My love hate grandma

Today it's hate.
Like hate as in I want to take that little old lady scarf you're wearing and wring your wrinkly neck with it woman.
Of course tonight when we go into Osaka to get on the piss it will be love when I leave her looking after my monster for the evening until I stumble in.
Naughty gaijin mother that I am and all.

This morning reeeaaaallllllyyyy pissed me off. Now, I'm not by any means a good parent. I don't read parenting books, I don't have any real parenting plan, I'll probably be the lazy cow who sleeps in when there's a PTA meeting and will encourage Ash to skip the club activities because I just can't be arsed going to freakin baseball games on a Sunday morning. So when I actually decide to do some parenting, I guess I don't really have much ground to stand on.

There are no dividing doors between our kitchen and the area where ash plays, which is ridiculous because there were doors there originally but they looked too 'Japanese' for Ryota's liking, which is ironic, seeing as though, err, he's Japanese and we live in Japan? Anyhow, our kitchen also has a big kitchen table with storage shelves which is gold in the land of no storage space, but a disaster when little hands can get to things like breadcrumbs which get in every. fucking. corner of the damn kitchen.
I've tried blocking with chairs, distracting with TV, toys, bribing with food, nothing works. Little bastard always ends up in the kitchen touching something that's going to cut or burn off a body part.
Sooooo, this is why we invested in the play pen. Resembles a brightly coloured animal cage, but I'm all for it. Filled with toys and keeps the monster away from my kitchen. Now we only have two problems with the pen. 1) Ash screams the minute he's locked in. 2) The chorus of "Kawaaaaiiiiisssoooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuu's" that follow from the various in-laws scattered around the perimeter of my house.
I can deal with crying, as long as he's safe and nothing is actually wrong, howl away buddy, Mama will make her coffee in (some sort of) peace without the fear that you aren't going to come and dump the kettle on top of your head.

So this morning, I was doing something in the kitchen, and sure enough, Ash came and pulled a stack of bowls off the shelf and one shattered, which is not only a pain in the arse to clean up, but also dangerous for little hands. I was well pissed and decided to put him in the pen while I made brekky. Following putting him in the pen, which I might add is full of toys and actually quite big, he then proceeded to howl the place down for a good 5 minutes. I immediately heard the kawaisou chant begin from Obaachan and did the appropriate eye rolling and muttering of English obscenities under my breath as she opened the front door and shuffled in.
She then pulled him out of the pen and told him how bad it was he'd been put in the pen. Great, I'm trying to teach the stubborn little bugger he can't always get his own way and then he's being told he can cry and some sympathetic old J-lady will come and rescue him in any situation.

But it didn't end there, I'd made his breakfast by then and she stayed THE WHOLE TIME while I tried to feed him. Now usually he eats his toast like a pro with great motor skills, but as he was distracted by Obaachan playing with him he wasn't eating properly. She started on about how the toast was too big and the poor thing couldn't eat it when I wanted to say, well of course he can't concentrate and eat it with you all up in his grill! (Is the gangster grill even spelt like that or am I referring to a cooking appliance...??)
She also turned the chair around so he could watch the TV (which I'm not keen on getting him into the habit of doing), and tried to get him out of the chair so she could hold him while I fed him, but I drew the line there and told her I didn't want him to get into the habit of not eating in his chair. She brushed me off and told me he's only a baby and that wouldn't happen but unlucky for Obaachan, she's not strong enough to lift him out of the chair. (Look at me bitching about a feeble old woman!!!)

I thought that was going to be it but I didn't escape a lecture on hanging clothes out and that I was doing it the wrong way. Apparently peg placement is very important in the world of a Japanese house wife

OK, I'm off to measure how many millimetres apart my pegs are placed on my knickers...