The Uninvited Guests….
Ring….
“Hello”
“Joanne!…”
“Hi Mom”
“We are coming to visit you on Tuesday. Your Aunty is visiting and we are coming to stay at your house over night on Tuesday. We will want dinner as well. Can you make steak? You aunt hasn’t had Alberta steak yet.”
“uhhh… ok?” In my mind I wasn’t on planning to spend a lot on groceries this week, but I guess now my plan has changed. 7 people at $12 - $15 a steak. *sigh*
“… it doesn’t have to be anything fancy, you know.”
“Right.”
“I also want you to take us around to the malls in Calgary, you aunt wants to open her store in Alberta and is trying to find a good location, so I need you to drive us around on Tuesday when we arrive in the afternoon.”
I hate doing this type of driving around especially since my mother doesn’t know how to follow someone and is a horrible driver.
“Well, I can’t cuz the kids are all out of school so I’d have them all day. It would be pure chaos bringing them all to the mall all day. but I’m sure Ryan would LOVE to do that. This way I can have dinner ready for when you get back from scouting location prospects. ”
“ok. We’ll be in Tuesday afternoon. I’ll call you when we’re there.”
*UGH* I quickly call to schedule the cleaners to come on Monday the day before. I look at the huge pile of laundry and the chaos hardwood floors that the kids painted on Sunday with craft paint, the toys dotting the floors, books, blankets, shoes, coats and stuffed animals everywhere.
This is going to be quite the adventure in trying to prep this house for “The Aunt.” Now my aunt is the rich one that owns a bunch of jewelry stores. She has maids, cooks, security guards, nannies and cleaners. She has the best of everything and lives in this gargantuan house.
I look at my walls that are covered in little fingerprints or crayon drawings. The lower windows and walls have baby slobber and baby finger prints all over them. I feel so overwhelmed.
Summing up courage I get out the Mr. Clean magic eraser (my favorite cleaning tool), the rubber gloves and call my middle child to clean off his artwork. I get a rag, wet it then call the 2nd child in the line up and have him scrub all the paint off the hardwood floor in the den. I grab the broom and mop, hand it to my oldest daughter and have her sweep and mop the kitchen. The 3 year old I have her pick up all her toys off the floor and bring them to the toy box. The baby I put down for a nap so he doesn’t interfere in the cleaning process. I begin on the mountain of laundry. It doesn’t go as smoothly as that. Lots of sneaking away, goofing around and the boys whipping each other with the cloth while they clean.
I’m in panic mode for the next 4 days trying to run around and get everything clean, tidy, put away, organized and trying to convince the kids not to trash the house once it’s clean.
Tuesday afternoon 1:30pm rolls around and I’m about to head out to the grocery store to pick up some last minute stuff. The steaks have been marinating since Monday and they were rib steaks and new york sirloin. So yummy. I decide to call my mother to find out where they are.
“Hi mom, where are ya? Are you close to Calgary?”
“Oh we changed our plans. Ya sorry, I forgot to tell you. We’re in Jasper right now.”
“Oh…. So are you still coming over?’
“Well, how late can you eat dinner?”
“Well, whenever you get here I guess… what time were you thinking?”
“Well, we still want to go to Banff and Lake Louise…. so we’ll be there late I think.”
“Ok, no problem. Let me know when you’re heading in”
I sit and think about it… there’s no way they are going to be able to make it for dinner if they are still in Banff… so I call back.
Me: “Hi! I really don’t think you’ll make it for dinner. It will be so late.”
Mom:”Ya, we’ll just sleep there tonite. Don’t worry about dinner. Sorry, just put the steaks in the freezer and you can eat them at a later date.”
*sigh* figures.
Three hours later she calls back.
Mom: “Hi! We’re going to stay over night in Banff because we want to go on the Gondola ride and look around more. So we’ll meet you in Calgary tomorrow so you can take us around.”
Me: “Well, Mom, I told you I have a meeting tomorrow morning and I won’t be out until the afternoon and I have all the kids. It’s easter break. Ryan is in a course all day so he won’t be able to drive you around.”
Mom:”ok… fine then we’ll just try to drive ourselves around and get lost.”
*sigh* This is why I can only handle my mother once every couple of years. She’s such a drama queen… now I know where I get it from.
Me: “I’ll see what I can do. ”
I kick back and relax cuz now I don’t have to worry about dinner or the house. Ya, I bought stuff I normally wouldn’t have and have a bunch of food, but oh well. I’ll just have friends over or something.
An hour later the phone rings. It’s 5:30pm.
Mom: “Hi! We’re coming over now. The prices in Banff are waaay to expensive for your Grandma and I. $225 a night to stay here. Can you believe it?
Me: “Well, it is Banff mom. It’s what they charge, you’re also getting a hotel last minute.”
Mom: “Well, we don’t want to pay that much for a hotel so we’re coming there to stay at your house…. oh and we’re really hungry to so have dinner ready for us. We’ll be there in an hour.”
Me: “What about Aunty? Doesn’t she want to stay there?”
Mom: “No, she said it’s better to see you and spend time with you instead and see your house.”
ACK!!!!!!!!!! My stress levels increases 99%.
I had just kicked back and hadn’t done anything because they said they were not coming. I freaked. I tried to call Ryan to get him to come home but he wasn’t answering my phone calls. Shocker. He never does. I tried calling him from 4pm - 7:45pm. Nothing. Now I was getting pissed because he’s the BBQ’er and makes the steaks. I’ve never mastered the art of the barbecue because it was always his job. As the hours passed, I kept trying to call him and he didn’t answer. I got more furious by the minute.
He finally comes home about half an hour before my mother. I have a baby crying on my leg, the boys fighting and Mya whining at me. I flipped out. My mother arrives and Ryan makes the steaks. He burns them. I was now even more mad. These were $12-15 steaks each. Usually he’s really good, but for some reason he left his head up his ass and forgot how to BBQ.
As we eat dinner Brandon drops his milk all over the floor. I tell him to go get a towel and wipe it up. My Aunt’s eyebrows shoot up and she says, “he does that?” She’s so used to her maids or nanny’s jumping up to clean things up. She was shocked by the kids doing chores like dishes, sweeping and cleaning up after dinner. Yes, Auntie this is how the common folk do it.
Then my Aunt starts going through her luggage bring out all her souvenir’s she brought for us from the Philippines. She gives Ryan a traditional shirt and he graciously accepts it, puts it on and keeps it on all night long. Suck up. He gushes on about it and wears it around the next day too. This is why my mom and relatives love him. He’s such a total suck up.
I show my Aunt around the house and I can tell she’s not impressed. It’s not like her huge castle she lives in. When it’s time for bed, I show her to our bedroom and tell her this is where she would sleep. Ryan and I would bunk down with the kids. She refused. She didn’t want to sleep in our bedroom because it didn’t have a fire place and she wanted to sleep in front of the fire place. *sigh* So I quickly ran over to a friends house and borrowed her blow up bed and put it in the den where the fireplace was.
I tell my mom that the next day I have a meeting in the morning and I have to be there by 9:30am so I have to leave by 9am. The next morning I’m up at 7am to get up and get ready so I’m already to go to work. I quickly run to the grocery store to pick up a few items for breakfast. I’m back by 8:15am.
I make breakfast. Saskatoon berry pancakes with hot maple syrup, whipping cream with a homemade blueberry sauce. Bacon, scrambled eggs with ham, peppers, tomatoes, chives and cheese. Fruit salad with whipping cream and freshly squeezed OJ. I love making breakfast and I have great recipes for it. The breakfast was sooo yummy. I was all pumped cuz I was able to make it all within 30min. Everything was perfect. It looked and tasted delicious.
I dish out a plate for my aunt. She looks at it and crinkles her nose and says, “oh I’m not hungry. No thank you.”
I just stared at her and didn’t say anything. I pasted on my fake smile and offered my grandma a plate. She looks at me and says, “oh, I don’t need all this fancy stuff for breakfast. I just want some coffee and toast. You don’t need to go through so much trouble. No, I don’t need this. Just feed it to your kids.”
I went to go find my mom and uncle. She is getting into her truck.
“Mom, what are you doing?” I ask.
“Oh, I’m just going to gas up the truck.” I’ll be right back.
“What about breakfast? I made breakfast for you?”
“I don’t need breakfast. I’ll just have a little when I get back.” She says out the window as she drives off.
*sigh* I was ready to scream.
I dish out plates for all the kids who are lovin’ every bit of it. I was still so annoyed.
Finally I blurt out.
“ok Grandma and Auntie. I insist you eat. I made all this food. It’s really good. If I would have known you didn’t want breakfast I wouldn’t have made all this food. I made this for you guys. My kids would have been fine to have eaten cereal. I have a huge day ahead of me as well and I’ve been cooking for the last 30 min. Sit down and eat something or all this food will go to waste.”
So reluctantly my Grandma and Aunt grab a plate and eat.
Geez.
My mind is racing. I wait for my mom to get gas, because I live 5 houses down from the gas station. It’s just down the street. 5 min. It’s 8:40am they should be back by 8:45am. They can sit and eat for 15min. Then they can all leave. I can drop off the kids at the babysitters and still be on time for my meeting and just give directions to my mother on how to make it to the mall they want to go to. I wait. I wait and I wait.
8:45am
8:50am
I begin to get the kids ready to go out the door. Shoes, coats, snacks, books, bottle, diapers, wipes. We are ready.
8:55am
9:00am
I hate waiting. My biggest pet peeve is waiting for someone. I just don’t have the patience for it.
Finally I call my mom.
“Mom where are you! You were suppose to be 5 min. I have to leave for work now and you still haven’t eaten.”
“Oh we are in the line up for the car wash. I wanted to get a truck wash.” She says.
I almost collapse.
“What!?! Your truck wasn’t dirty! It looked clean to me! It wasn’t dirty at all! Why would you wash a clean truck?!? Are you almost in the car wash?”
“Yep, we’re next.”
I bite my tongue so I don’t start yelling and freak out. I grit my teeth and take a deep breath.
“Mom, I told you I had to leave at 9am. ”
“Ya, we’ll be there, just 5 minutes.” She replies totally ignoring me.
“Please hurry.”
So I wait.
9:05am
9:10am
9:15am
I call my boss and apologize, explain the situation and tell her I won’t be there until probably 10am. She is understanding and awesome as always, but I’m pissed.
Finally my mother comes back. Then she says, “oh wow! Look at that wonderful breakfast you made. I have to have some of this! You are such a great cook.” Then she and my uncle sit down to eat.
ACK!!!!!!!!
This is why I can only handle my mother for a day. She drives me nuts. She’s just so oblivious to anyone else. Finally at 9:35am we are ready to go.
I drive ahead so she can follow me out of town. Not that it’s hard, she just freaks out about having to go around an overpass. I call her to give her directions to the mall. I have to hold on while she drops her phone, then tries to find a pen, then gives the phone over to my Aunt, to which I insist on talking to my mother and just tell my mom to tell my aunt to write the directions down. *sigh* I look in the rear view mirror and mom’s truck is swerving all over the lane as she is trying to answer the phone and talk. GAH!
Thankfully I get them on their way and make it to my meeting. I’m all stressed and frazzled. I hate it when my mother comes to see me. I think I’m good for another couple of years. There’s a reason I moved as far away as I could without leaving the country.
