids to the grandparents before the trip to Lexington, she was sad. MIL was baffled. What could possibly be wrong? What could it be? It was a flashback of when they were babies, screaming for me. “She’s hungry.” “Her feet are cold.” “You forgot to put a hat on her.” Only this time it was different, because she can speak. “Are you tired?” Did you not get enough sleep last night?” “Do you not want to go to Memphis?”

My husband stood there dumbly while Youngest clung to me, crying. Middle was getting her pre-back-to-school hair cut (we met at the salon), and Eldest would have done anything to get out of the awkward situation, where Youngest was crying and MIL could not understand what was going on. Finally I said, exasperated, “I think she’s sad that I’m leaving.” It would have been nice if my husband had said it, but I guess it’s too much to ask for for ANYONE to acknowledge that I mean something to my kids. MIL was still incredulous. She can’t comprehend that my kids actually like me, that any child would actually want their mother. They could be (and have been) torn sobbing from my arms, screaming, “Mommmmmyyy!” And MIL will be like, “What could possibly be wrong? It’s definitely that she didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

I’m sure she’ll spend the next two days trying to deprogram my kids from loving their mother.