What Do They DO When We Aren't Here??

Mr. S and I just returned from a week in paradise to celebrate our 20th anniversary. It was wonderful. Very relaxing and quiet and ... aaaahhhhh. [Name that movie: "And we're off....to Haiti!" "Not Haiti!...Tahiti!]

While we were gone, the 2 sets of grandparents split the time staying with the girls. I find interesting all the things we find in our house after they leave.

For example, light butter. Not something the Swizzles buy. Why? The ingredients on our butter? Sweet cream, salt. The end. Light butter has 11 ingredients that are marked with an asterisk that says, "ingredients not found in regular butter" like water and modified food starch and tapioca maltodextrin. It felt wasteful, but I threw it away. I couldn't feed it to the family (although they apparently ate it while I was gone). The other oddity about the butter? I bought a pound of "regular" butter a couple of days before we left. No idea how it was all used in less than a week.

Another oddity? A brand new, used once, jar of peanut butter. In the refrigerator. With 2 other jars of peanut butter already in the pantry. Alright.

2 loaves of bread, one with about 6 slices left and one about half gone. Despite the fresh loaf in the bread box in the pantry that we left. K.

TONS of leftovers in the fridge no matter how small. A washed empty sherbet container. (Mr. S's comment was "what kind of storage container-less lives do they live?")

Interestingly, we can tell who bought what. Mr. S's mom shopped at Kroger. Mine shopped at Target. All the Kroger store brand stuff - his mom. All the Target store brand stuff - my mom. All the things that make us say, "huh?" - his mom, but we would have known that anyway.

The thing is, this time before we left I went to the store and shopped for food to leave here. LAST time Mr. S's mom watched Twinkle while we were in China getting Sparkle, one of her many complaints was "there was nothing to eat." Pantry full. Fridge full, though not by her standards. I specifically went shopping simply because she complained last time, even though I knew we'd left her food. Problem solver that she is, she complained instead of...shopping for food.

This time, I guess she thought we did not have things that we did, though she did not complain about it. I can't help but think she left here thinking that WE are odd for not having various items of food that we did, a stocked diaper bag (we did, but she grabbed a big shopping bag and put all the essentials and then some into it), bath wash for Sparkle (she couldn't see it) and all sorts of other things.

I can't help but think that she is so unfamiliar with our house, where things are, etc. because she visits so rarely. But there's also the probability that she wouldn't know even if she lived here. We always leave instructions for everything from what days the girls go to school to how to operate the television, but she doesn't look at those or listen when Mr. S tries to explain a few things while we're still here. No matter how easy we try to make it, we just can't cover everything.

After being married 20 years, I'm used to this. They are merely slight annoyances and kind of amusing at this point. Mr. S's mom is a rare bird. She has lots and lots (and lots) of quirks, but she is the most giving person you'll ever meet. Whether it's actually something you want or not. You'll take it and you'll like it.

So, what's up with you?