Snoskred - Life in the Country

New people who have done the 10 things - Diddums - Gigglewick did it a little while ago but I missed linking to it sorry please forgive me! ;(

For this visit my sister has brought her parents in law. Well, by defacto. Her other half’s parents - for ease of reference let’s call them OHM (other half’s Mum) and OHD (other half’s Dad). I’ve met the Mum before, we get along reasonably well but she was always one of the first to defend my sister’s ex, until she learnt better. This used to really irritate the heck out of me. I felt like she should have taken our word that he was an asshole given that we’d gone through 7 years of hell while he was her partner and she knew nothing about that, but him being an asshole is a story for another day. Soon, I promise.

What’s bugging me today is OHD. I’ve never met this guy before so I honestly don’t know him from a bar of soap. But his behaviour towards my new niece is freaking me out completely. I’m finding it creepy. But maybe it’s just me. I don’t know. I’ll tell you what I’ve seen, and you can let me know, ok?

My sister has barely had to do anything at all this weekend. He’s done all the baby duty. He’s fed her, held her, changed the nappies, dressed her, pushed her around in the stroller, the lot. It’s almost like this kid is his baby. I have not had the chance to hold her at all, nor has my parents. They’ve driven 5 hours to come and visit us, he lives within a 10 minute drive of them. You’d think he’d let us have a little time with her?

But that’s not what is freaking me out the most. He’s done some things which if I were my sister, I’d be really mad about. Like when they first got here, she’d just finished feeding the baby in the car. He brings her in, sits down on the couch with her, and starts bouncing her around, making her fly, generally throwing her around in the air. Of course within 2 minutes she power spews all over him and then he’s like “did you feed her in the car? why didn’t you tell me?” Well maybe you could have asked before you started throwing her all over the place?

Then tonight at the chinese, my sister and her partner were sitting next to the baby and when he turned up at the table they were like - do you want to sit next to the baby and he was all of course. So they swap seats and the kid who had been sitting happily in her stroller spent the *entire* evening sitting in his lap. And the people next door to us were having a banquet and they’d ordered first, so our dinner took a good 45 minutes just to get to the table.

When the entrees turn up, he starts feeding her sweet and sour sauce - dipping his finger in it and then giving it to her. I mean first off, for a germophobe like me that was almost enough for me to see what I’d eaten so far for a second time, who knows where his fingers had been but I can certainly assure you they hadn’t been washed since we left home to go to dinner. But he didn’t ask my sister, he just was doing it out of nowhere, and when she realised what he was doing she wasn’t thrilled but didn’t say anything.

Then not long after that, I heard OFM say to him “No Coca Cola for the baby” - he’d been dipping his finger in that and was about to drip it in her mouth. Like EW! She’s maybe four months old? And it was about then that I lost my appetite completely.

I think the question I have to ask myself is, would I be as bothered if it was OHM doing all this stuff? I don’t know, I really don’t. But this guy has barely spoken one sentence to me or my parents all weekend. He’s focused all his attention on a baby. He’s sung to her. He’s made funny faces at her. He’s done all the things that make me want to never have kids because I couldn’t stand people acting so stupid around them. And my sister has two other kids (admittedly his son did not father them) who this guy has just ignored all weekend. My impulse, my instinctual gut reaction to this guy, is to tell my sister never to let him have anything to do with her, ever. It just feels 100% wrong. It’s not my place to say that though.

And while on the topic of the other kids, don’t get me wrong, I like my sister’s new partner, but he is a complete control freak over what they can and can’t eat. This I do not like at all. Yet he seems to be happily stowing away those extra kilos for when he’s next stuck on a desert island, he’s twice as big now as he was when I first met him, but the kids can’t have one can of coke a day? How would he like it if I started telling him he couldn’t have stuff? I bet he’d be pissed.

In other news, I still do not have the Rock Star : Supernova new CD which was due out today. Sadly the place in town that had it in stock had not got it together to unpack and process them yet, and they told me to come back midweek. Err, thanks, but FUCK no. I’ll drive the 60 or so kms to JB Hifi on Monday where I know they’ll have it on the shelf waiting for me. And I will never, ever, EVER be going back to your store. I’m so disappointed and generally pissed off. I really wanted to listen to it today.

But, on the plus side, I did get sparkly shoes. And Jamie Durie melamine plates and pink plastic cups for outdoors, all dishwasher safe. Wicked cool! And we tested the washing machine, it works great. Yay!

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