Tricia

 Tricia was my mother-in-law. She was the butt of my sisters-in-law's jokes whenever we went away. Always in respect to all of her countless unorthodox parenting or grandparenting methods. When Mark and I were childless I used to sit with a drink in my hand in the Sydney or Melbourne penthouse apartment we had rented for the weekend away and listen in horror as these women would systematically indulge in taking her down wondering what on earth Trish had done to deserve such harsh criticism.

She was the matriarch of a family of four boys and with each of their wives it was always a big table of ten for brunch and then soon there were babies and toddlers for everyone except Mark and I and that's when I learnt of Trish leaving her granddaughter to play by herself in a shopping centre playground while Trish tried on clothes in a nearby boutique or my nephews being driven to the local shops on Nanny and Poppy's laps and with respect to my sister-in-law Cathy, I actually never heard her utter a harsh word about Trish, but then she always left her girls with her own mother on visits to Brisbane from Toowoomba so she probably didn't have anything of any consequence to contribute.

I think the worst thing for me is that Tricia always wanted to run the show even when it wasn't her show to run. When Mark and I got back to Australia from overseas she wanted to organise our wedding. It didn't matter that I wanted to get married in Melbourne and it was going to be a medieval theme. She dragged us off to see a timber Catholic church out in the 'burbs of Brizzie because it had exposed timber beams and she thought it would suit us as a venue. 

We moved to Melbourne and we chose to get married at Mont Salvat which was perfect. My mother-in-law, trying to organise everyone again, ordered a bus for all of the Queenslanders who had flown down and whilst not her fault, it was daylight savings, and the bloody Victorian bus driver had forgotten to reset his alarm clock accordingly and thus, at least half of our guests were late to the wedding.

After the ceremony, all the guests were downstairs in the dining area, and the DJ had been given several CDs of medieval music to play with a particular order for each stage. Alas, Trish had been in her ear, and put in the special request of "Going to the Chapel" to be played as Mark and I walked out as Mr and Mrs Ferguson. Oh, the horror of having a 60s song played at a Medieval wedding. I quickly ducked over and changed it.

In terms of incidents with the kids, only two come to mind. The time she fed my breastfed baby crisps and he choked on them and the other time she put my just learning to climb child on the balcony and held him up so he could have a better view from the balcony room he was sleeping in. So I guess, amongst us all we are very lucky none of us has lost a child in the course of her care even though I know she loves them all very much.