The Mother-in-Law

Those words can put the fear into just about anything. Once in a while, you luck out and have a mother-in-law that doesn't fit the stereotype. She's like your second mom, which is what it's supposed to be like, in theory. I am, thankfully, one of those lucky people.

Now, I'm not married. Let me clear that up and allow my family to catch their breaths.

I've been with my sweetie for 2 1/2 years. Our "courtship" was insanely fast and made our heads spin a little. Not Linda Blair spin, but that special love spin. That sounded a little...moving on. He has told me his end of what happened in those first couple of months, and I'm sure his mom was a little concerned. Let me give you a little history of my Giraffe and his mom. His parents divorced when he was young, which caused he and his mom to develop an extremely close relationship. They were buddies because she believed in treating him like an adult, but still maintained a very mother hen approach of rearing. She wouldn't even let him use the oven for fear of burning his little hands, but I digress. Back to the me part of the story.

First, he had come out of an interesting relationship not too terribly long before me. Also, he tells her how much he cares for me and we haven't even been going out that long. So when the time comes around for me to meet her, I'm a nervous wreck. I wanted to make a wonderful first impression to the mother of the guy I'd like to marry someday. I'd be taking her baby away from her. Eep.

Giraffe had also told me about how she had all these heart problems and had to take a basket full of medication to function, so I get a very solid picture of this woman in my mind. She's going to be this little old lady with heart problems who sits around in an armchair most of the time and patting our faces as we hug her. Oh no. I walk in and there's this little 5'3" brunette flitting about getting dinner on the table and being this dazzling social butterfly. My first thought was, "Is this his aunt?" before I realized "Oh my gosh! This is his mom?!"

Second thing I noticed: her house was immaculate. There was no clutter on the floor, no dust on the tables or lamps, and the whitish carpet was perfect. I am not the best housekeeper and just knew it was written all over my face. How can I take care of her baby if I don't dust everyday? I could just feel all the dust bunnies and cat hairs on my clothes doing a Conga line for everyone to see. However, this woman was nothing like that. She is the epitome of the perfect hostess. She never meets a stranger (a quality I wish I had) and is just delightful to be around.

After dinner, we were sitting around on the couch in the living room and began talking about the budding relationship. Turns out, he had told his mom how happy he was because of how much I understood him because I was just like him. She was just tickled pink to hear how happy her son was because he had found someone just like him, but this also disturbed her a little. She said, "I didn't think anybody could be as weird as my son." I knew I was going to like this woman.

Today, we have a wonderful relationship and I cannot wait until she's my official mother-in-law, despite the fact that I already feel it now. I'm just afraid if she ever had a key to our future home, she would clean the place when we're not there. She likes to clean that much. I think her heart problems would flair up again if she had to dig through my plastic containers in the back of the fridge. There's no telling what's in there by now. It's like a game full of colors and textures. One that I don't like to play.