Grandma Diana Is Coming To Town

Move over Santa, Grandma Diana is comin' to my house. Grandma Diana is My Man's mother and about twice a year she hobbles onto a mammoth Greyhound Bus and travels 23 hours from Laredo, Texas to the Land of Eternal Flatness. She's such a peach.

Because unlike most in law relationships, I literally count down the days until her arrival. Why, you ask? Well, the simple answer is I need a break. And I need some major help. But let me back up a little. I've only written about Grandma Diana a couple times, so you probably need some background on this subject.

Allow me to set the stage:

Meet Diana and Charles, (not the ones from England), permanent residents of Laredo/Hotter Than Hell, Texas. Parents of one spoiled boy, Charlie and grudgingly Hispanic by nature. Eccentricities abound. Such as, but not limited to, owning a myriad of cats, attempting to cook a cow head in the ground, and buying prescriptions of penicillin across the border to cure whatever ails you. Oh, and let's not forget the evil eye. Please don't give anyone the evil eye. I'm not sure what will happen, but I've been warned repeatedly not to do it.

So when I had little Socrates and I was such a young know-it-all mother, Grandma Diana came for a visit. I didn't need any help back then because I Could Handle It, and I'd be darned if I was going to let anyone get up with the baby all night besides me.

Lunacy. Pure lunacy.

Fast forward about 10 years and three more gremlins and well, you know what I'm going to say right? Let's just say that when she came for The Cuteness' arrival, guess who got to stay up with the baby all night a couple times? That's right, Grandma Diana. That woman slept on the couch a couple nights because I was so sick after the delivery to take care of The Cuteness. She only woke me to feed the baby. She did everything else.

This woman is a jewel sent from heaven and I only regret it took me so long to figure it out. Sure she has her quirks, but it's funny how the stuff that used to drive me completely batty when she visited just doesn't bother me anymore.

So, starting tomorrow night, the fun begins. She'll be here for two weeks. The gremlins are excited because she makes bacon for them. Almost every morning.

I'm excited because she does dishes like nobody's business. Without a dishwasher. In fact, she gets mad at me when I try to do a few, because it's my house. Have at it, I say! Not to mention she'll have the gremlin cave upstairs whipped into shape in a day's time. Mostly because she's afraid of tripping over action figures and hurting her wonky knee even worse than it already is.

Charlie's excited because she takes us out to eat at least once and watches the gremlins so we can actually go on a *gasp* date!

Sure, she'll talk my ear off and ask me hundreds of the same questions that she asks every time, and she'll refuse to use my washer due to the electricity it will cost us, and I'll have to order a recon mission to secure her clothing and stick it in the washer myself when she's not looking. And she'll probably get into it with Socrates because for some reason they've butted heads the last few times she was here. And she'll probably chew me out when she opens the microwave and sees what's inside. But she'll clean it for me anyway while she's chewing me out.

But I don't care. I'm exhausted and overwhelmed and way beyond any pride over the state of my household. If I could move her in here permanently, I would. But she has this thing called a husband, that we don't see very often. That, however, is another story for another time. He'll be staying home with the cats and calling her everyday and pining over the days until he gets her back.

But he'll just have to get his undies out of a wad and chill. Because it's my turn to have Grandma Diana. She is a wonder.