My daughter in-law is crossing the line

By Mother-In-Law

I am trying to make plans for another fabulous Christmas party for friends and relatives but my traitor of a daughter-in-law — the one married to my son Mark — is hell-bent on thwarting them. Mrs Mark thinks my family is not good enough for her. Imagine!

She told me ‘her family’ had other plans. This girl is growing horns. As I understand it, when a woman gets married, her family loses a daughter and her husband’s family gains one.

But young people have no respect for tradition and she intends to join ‘her family’ in Mombasa, taking my son and grandchildren with her.

She has even convinced her children that their maternal grandmother is better than me.

How? That woman doesn’t know to look after herself. She takes little time to look after herself. She is so weather beaten that she looks 10 years older than me, yet she is younger.

I tried educating her about facials, manicures and pedicures, but she looked like me like I was insane. Okay, I am being shallow. But there is no way the other cucu loves the grandchildren more than I do.

Grumpy son

Anyway, I will not let Mrs Mark and her shenanigans spoil my mood. Speaking of moods, my grumpy son Luke, the fourth-born, has confirmed he will be coming home for Christmas.

Well, I expected that. After all, he is still single at 35 with no plans of settling down in the foreseeable future.

He will be tagging along his hyper roommate Jack — as usual. Doesn’t Jack have a home? Maybe his parents kicked him out. I, too, would disown a middle-aged man who dresses like a teenage girl. He is also too affectionate and melodramatic for my liking. How he and Luke have managed to stand each other for the 10 years they have shared an apartment beats me –– I do admire his taste in dÈcor and talent for event-planning though.

That’s why I need him this Christmas. I am throwing the biggest party my jealous neighbours have ever seen. For some reason, I picked Christmas as my wedding day –– it was one of the ways of ensuring people never forgot about it.

Yes, 45 years with John. I was going to write "45 years of wedded bliss with John," but I would be lying.

A long time ago, when I was a young mother of four little children, John developed a roving eye. The bliss ended then.

To cut a long story short, I took care of his eye problem. But not before we separated briefly.

During our separation, our daughter Mwanahawa — now aged 30 — was born. I was angry and rebellious when I named her so I decided to deviate from our boring habit of picking biblical names.

Embarrass me

But I digress. Jack, who drives Luke’s car, is picking me up in an hour so we can go shopping for material for tablecloths.

He knows all the right shops and I am confident our mission will be successful. I just hope he doesn’t embarrass me by wearing tight jeans again and calling me ‘Mum’ in public.