The Mother-in-Law(40)

“Just feed!” I hiss-whisper to Harriet.

I thank my lucky stars that at least Archie is out of my hair while I do this. Diana comes on Tuesdays now and takes Archie to the park for an hour and a half and for this, I’m truly thankful. Archie adores Diana—for many reasons, not least of which that she packs him full of babycinos and marshmallows and lets his run riot—and I am fine with this because I have a newborn with colic and if a murderous gangster offered to take my kid off my hands for a couple of hours I’d be sorely tempted.

Harriet is a piece of work, I can tell this already at three months old. She won’t go to anyone else, not even to Ollie, and when I try to hand her over, she sucks in a breath and watches me with knowing eyes. Why do you even bother, Mum? I’m about to scream so loud the neighbors will think you are trying to kill me. They might even call the police. You’d better . . . oh there we go, Daddy’s handing me back. Don’t make this silly mistake again.

Diana persists in trying to hold Harriet week after week, as if expecting her to have magically, since the week before, warmed to people. Each week, as we go through this little routine, I feel like telling her not to bother, but that would be denying Diana her grandmotherly rights, not to mention making me one of those crazy daughters-in-law, the ones that make everyone get a whooping cough shot before they can hold the baby. And so I let her hold Harriet. I’ve learned to play the game.

I have just managed to get Harriet latched on when I hear Archie’s approaching giggle. My heart sinks. Already? I had GRAND PLANS for this afternoon but in an hour and a half, all I’d managed to do is fold a tiny pile of washing (not even put it away) and watch a dead dragon be pulled out of the ice by White Walkers. Now, Archie bursts through the door, clutching a fistful of lollies. I pick up the controller and pause Game of Thrones. Archie runs around the room in a maniacal circle, pumped up on sugar.

“Archie!” I shout as he tracks a muddy boot right across my pile of folded laundry. My breast comes out of Harriet’s mouth with a painful pinch. “Shit!”

“Shiiiiiit!” Archie says.

Diana appears behind Archie, looking appalled. She surveys the room and immediately holds out her hands for Harriet who starts inhaling a nice, deep breath. I hand Harriet over and look at my ruined pile of laundry, the grand sum of my achievements in the last hour and a half. In true hormonal style, I find myself holding back tears.

“Archie, look what you’ve done, mate!”

I don’t scream it. There’s the “mate” I add to the end, for good measure. But Archie, of course, decides to burst into tears.

Diana squats down, transferring a wailing Harriet to the opposite shoulder as if that will make a difference, and tries to comfort Archie.

“That folding is all I managed to do while you were gone!” I explain. “Other than try to feed Harriet, where my efforts were just as pathetic.”

Diana glances at the television where a picture of Jon Snow is frozen on the screen, then back at me pointedly. “Maybe you could try multitasking. When Ollie was a baby, I used to unload the groceries, vacuum the house and pay the bills while feeding him.”

Obviously Diana is lying. She never unloaded the groceries, vacuumed the house and paid the bills while feeding Ollie. It’s physically impossible. I know because I’m well-versed—not to mention recently well-versed—in breastfeeding. But it doesn’t matter what I know because mothers-in-law are allowed to say things that aren’t true. Whether they’re lying or misremembering is entirely beside the point.

“Richard took his first steps at three months old.”

“Mary never cried. Never!”

“I started feeding Judy solids while she was still in the hospital.”

“I washed all of Trevor’s clothes by hand in homemade laundry powder.”

“Philip loved vegetables. LOVED them. He devoured everything I ever served him. Brussels sprouts were his favorite!”

Daughters-in-law know their mother is lying, but it doesn’t matter a jot, because how does one prove something isn’t true? More importantly, how does one prove something isn’t true whilst trying to be polite to their mother-in-law? It is as impossible as breastfeeding an infant while unloading the groceries, vacuuming the floor and paying the bills. And so, mothers-in-law get to say whatever outlandish statements they like about motherhood. Mothers-in-law win, every time.

“You could put Harriet down for a minute or two and do some laundry,” Diana is saying. “Throw both kids in the stroller and take them to the grocery store. Put a puzzle down for Archie and pop Harriet in the bouncy chair while you cook dinner. You shouldn’t need to be sitting in that chair around the clock when she’s three months old.”

It takes me a moment to collect myself. I should be clear, I don’t have postnatal depression or anxiety or any postnatal mood disorder to speak of. I know people who have had it. My cousin Sophie confessed to me once that she felt indifferent to her daughter Jemima. She felt hopeless about her role as a mother and would have done anything to turn back the clock and not have had her. My friend Rachel reported being trapped in a world of exhausted insomnia for months after having Remy, where she would lie in bed, her head locked in a circuitous OCD cycle of “If you don’t move your right leg right now, Remy will be dead in the morning.” I, on the other hand, am mentally well. I adore my children. Apart from the (I am told, totally normal) hormonal moments when I decide my baby (or husband) is the devil incarnate, I am very fond of my life. I enjoy being an at-home mum, I even like my teeny tiny worker’s cottage with the unrenovated kitchen.