While in the maternity ward, Christine discovered that her mother-in-law had moved in with them.
The new grandmother immediately took over the care of their son from the young parents.
Once home, Christine noticed that the baby bath seat she had bought, along with the pack of nappies, had been banished to the balcony.
“How wonderful, you’re going to have a little boy. I’ve always dreamt of having a son named Crispin! Maybe you’ll name your son that for me!” Christine’s mother-in-law chirped over the phone.
“Mrs. Smith, we’ve already decided on a name for him. He’ll be Jonathan. Jonathan William sounds perfect,” Christine tried to explain, surprised by the suggestion.
“You never listen to me! Why Jonathan? There are so many of them. I’ve chosen such a strong and beautiful name for my grandson, and you just turn your nose up at it? I see how it is. You’re selfish,” her mother-in-law fumed and hung up the phone.
“She named her own sons Thomas and Peter! Yet, for a grandson, she couldn’t come up with anything better than Crispin,” Christine thought frustratedly to herself.
After she told her husband about the conversation with his mother, Thomas just laughed:
“Remember that dream you had? What fish did you see there?”
***
Christine and Thomas had been married for over a decade, but they still didn’t have children.
At first, they were focused on their careers and buying a home, then on traveling.
When they approached thirty and thought about having a child, it turned out not to be as easy as they’d hoped.
They began a long process of doctors’ visits, examinations, and treatments. Everything seemed fine, yet the pregnancy didn’t happen.
Celebrating their twelfth wedding anniversary, the couple reluctantly acknowledged that they might remain childless. Thomas quickly wiped away a tear and said:
“Maybe it’s not in the cards for us to be parents. But I love you and want to grow old with you, no matter what.”
Exactly a month later, Christine had an extraordinarily vivid and strange dream. She dreamt of walking into the bathroom to find a giant carp in the tub filled with water.
“Thomas, Thomas! Look who’s come to visit us! How did that happen? You’ve never gone fishing!” Christine exclaimed to her husband… and then she woke up.
It was already morning. Hurrying to get ready for work, Christine shared her vibrant dream with Thomas. He just chuckled:
“Maybe I should actually take up fishing? Since you’re already dreaming about fish!”
Over tea at work, Christine shared her unusual dream with a couple of colleagues.
Mrs. Thompson smiled mysteriously and winked at Christine, saying:
“Well, Christine! It seems you’re going to catch yourself a little fish! For a lifetime.”
“How so?”
“It’s a dream about getting pregnant. You’ll see my words come true!”
Christine just sighed. She had stopped counting on anything over the past month. But when she calculated the dates, she realized she was five days late.
The next morning, she stared in disbelief at the test showing two bright lines.
The pregnancy progressed well, and the expectant mother suffered only mild nausea in the first three months.
Then she was troubled solely by her mother-in-law.
***
Mrs. Smith was an active woman who had long been waiting for grandchildren. As soon as she learned that her daughter-in-law was expecting, she eagerly began instructing Christine.
“You’ll need no less than fifty nappies. Both flannel and lightweight ones. I hope your iron’s working fine? You’ll have to wash and iron them at the highest temperature on both sides!”
“I wasn’t planning on wrapping up the baby. These days, you can just buy onesies and bodysuits with diapers.”
“What are you talking about? You’ll have a boy! No plastic nappies! It’s like a greenhouse in there! Only cloth ones! I’ll teach you everything; otherwise, you’ll ruin my grandson’s health from the start!”
“Fine, but can I at least choose the color and pattern of these nappies?” Christine conceded. “I don’t like those too bright with prints.”
“We’ll pick them out, don’t worry,” the mother-in-law assured.
Exactly a week later, Mrs. Smith smiled as she placed a large package of nappies in front of the bewildered Christine:
“I thought why should you go around shops and catch all sorts of germs? I could manage it without you, couldn’t I? Look at this quality flannel!”
Christine dishearteningly unwrapped one nappy after another: all were bright colors with huge ducks, teddy bears, and bug-eyed cars.
“Well, if they’re bought, they’re bought. No sense in arguing about it.”
While still in the maternity ward, Christine found out that her mother-in-law had moved in for “a week or two, to help with the newborn.”
Too exhausted from the hard labor, Christine didn’t have the strength to protest.
“Her help will really come in handy initially,” she reasoned.
“Oh, you’re holding him so strangely! Give him to me, and let me show you the right way,” were the words her mother-in-law greeted Christine with when they returned home.
The new grandmother immediately took over the care of their son from the young parents.
Back home, Christine noticed that the baby bath seat she had purchased and her pack of nappies were exiled to the balcony.
“I’ll teach you how to bathe the baby correctly! You have to place a cloth on the bottom of the tub, not these unusual bath seats! Otherwise, you’ll dislocate all his limbs, my dear Crispin.”
“His name is Jonathan,” Thomas reminded her.
“Sure, you named him for yourselves, but he’s Crispin to me! Let’s get you in the bath, Crispin! Just the thing, I need to steam up the bathroom to ensure it’s nice and warm!” his mother fussed, turning the water on as hot as it went.
When the bath was ready, Mrs. Smith grabbed the baby and, yelling at her son not to leave the bathroom door open too long, left to bathe the infant.
The baby cried as his grandmother quickly lathered him up with baby soap. Afterward, she tightly swaddled him in two nappies at once.
“It’s warm enough in the house,” Christine halfheartedly objected.
“It’s warm for you. He’s just a baby, he’ll feel cold. Don’t take the cap off and don’t unwrap him; let him sleep like that!”
The night was restless for Christine and her husband. The baby couldn’t sleep on wet cloth nappies and kept waking them with his cries.
They had to get up, unswaddle, change, and swaddle again. All these disturbances meant neither parents nor the baby could get proper rest.
By morning, a mountain of nappies piled up in the laundry basket, and Christine and Thomas could compete over who had darker circles under their eyes.
Little Jonathan developed a rash from being kept too warm under his grandmother’s advice.
“That’s not a rash!” Mrs. Smith declared adamantly, looking at the spots. “You ate something, and now my precious is having a reaction!”
“I’m practically living on chicken and buckwheat!” Christine complained.
“Maybe your milk doesn’t suit him at all! I’d feed him formula instead,” her mother-in-law insisted.
“No way! I’ll breastfeed him myself,” Christine stood her ground.
With a dismissive click of her tongue, her mother-in-law left their room. But every day, at the crack of dawn, as soon as the baby started fussing, Mrs. Smith would burst into the young parents’ bedroom and take Jonathan from Christine:
“Mommy doesn’t know how to soothe you! Let grandma hold her little Crispin. Look, I have a dummy for you!”
The baby spat out the offered pacifier, but the grandmother, despite Christine’s protests, kept trying to get him used to it.
The first weigh-in showed that the newborn was losing weight.
“It’s because she’s always interrupting his feeding. Saying she’s better at soothing him than he is being at my supposedly empty breast!” Christine realized and decided to stand firm in her motherhood.
The next morning, her mother-in-law casually flung open the bedroom door of Christine and Thomas, saying:
“Why don’t you get on with making some food or doing the laundry, and I’ll take care of the grandson! As if there’s any point of him nursing on your empty breast!”
“No, thank you! He’s still feeding,” Christine responded firmly, hugging her son close.
“He won’t find anything in there!” her mother-in-law retorted, glancing sharply. “Let me hold him!”
“He’ll find it!” Christine replied calmly. “When he’s had enough, you can hold him.”
As soon as Christine steadfastly refused to let her mother-in-law take Jonathan, he began to put on weight.
Mrs. Smith only sighed irritably and accused Christine of torturing her grandson.
“We’ve had enough of grandma’s supervision,” Christine decided, and asked her husband to tell his mother that they were managing just fine with their parental duties and it was time for her to go home.
After Thomas spoke with her, his mother was indignant:
“I wanted to stay a couple more months! What’s Crispin going to do without me?”
“We’ll visit you,” Thomas reassured her.
Indeed, nearly every weekend, they visited Mrs. Smith. As soon as they arrived, she would eagerly scoop her grandson from Christine’s arms and kiss him on the cheek.
“Go and have a rest while we have our quality grandparent time!” she’d dismissively wave her hand at Christine and Thomas. When it was time to leave, she’d hold her grandson close and say:
“You go ahead, but the little one will stay with me. He’s happy here!”
“And what would you feed him with?” Christine jokingly asked one day.
“I’d find him the best milk there is!” her mother-in-law proudly declared. “Better than that funny-tasting stuff you’ve got!”
“Okay, Mum, we need to get going,” Thomas interrupted, predicting that this conversation between his wife and mother wouldn’t end well.
Walking outside, Christine commented to her husband:
“It seems she didn’t have enough time with you and your brother?”
“We mostly grew up at our grandma’s house,” Thomas admitted.
“And it shows. But we didn’t have our son for her. She’ll have to understand she’s a grandmother, not a mother.”
