Mother In Law's Malade Imaginaire

Mother-in-Law’s Malade Imaginaire

I don’t know why but my mother in law has two rather strange habits, one is that she is a clean freak –but since I hate cleaning, I’ve grown to embrace this quality. The second is that she is a hypochondriac! Everytime we eat anything, she seems to have a ‘reaction’ worthy of hours of notation and discussion preferably at the dinner table. Not to mention the hours she spends finding problems with her skin, hands,feet, and other useful organs. This never stops her from changing her diet or all of her overly strong detergents-that is because imho, most of these malfunctions, disfunctions and disagreeable diseases entertain her. It is her hobby. Being from a family, with (thank God) reasonably good health and an insistence upon it…I was brought up to just wait as any unpleasantness should pass and if not go to the doctors and get rid of it a.s.a.p.-certainly not to discuss it publicly and in regards to anything involving the stomach – do not go into detailed description to the point of nauseating strangers again PARTICULARLY AT THE SUPPER TABLE! But hey, that’s just me…

Anyway, since this sort of mindset has –I think-helped my family retain good health for centuries, I intend to breed it into our child HOWEVER, every time I leave for a few hours my MIL has a new upset that she has inflicted upon the baby. Usually it’s a long and terribly exciting tale of any gas that she may have had through out the day with colorful phrases and descriptions- you can imagine how I enjoy hearing these. (baby- I apologize if you read this one day and I have embarrassed you). Recently, upon returning from our Malta trip she notified us that the baby had ‘diarrhea’ –which seemed amazing since she’s 9months old and has NEVER had diarrhea and in fact has never vomited (something which I think is an amazing achievement for a 9mth old). It’s not that I’m saying she is immortal or her time for colds and flu like any baby will not come and go,…but I don’t really want her to inherit this fixation on illness. I think I’d much rather have her take up reading or tennis or maybe art history…but only time will tell if hypochondria, too is a communicable disease!