Every time MIL visits (once a month for a long weekend), she commandeers my kitchen. I used to be fine with it, but for the past few years, it has been driving me potty! She is a good cook, but uses every bloody dish/pot/pan and as she’s the cook, she expects 1) all of the praise and 2) to drink all of the wine whilst DH and I end up scrubbing the bloody kitchen for an hour afterwards.
She usually arrives around 5pm on a Friday and lets herself in. I come in from work at 6:15pm and I then have to bath and put our young DC to bed (as DH isn’t home till gone 8pm on a weeknight). MIL does none of the helping with the DC bath/bed (I have asked and she laughed). So really what I’m saying is that her “helping” in the kitchen is actually causing me more hassle and work.
How do I keep her out of my kitchen? Last time she visited, I was upstairs bathing DC and reading stories. It took me an hour. I came downstairs by 7:15pm, which was plenty of time for me to do the roast dinner I’d planned for 8:45pm....but without saying a word or any prompting, she’d already taken the ingredients I’d bought out of the fridge and nearly finished cooking something I didn’t want and using only half the stuff I’d bought. I didn’t want to eat at 7:15pm and DH wasn’t even home by that time!!
It is so infuriating.
Shall I just say “here’s a magazine and a bottle of red wine, go sit and don’t touch the kitchen whilst I’m upstairs”??! There are lots of things she does that piss me off, but the cooking one is really grating. Maybe I’m becoming more territorial as I age!
P.s. I’m quite a good cook and she could always have a snack if she’s hungry before dinner