TP, dirt and in-laws.

My mind is all over the place tonight.

The morning ran smoothly, for me anyway. T and the kids were running late but I employed Operation Morning Avoidance and stayed in the kitchen even when the clock struck 9 and the kids hadn't even come down for breakfast.

T asked me today to come up there and help if they were running late like that. I guess...

I scrubbed the kitchen floor three times to get the black dirt to go away. Twice for the hardwood. The floors in this house are cursed.

Baby I was good all day and I got a lot of work done in just a few hours. I've outdone myself.

Willie Nelson (the dog) entertained us all by crossing the street to pee on the neighbor's lamp post. So that was fun.

T went shopping and I supplied her list via text message. I've been writing her phone messages on paper plates. I need to get some paper in this house.

Speaking of paper, my biggest problem today has been the fact that I'm in a house full of people who load toilet paper wrong. I am a firm believer in over-the-top rolling. Something about it just feels right. I visited each bathroom today and scrubbed sinks...and loaded all the toilet paper correctly.

T was home early this afternoon and while the kids played I hung out in the kitchen while she cooked and we talked. We've chatted here and there along the way but today was the first time we really gabbed. She asked me about my family a little and we talked about food and cooking. I'm starting to think that all of my first impressions of her were dead wrong.

She has routinely asked my opinion on how to do things or where to put things. Tonight is the Jewish sabbath (and it's called Shabbat -- I'm finally remembering things) and so she was cooking a big family dinner. She was expecially excited because she could use all of the fancy dinnerware that I had organized last week. She thanked me several times and then told everyone at dinner to thank me.

She taught me how to make Persian tea and graciously asked me to give the baby a bath while they did their prayers, not wanting to impose on my religious beliefs.

I think I might really get along with this woman.

Her mother-in-law on the other hand...

Like I said, the first part of the morning was smooth. But right after everyone left the doorbell rang.

Guess who it was?

I don't know her name, but she's E's mother so we'll call her Mom E.

She doesn't speak much English, Farsi is their native tongue. She had just talked to E and knew full well that no one was home. She rang the bell and called T's name and when I opened the door she acted surprised to see me. I knew right away who she was and fortunately, I had been advised to give her simple, positive answers.

She asked if T was home. I said no.

She asked if the kids were home. I said no, except the baby, who was asleep.

She left.

After T cooked dinner it was still early in the afternoon, so she went to run errands. While she was gone I took the kids outside and we laid on the front lawn, still wet from last night's rain, and melted into the grass. The dog peed dangerously close to where we laid and then Baby I's diaper exploded and nearly killed us all.

We got everyone cleaned up and resettled on my big beach blanket on the driveway to tell Monkey Stories, our favorite kind of stories. You say, 'once upon a time there was a monkey' and then without missing a beat the kids yell 'in a tree!' and the story gets worse from there. We were there when Mom E returned.

R rolled her eyes and said to me, "I hate her."

I almost laughed, but then I remembered that I am responsible for these kids and I scolded her and told her to be nice. She wasn't, but at least I had done my duty.

Mom E came right in and took the baby and kissed the kids and gave them presents which they then fought over. She asked me if I'd fed them and I told her I had. She said, "Give them fruit when you come outside. They need fruit. And water."

I almost slapped her.

T got home a few minutes later and talked to her briefly. She asked T why we didn't let the baby just run in the driveway like he wanted to. T answered in the most subtle condescension I have ever heard and told her it was because we didn't want the older kids to run over him with their bikes. He runs in the grass, not the driveway.

But Mom E missed the irritated note in T's voice. She wasn't done.

She told R she could spend the night at her house and then proceeded to tell her to get her things to go. T told her no, we had a family dinner planned. R, surprisingly, wanted to go. I think it had something to do with the promise of more presents.

Mom E then wanted to know if I knew how to feed the baby. T had to go pick up E at the train station. On her way to the car she yelled for me to go ahead and feed him and that R was NOT to leave while she was gone.

Mom E followed me to get the baby's dinner. She asked me twenty questions about my qualifications regarding feeding kids. She asked me to give him bread. He had bread already. She asked me to give him potatoes. He had potatoes already. She told me he needed something else. I told her he needed exactly what T had left him.

But I said it politely. And it hurt.

She didn't linger long after E and T got home and I was warned then that E's sisters were pretty much the same way, except they speak more English.

And then we ate our Jewish dinner and talked and hung out in the fancy dining room for a while with T's dad, who I met the day of my interview and really like. We cleaned up together and got the kids ready for bed together and planned a trip to the pool tomorrow.

I've even started taking T's side in jokey little arguments.