A girl in the Pre-K class (an older woman!) at Ryan’s school wants to have a playdate. Apparently they sit together on the bus and giggle a lot. Ryan’s afternoon bus driver told me that her mother wants to schedule something, so I said that sounds great and to give her my number. What I was really thinking is now she’s just making him laugh… but soon she’ll want a promise ring, they’ll elope and then I’ll be a goner.
So with that, I guess it’s time for the first draft of the following letter:
Dear Future Daughter-in-Law,
I really want to like you when I meet you in 20+ years, but at the moment I don’t. Not even a little bit. The thought of you taking Ryan and moving to Antarctica, telling him how overbearing I am and limiting his visits to once a year makes me violently ill. To know that all of my hugs and kisses and tushy squeezes will be transferred to you makes me want to cry.
But in the event that you subscribe to my neurotic, controlling, sensitive and sarcastic ways, take any advice that I give and allow me to plan your entire life together, we’ll be fine.
Just so you know, I adore my mother-in-law. She also adores me (or so she says), likely because I settled down with her son five minutes from where they live, we do holidays, vacations and pretty much everything together. We should do that, too, so we can also adore each other and eliminate any potential “issues”. If you opt out of this suggested arrangement, I will supply you with years of unending Jewish guilt.
So listen up, honey. All you need to do in order to get my blessing is buy me the house next door, have my son call multiple times a day, make sure he gives me cards on my Birthday that he picked out and signed and routinely say, “What would your Mother do?” when making any decisions.
Oh, and don’t think this is TOTALLY about me. If you do anything to hurt my son, I will shoot you out of a cannon to infinity and beyond.
Lovingly yours,
“Mom”
Ugh – good thing he’s only turning 4 and I have a few more years to learn how to let go because I get the sense I’m not quite ready…
