Somehow we managed it yet again, MIL is back in China and thus the three months of terror are over. Over the past years I had a couple of these posts regarding her leaving again and what we/ she learned. This will be pretty much such a blog post again as I am just lazy right now and don’t want to think too much.
Indeed she is leaving but the question is now, has she learned or improved since last year? No, not at all. She is still the same chaotic, messy and crazy person as all the years before. Sure she does promise to change this and that each time but that will never happen. Remember when I wrote all those years back that she was shocked how well people treated their dogs by taking several walks each day with them etc.? Back then she said already “I will do this with my dogs as well!”, as you might guess they are still every single day in their cage to this day. Okay, sometimes she does take a walk with them but I believe it is more to annoy other people as those dogs just poop in front of every entrance they feel like.
Now to the things which actually do happen here in our home. I noticed over the years that she in fact loves to use oil when cooking. That is nothing new in Chinese kitchen but she kind of increased the dosage each year. When she was with us in 2014 for three months she needed about every 3-4 weeks a litre of oil for cooking. Last year it increased already to every 2 weeks. Back then my wife already complained that this is just too much oil but she defended herself “your useless father is using much more oil, he needs a litre every weeks when cooking. See I am not as bad as him!” or something along these lines. Yep this year she managed to actually use up every single week one litre of oil! As you can guess the kitchen looks accordingly. We have oil splatter even on the opposite side of the stove and on the roof! It is just insane as every few weeks I had to basically drain the kitchen hood of oil.
Okay okay she was once again a huge help with Nathan and providing us with food (abide it might not have been always eatable). We were especially concerned that Nathancuty might have trouble readjusting to a life without his Chinese grandmother but we worried for nothing. He did not even care when she left him at the airport and did not even say “Nai nai 奶奶” at all since Wednesday. Seems like he is perfectly fine without her. Only trouble now is to get him back on earth after being spoiled non-stop for the past three months.
I left out one thing now and that is cleaning. The first weeks I really tried hard to keep the apartment and car clean but it was just so futile. It is like trying to stop and oncoming storm by blowing against it. She must have some magical dirt creation tricks as otherwise I can’t explain it. I mob the floor room by room and once I am done to get some rest I realize that the first few rooms are already full of “dark footsteps” like she would be putting ink on her feet or something. Few days before she left we went to a beach and when we went back to the new car my wife told her to carefully clean the shoes. Once we were back home and I wanted to get Nathan from his seat it looked like she had dragged half the beach with her. There was barely any black from the car carpet left, just sand, no kidding. Upon asking she told us that she tried real hard but the sand wouldn’t come off, yeah right she just had those slippers while as my profile boots did not give me any issue. Just thinking about cleaning after her could be an own blog post again so I just stop right now before I remember too much and bring nightmares to myself.
You have anyone you need to clean “after”?
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Crazy Chinese Family 
Oh, yes! I had my in-laws and things were ruined. I feel your pain.
Seems that in-laws have some strange ability to do these things. I am just glad that I am already usually an airhead and that I can completly switch off any brain function while MIL is here => no trouble surviving 🙂
that is a useful skill!
I can just imagine when we live together and get married how it’ll be. I won’t forget how his mom told him in Chinese that I can’t cut vegetables properly and she recut everything I just cut. They were peppers, I cut them neatly, but apparently that’s not good enough. I just act dumb and try holding back. I guess we won’t win 😛
Oh yeah there will be many more of these things happening later for you. How often I heard bits and pieces of stuff MIL talked about me…
I’m quite lucky with my inlaws. They were just here for 1.5 weeks and they cooked and cleaned and played with Babel. On their last day they even vacuumed half the house, until I stopped them, because that’s not their job.
Ooohh lucky you!!! Can I borrow your in-laws? Thankfully my father-in-law is the normal one and even got a cleaning OCD but sadly he has never been in Germany thus far ;(
You can borrow them sure, but never ever swap them with your MIL, I wouldn’t want her around driving me crazy likes she does you :D.
Nathancutie is getting cuter and cuter.
I know what you mean about sand. A couple of days ago, I came back from the beach and forgot to take my shoes off. Oh, my! What a mess! In August, my daughter, son-in-law, and 8-year-old grandson were here for five days after our trip to Canada. They all remembered to take their shoes off after going to the beach. I’m the one who must hang my head for forgetting in my own house.
Haha, indeed beaches are treacherous places. As we are using now my father’s brand new car (it arrived just weeks after they went to their 4 month holiday…) I try my best to keep it neat at all times however the back seats turned into a warzone with my mother-in-law.
Hahaha 🙂 You really adore your MIL…so obvious!😄😩
To think you actually notice how many oil she used for cooking ? LOL
This is hilarious!
The longest time I’ve had with my in laws was 2 weeks,but then they don’t stay with us,they stayed in a hotel but all through out the day,they are physically with us.I still remember that just recently when they visited us here in Germany ,my FIL pointed out that the way I cut the stems of the roses in our garden is wrong 😂😁
Your stories remind me so much of a sitcom I watched when I was a kid..totally crazy family .
So I guess you are feeling ecstatic when you brought her to the airport? Cheers to a clean house again!
I was sooo happy when we brought her to the airport and couldnt stop smiling the entire day 🙂
About the oil, well as I was buying most of the bottles and certainly was the only person throwing them away each week I kind of noticed the heavy oil drowning usage. Wonder what will it be next year, one litre per 3 days????
Congratulations surviving the three months ha!
I really should get a medal or something…okay a stupid shirt with “I surived three months with my mother-in-law” would be already enough!
Yeah I wouldn’t hold my hopes too high about your MIL changing. She has been like that all her life, I don’t think she can change now, haha!
Yeah she will never change, I think her brain just does not function like that. Once a certain way has been set it will not be altered…except some wechat group message tells something totally ludacris and ofc she believes it!
At least one litre of oil each week….draining the kitchen hood each week. I can only imagine the horror that is stuck to that hood thing and how hard it is to scrub off all that oil completely. Now, my brother is also a big fan of using oil in his cooking but not as bad as MIL. Let’s just say the amount of oil he uses one week over the gas stove is enough to oil up that range hood and he does not clean it…
Maybe MIL has big shoes and so that’s how all the sand went into the new car. Or maybe they were in her pockets and they fell out. Or she brought a bucket of sand with her….
Not only one bucket, at least a dozen of them!!!!
Oil in the kitchen is such a pain to clean. I started already and I am working each day myself through another layer of oily dirt :p
The worse is when the oil hardens. It can take forever to scrub off one layer, and then there will be another and then another. Maybe you will build up some muscle just from cleaning oil in the kitchen. Add oil! 😀
I doubt I will build up any muscles, more like lose my mind 🙂
Oh my god, you must be so patient to deal with all the craziness of your MIL. Children Nathan’s age do not really care about people besides their parents I guess,, I wonder if your MIL misses him already 🙂
Oh usually kids that age get rather clingy towards people they spend much much time with. However Nathan is kinda…odd… he is friendly with anyone he meets. Last year we were walking through the city and some refugees (my city is one of the first stations they go) were passing by. Nathan just held his hand out and one of the guys took it and we were walking for a few dozen metres like that through the town. Nathan just kept smiling at the man and the whole group was just laughing and asked us if they can take pictures of this whole thing 😀
Congrats on surviving. The oil in the kitchen would kill me! That stuff is sooo hard to clean.
Oil is a real mess to clean. I have all kind of cleaning stuff for it but it is real hard work in the end, layer by oily layer till I reach the normal surface again 🙂
I’m kinda messy. He is quite neat. I do cook with oil. 1 litre of oil per wk. is incredibly excessive for Chinese-style cooking.. I guarantee you my mother does Chinese cooking daily and she would make that same amount of oil last 1-2 months or more ..for 8 people.
Um…we’re in a landlocked area and I’m not a beach (river) person. Neither is he. Yea, we’re on bikes outdoors when it’s warm. 🙂
Well I don’t know too much about Chinese cooking but I know that even 1 liter per month would be way too much. When my wife was still cooking daily we needed for two people 1litre every 3 or 4 months. My mother with Finnish and German cuisine needs one litre every one year or so 🙂
I love you MIL’s stories, sorry I am laughing at your expense but your MIL is definitely funny and sound like strong headed.
Strong headed for certain, I think she could crack a diamond with that head! At least I can make other people laugh about these disasters 🙂
I’m sorry… a full litre of oil a week?? I’m stuck at that… a litre of oil lasts me around a year!
I know, sometimes I had the feeling that she must wash her hands with the oil to have at least one explanation for all those oily handprints all over the apartment and car!
Astounding!
And I thought my parents in law used a lot of oil when they were here, because they used a liter in two and a half months. Since that was the only thing I could complain about I guess I really am super lucky with my in laws.
You really deserve that “I survived three months with MIL” T-shirt!
I really could need that shirt to show the world what I went through 🙂
Haha, congrats on surviving another 3 months with MIL. You’ll just be done scraping all the oil off your kitchen walls and appliances before she returns for another round. 😉
I was actually thinking to just paint the kitchen new after each visit but then I realized that the color won’t hold with the oil everywhere 😮
My MIL tends to be obsessed with cleaning – but she can’t cook! In our house our kids make most of the mess! The older they get the more messy they become!
In my case it is the father-in-law who is obsessd with cleaning but can’t cook at all 🙂
Wish he would be here as well when she is coming, to kind of counter the dirt spreading of her…
Ha ha! That would be handy.
Oh, man. I think you have accidently stumbled upon her new nickname “dark footsteps”. Hahahahhaahhaa.
*Ahem* Sorry.
Oh no, don’t let me even think about it. Now closing my eyes and can see those footprints appearing on our floor 😦