More vaguely petulant ramblings about my the annoying habits of my mother

[FrannyandZooey]

Do other people's mothers do this?

It's my birthday soon and she rang to ask what I wanted.

Me: I'd like a raincoat.
Mother: Ooh I've got a raincoat you can have!
Me: Well, I'd like a pac a mac one.
Mother: Yes, yes, I've got a pac a mac one and you can have it, it's just sitting here!
Me: Well I would like quite a smart one, that fits me nicely (mother is entirely different size to me), and is in a colour that I choose.
Mother: Oh well this one is VERY smart and when I wore it on our trip EVERYONE said how nice it was, I can send you this one!
Me: I WOULD LIKE ONE THAT I HAVE CHOSEN.
Mother : [crestfallen silence]

I have a terrible urge to ask what she wants for Christmas and then say "oooh, an X? I've got an X! You can have this one, I'll send it to you..."

my mother bought dh a gizmo to slice the top off a boiled egg once

he never eats boiled eggs

"well I was in a kitchen shop and I thought it would be lovely as a little stocking filler"

I got a small whisk because 'I can never find one when I am at your house'

why the feck would my mother, who sometimes comes round for a cup of tea which she never drinks, need there to be a whisk in my house?

hee hee [glee]

I do like the small whisk

oh I am so glad other people's mothers are mad too

Oh I don't know whether to tell you this because I am so embarassed ...

Well my mother, upon retirement, started losing her mind. I think, anyway. She now goes on Expeditions to Buy a Postage Stamp, and then tells us about them in great detail.

Then she discovered a shopping channel called QVC.

Oh the shame.

And now every christmas I get a piece of jewellery stamped QVC. Each piece has been unimaginably hideous.

My PILs are like this (well, FIL is now sadly deceased, but he was and she is, still). He would save amusing cuttings from the paper for dh; they would go to car boot sales and buy endless amounts of tacky, plastic rubbish for ds. Or horrible clothes, far too big for him (age 4 when he was 18 months). So you have my sympathy. It's well-intentioned but very irritating.

Mind you, dh was having a clear out and just found two pairs of pyjamas donated three years ago that now finally fit ds. And one of the pairs is quite nice. Success at last!

My mother tells me off for spending too much on her for birthday/Christmas. I have come to expect a telling off if I spend more than £2.50 on her. She bought me a marmalade holder with spoon so that I could decant the marmalade (who the hell does that these days?) but I wouldn't say she is mean about presents these days - usually gets me something expensive plus all the toecovers.

What's a toecover? It's a term coined by Betty MacDonald in a great book called The Plague And I about when she went to a sanatorium to recover from TB. The toecover is a gift of no practical use and little aesthetic value. Much entertainment can be had in discussing them, as we are finding on this glorious thread.

I have learned so much from mumsnet

Yes ! The cuttings from newspapers thing . Mine does that too. This week there was one which I had to give to dh. Couldn't see the relevance for him so I'm afraid I didn';t hand it over . I'd have spent so long watching him be baffled, expaining my own bafflement and then still throwing it away.
Does anyone else's mum think the phone line might be bugged ? Mine goes all reverential and even more long winded and circumlocutional and stops naming names when she thinks the discussion might be about someone High Up and therefore it Might be Listened To. She won't be talked out of it. She's been like this for years; it's not senility.

i think my mother must be related to all the mums on this thread as she does all the things listed to varying degrees, except the redistributing of my 80s fashion mistakes to her friends - she just wears them herself, along with an ex rich friend's cast offs which are usually 3 sizes too big and of extremely dubious taste.

She too is a sucker for cuttings, particularly ones relating to health scares and ususally cut out of the Sun or something equally reliable in terms of scientific (or indeed any) facts.

I have been howling with laughter at this thread.

My mother never throws anything out. Well far, far less than she brings into her home anyway. As a result of this I declutter so ruthlessly and so often I regularly have to rebuy things . An absolute decluttering frenzy begins after every visit to her house.

She recently bought a new sofa. So of course like every normal person she threw the old one out. Except of course she isn't, normal. Noooooo she rearranged the sitting room to fit the new one in beside the one which it is supposed to be replacing. The sitting room is is about 14' by 22' by the way.

My strangled noises on the telephone upon hearing this were met with

"but I did move some things out to fit it in."

Yes thought I, into another already over stuffed room. God forbid they should, you know, actually make it out the front door.

Silence fell.

"So you think I should put the old one out then" says Mummy in a chippy manner.

"yes yes for God's sake yes" said I.

A sniff from my mother and a later report from my sister of how unreasonable I am.

This is HILARIOUS. I have tears rolling down my cheeks. I feel SO much better about my mother. I can relate to so much of this. In addition my mum "asks" if I want her to knit baby clothes. She only has 1950's patterns and has a knack of finding eye-watering colours. She'll say e.g. "I know you like red" but there's red and there's RED.

There must be a way of stopping this. I haven't found the right level of assertiveness - I hint more and more strongly and she doesn't get it then I end up saying something like "I don't WANT the b#@y curtains!" followed by atmosphere and her changing the subject with forced lightness of voice.

Sometimes I think I'm just intolerant. But there really is a fine line between help and interference. I can be totally honest with my MIL, but she would never try to force stuff on me in the first place.

I think my mums absolute best newspaper cutting was handed over at my sister's birthday dinner.

Cutting is handed over in an unusually furtive manner. Sis rolls eyes and is about to read it. Mum hisses so loudly "Nooooo, read it later" that all the surrounding tables are looking with interest as well.

My sister starts cringing and muttering. Cutting is passed to me. Mum has cat's bum face with a slightly fearful look in her eye.

oh my God.

Clearly the only way to celebrate your daughter's birthday is by letting her now her old school friend is a convicted sex offender.

I love the toecover concept. My mum is very good at the novelty gift item. Over the course of several Christmases I have received
A plastic omelette shaped dish for making microwaved omelettes (at least now I know how Little Chef make theirs)
A miniature grater (for what? very sma?ll bits of cheese? stunted lemons?)
A 'spoon rest' shaped like a cat for putting spoons on when you are cooking.
A set of 'guest handtowels' (about six inches square with Christmas motifs embroidered on them (I think they are meant to be left in a pile at the side of the washbasin a la posh hotels so guests never have to wipe their hands on a previously used towel).

my mum's speciality lies in referring to things in a completely opaque and coded way, so that other people present (particularly the DCs) don't understand.

for example, she brings a toy bus along for DS and wants to ask me if it would be a good moment to give it to him. Which is a very considerate and thoughtful thing to do. But what she says is something along the lines of:
"shall I produce the wheeled item?"

or she wants to mention that DD has been a bit stroppy at the park and seems a bit tired; so what she says is :
"there may be some need for an early retirement".

To which I respond by going "What? What??" in an increasingly deranged and irritable way.

lol @ this thread! I thought it was just my mum that's a bit batty

I love this thread.

DP's gran, on our last visit, INSISTED on giving us an old crockery set from the dawn of time, heavy as hell earthenware, which was dark brown and painted in beige and orange vomit swirls and exploding circles. Unspeakably vile.

I am a complete sap and went overboard with the gratitude (cue filthy looks from DP who thought I was being sarcastic), then I got the fit of giggles at the vileness of the plates, and ended up dropping bag of said plates and smashing most of them. DP thought I did it on purpose, which made me giggle all the more. (luckily his gran didn't notice all this, bless her)

Right my Mum today "I've bought the DDs some dresses from the car boot market, they are summer dresses so they won't do this year maybe next year but then I looked at them and they are quite neat so maybe they won't even fit DD2 next year"

So whats the point of them then???

Either that she buys them really cheap tops for the car boot market and I wash them once and they go really odd shapes.

I love iheartdusty's mum She sounds like someone I would have great fun with

My mum comes into my house & suggests I paint things, or sand things down, or re-cover things

She even once, very thoughtfully, bought me a tin of black paint & some clear gloss for an iron & wood hall stand I have. She doesn't get the distressed look at all!!

She once threw out the plate of my microwave as she couldn't get "all the wee black specks off of it" Could I bloody tell her that the plate was indeed speckled when we bought it!!!!!!!!!!!??

I think I also heart Iheartdusty's mum. She sounds a laugh, what does that say about me?

My mum once bought me some of those magic sponge things that you clean crayon and stuff off walls with. Over lunch she said "Now while ds is having his nap, you and me can really tackle those doors."

for once I had no problem being absolutely assertive with her

OMG Icarus, that is a bizarre choice of time and place.

I recognise dusty's mother. My MIL - and dh - do this leading to ever increasing levels of aggravation. And then they act all wounded...

I like the sound of Dustys mum too but it would drive you mental if she was yours.

Oh yes meant to say AAARGh at Icarus's newspaper clipping. That really takes the biscuit doesn't it?

"shall I produce the wheeled item?"

LOL oh yes THIS is the sort of grandma I am going to be

I like the sound of Dustys mum too but it would drive you mental if she was yours.

yes yes indeed yes

Great thread. Is my Mum the only one that does this..?

We go out for lunch. She says "oooh, did you see that programme the other night? Midsomer Axe Murders in a Heartbeat with Dalziel and Pascoe?"

"No," I say "it's not really my kind of thing."

"Oooh, it was good. There was this detective, and his wife went missing, and they arrested the postman - he was that actor from Casualty - you know the one I mean?"

"Er, no, Mum, I don't watch Casualty."

"Anyway, then the detective's daugher gets arrested cos she's one of those environmental protestors...you know...and then..."

Twenty minutes later and I've slipped into a coma...

"Ooh, it was ever so good. You'll have to watch it if it's on again."

Why? You've just given me the entire plot.

PMSL!
My mother and I have a good relationship now. (we didn't for about 10 years, we just didn't get each other IFSWIM.)

She has a serious towel addiction, she cannot pass a shop if it has towels on offer. She always buys green ones and then when they are stiff and faded and scratchy, she tries to give them to me. ''But mum, my bathroom is cream and white. I hae white towels.''
''Well have these just in case...''
''In case of what?''
''You might need extra towels''
''I have a tiny 3-bed house. i have ample towels''
''You might need them. What if you have another baby''
''DH had the snip 3 years ago ma. It ain't gonna happen.. Besides which, why would I need manky scratchy towels if I had a baby?''

She also does the clothes thing. She is 70. I am 37. She is a size 16-18, I am a size 8-10. She is 5ft, I am 5ft 6. What possible use am I going to have for her cast-off elasticated waist jeans...?
etc etc