My bwahder

Sometimes I like him, sometimes I don’t.

Dad vs. Technology

My dad, like so many in his generation, is battling to understand technology. He doesn’t get Windows. Doesn’t get the concept at all. He uses Word like a typewriter – we’ve explained many times you don’t have to use Enter at the end of a line to get to next line. He doesn’t know how to attach documents – he will type something up, print it and fax it to me, and then ask me to type it out on my end to print out for my own use. He struggles with it all, and despite his lack of comprehension, he continues to bravely forge ahead. His latest hurdle has been the digicam.

My dad loves taking photos and takes really good ones. His shift over to the digicam has been a painfully slow one. He constantly falls back to the old style camera, much to his grandchildren’s chargrin – they of the instant gratification generation want to see a photo after it’s been taken and Kong Kong (grandpa) always tells them they have to wait till he develops it.

He is, however, gradually learning to appreciate the digicam. He appreciates the clarity and colours and likes the fact that you can see if the photo you’ve taken has been successful or not. Now, the big problem is in downloading photos. And this is where I come in. My job is to write idiot-proof instructions for my dad to download his photos. It’s really annoying since my Dad requires REALLY idiot-proof instructions, but it’s funny all the same. Now that he has these instructions, he feels liberated, like he’s ready to abandon his old camera. It’s nice to see him all excited about this new knowledge, and even though I know he’s bound to come to me for instruction revision (not idiot-proof enough for him because I didn’t say exactly what the name of the dialogue box that would pop up is), it’s good to see him ready to move forward with the times.

Now, if only I can convince him that he can delete the photos he’s downloaded from the memory stick in his camera….

Ants

Today as I was feeding Sara dinner…

Sara: Mommy, look! Ants! Over there…

Mommy: Hm, did you drop some food? (Sara shakes head) Well, someone did and now the ants are here.

Sometime later, still eating her dinner…

Sara: No ants anymore!

Mommy: ?? Maybe Auntie cleaned it up… (helper shakes head – she didn’t do it). Oh, I know. The ants carried the food away.

Sara: ???

Mommy: The ants carried the food home. That’s what happens when you drop food. The ants come and bring the food home to eat. If you don’t drop food, the ants go somewhere else for food.

Sara: (nods) Ants go to supermarket…

Mother-in-law

I’ve noticed that many of the mommy blogs I read speak of their mothers-in-law in a diplomatic manner. It could be many have reasonably good relationships with their in-laws, but there’s also the fear that the husband or worse, a relative will read it. The writing course I attended recently talked of taboo topics (alluding to the fact that writing publicly means having to beware of defamation suits). Not so surprisingly, mothers-in-law came up as a common no-no on everyone’s list.

So here I am, writing about precisely what I said I wouldn’t write about: my mother-in-law.

I never wanted to live with my mother-in-law. Not Danny’s mother specifically, but generically. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories and it’s bad enough having to put up with one person’s habits, but at least you love that person. I couldn’t imagine having to put up with another person’s habits, one who I didn’t love.

Danny, however, was very clear right from the start. Marry me, live with my mother. No two ways about it. So you can say I went into this with my eyes wide open.

My relationship with my mother-in-law is better than just civil. The best thing going for her (from my point of view, of course) is that she is just as aware as I am that this is a relationship to work at. We both give and take. For this, I am grateful. Sure, she has her moments, but just as she annoys me sometimes, I’m pretty sure I annoy her too. She is careful not to overstep boundaries, even when it comes to the children, but that doesn’t prevent her from saying her two cents, which I work hard not to let it irritate me. Fortunately, it’s just that – two cents. She doesn’t impose her views, but she definitely has them.

In the grand scheme of things, I think she’s a relatively decent mother-in-law. Largely because she does work at not interfering too much with our lifestyle. To that end, I think I’m a relatively decent daughter-in-law too - I never set myself against her and let her have her way with things that aren’t so important to me. It’s a good working relationship, but the truth is, it hasn’t really been tested yet. We still live away from home and she only visits.

I’ll be honest – I do worry about the day we move home and we all live together for the long term. But I suppose that’s not for worrying now. Danny is appreciative that both his mom and I try to get along, but I have warned him that living together permanently could be a different story. All the same, I’m sure she is just as apprehensive as I am. We will cross that bridge when we get there.

VIP

Very Infrequent Project

I finally got off my lazy behind and did what I said I’d do. Inspired by Crazymommy’s project with her daughter, I decided that we’d do a family tree too. Firstly, it would help Sara remember her extended family since she sees most of them so infrequently; secondly, I was hoping to acquaint with the proper Mandarin terms for the respective relative.

I have to say most of it, or more like, all of it, was done by me. Sara showed interest periodically, but I made the mistake of not preparing the photos and tags before hand (so typical of me to have decided just this morning to start work on it). She did impress me though – my mother-in-law has been going through Mandarin flash cards with her and she hasn’t been showing that much interest in them. However, something is going into her head – she was able to single out Ma ma and Ba ba for me to paste against mine and Danny’s pictures.

Each time I make the effort to work on something like this with Sara, I feel like we’ve made a splendid use of our time together and that she’s learned something. And then I promptly drop the ball and leave it lying in the corner until I next get motivated to try something else with her. Note to self: get your act together, woman! Are you a stay-at-home mom or not??!?!?

I love him because

He kills spiders.

Since moving into this house, we’ve had two huge spiders appear. Huge, as in the size of a grown man’s palm huge. We think they aren’t poisonous – they a dull brown colour and skinny, not hairy and colourful like the poisonous varieties featured on National Geographic. That said, they are awful to behold and run so damn fast.

Anyway, the first spider that wandered in was found in the dining room one evening. I nearly collapsed from hyperventilation and Danny duly got rid of it. Last night, this second spider did the unthinkable – it wandered into our bedroom in the dead of night. Fortunately, Danny was still up. Fortunately, I was asleep. He did wake me to calmly ask me to get some newspaper and a torch, of which I told him to buzz off. Once informed of the spider, I was off like a shot and got him what he needed. Also asked if I should save our son from the monster, but Danny firmly and calmly told me that everything was under control. He eventually got the critter and we were allowed to settle down for bed. Fortunately, Nathan was none the wiser, having slept through the whole ordeal.

This got me thinking about boggarts. If I met a boggart, I’d be like Ron Weasley – I’d see a mega huge spider in all its nasty glory. I now worry – what if we encounter another spider when Danny’s not home? Does anyone know how to get rid of these things? Cockroaches, I know what I can do, but spiders?