This post sucks.

I never want to be the kind of person who lords over her family, demanding that this or that take place in a manner timely enough to suit my ever-expanding demands.
I never want to be the type of person who tells my husband or children that they "can't" associate with someone, because I don't find it personally enjoyable.


Those are the things that I keep repeating to myself, over and over this week, as the arrival of my mother-in-law looms ever closer.

That is exactly, however, the type of person I feel like this week.


I keep telling him that his decision to invite his mother is entirely up to him, and that I will support him in whatever he decides to do.
This is what I say.  What I feel, however, and how that reads upon my person, is entirely the opposite. I dread it.  I dread her.  And I'm bothered that I have not been able to conceal it as well as I thought I could.  And it isn't for a lack of trying, either.


Of course, with her visit drawing near, my obsessive need to have an immaculate, spotless home has begun to take over, and has clashed violently with my childrens' need to be children...to be messy, and sticky, and to leave a trail of toys and dirty clothes wherever they wander.  Their promises to clean their rooms have turned into drawers stuffed with dirty clothes and trash, and the area beneath their beds turning into landfills.


My frustration is evident.  My hands are raw from bleach, and my back aches.  The better part of me wishes I could just leave the house, and return on Monday after the visit is over.  Check into a motel, and let the hired maid and the room service staff do all the obsessive cleaning.  Let the husband and the kids handle the mother-in-law, and I'll return when she's gone.


The guilt I feel has turned into some kind of stagnant, nagging sadness, because I don't like making this more difficult for my husband, nor do I like feeling like a broken record with my kids.  "Clean your room.  Pick up this trash.  Who left toothpaste everywhere?"  I don't like feeling as if I have to scour my house from floor to ceiling, and I don't like the fact that I'm just a general grouch, who is making her husband uncomfortable.

And I don't like this crybaby post.  

Suck it up, Nancy!