MIL Showdown

***Warning, very long, slightly boring, and very rant-y post to follow. Read at your own risk...

Recently we ran into a bit of MIL drama that just sort of bubbled over. It actually stayed pretty tame considering. So here's where it all started- the Hubs decided he was going to cook a big ol' ham that has been sitting in the freezer forever (as a side note 'Horray for getting freezer space back!'), and since it was going to be a big meal we invited the MIL over to have dinner with us and see her grand daughter.

From the very beginning of the visit things were off to a shaky start. When the MIL arrived I had just finished feeding Tegan her solids for the day and was cleaning her up in her highchair. And, well, the MIL was a little miffed that I hadn't waited for her to get here so that she could have fed her. If the timing had worked out for this, then I would have been fine with the her feeding Tegan, but with Tegan's current schedule you have to act fast to get things to fit in before she goes down for her next nap. Waiting for the MIL in this situation really wasn't an option. Okay. Fine. Moving on.

Next the MIL wanted to take Tegan out in her stroller for a walk. I had already told the Hubs before she arrived that I wasn't comfortable with her going alone with Tegan. She has a horrible sense of direction, I mean really horrible, words can't even describe how easy she gets turned around, and she doesn't know the area around where we live. Combine this with a host of other objections like some of the mental/emotional problems, and that she sometimes has trouble walking, and there was no way I was going to be comfortable with them going alone. Whether I was being reasonable or not was besides the point, it was how I felt on the topic. So when the MIL asked to go out, the Hubs was a real champ and insisted that he went with. This illicited another snarky comment from the MIL about how "(she) can't even take Tegan out for a walk by (herself)". To which the snarky voice in my head responded "HELL NO!!!" But again, okay. Fine. Moving on. And off the three of them went for a walk.

By the time they were back from the walk Tegan was already showing signs of being ready to go down for the night. So off to the nursery they went for a few more minutes of play before bed. When I entered Tegan's room a few minutes later it was definitely time to get the little one ready for bed. The MIL asked if she could put her to bed, and I explained that there was a whole routine that we have to go through, and it would just be easier to show her how it goes than try to explain it (my snarky voice was now thinking "even though it is really unlikely that you will need to know the bedtime routine"). I also reminded her that she can't get Tegan into her crib because she can't reach. (It may just be me, but I think that could cause a slight problem...just saying.) So I scoop Tegan up and start getting things ready to put her down. By this point I was really trying to not let the MIL get to me since Tegan picks up on my mood really easily and if I wanted even the slightest hope of her going down without a fight I needed her to stay relaxed. I was working so hard on keeping myself calm I almost forgot to change Tegan's diaper, can you say sad baby with diaper rash by morning? Oops, slight back track to take care of my mistake, and again the MIL contributes a snarky comment about how "all you have to do for the bedtime routine is change her diaper?" I'm literally grinding my death at this point and thinking "if that's all there is to it you could have done it", but instead I opt for a simple "no there's more". After tripping over the MIL for the rest of the routine because she keeps finding a way to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time (and for a routine that only takes a few minutes this is impressive!) I finally get Tegan down and push the MIL out of the room. Patience and sanity reserves are hovering dangerously close to empty. Okay. Fine. Moving on.

Finally we move to the dinning room for adult dinner and incidentally start our final steps in the showdown. The MIL is a very direct person so it wasn't to big of a surprise that she brought up the topic about how she feels like we're not comfortable with her spending time with Tegan alone, and hows she's starting to resent this. To keep a long post from becoming absurdly long we ended up talking for a good 40 minutes about this and essentially reminded her that we had a conversation before Tegan was even born about how we weren't comfortable with her babysitting until Tegan was older because of certain issues. We clarified that by older we mean when she's like two years old. It seemed like she excepted this and was doing okay with it, even assured me that if I felt I was doing what I thought was right then I needed to listen to myself and my instincts. We ended the night on good terms and I thought that would be the end of it.

I was wrong. A few days later the Hubs got a call. The MIL wasn't okay with it and she wanted to talk about it some more. Awesome. Fine. Alright, come on over. It was clear at this point we needed to be a lot more direct about things. and make sure everything was crystal clear and out in the open. She wanted specific examples of our reasons for being uncomfortable with leaving her alone with Tegan, and in return we were brutally honest with her. I'm sure she didn't like a lot of what we said (and we certainly didn't like that she had forgotten some of her scarier moments that concern us, but seeing as this is one of my largest concerns it made a good case-n-point). Towards the end of the conversation I thought we were really getting her to hear and understand us. That is until she tried to sum up what we were saying by explaining that she thinks it was just different parenting methods- "when (she) was raising her sons it was really important to her that her family be involved in there lives, and that her family have a big part in helping to raise her kids". I may have lost my cool and yelled at her at this point.

In the end I hope we reached an understanding. There are things that the Hubs and I need to work on to be more comfortable, and there are plenty of things the MIL needs to work on. I'm hopeful that we can close this chapter and move on, or at least have less stressful get-togethers. Although history is not on my side.

On a final note (I swear I'm almost done); at one point the MIL made a comment about how she only gets to see Tegan every two weeks, and in her opinion that's not enough. Now Tegan only sees my parents about every two weeks and occasional little encounters during the week mainly because they live a lot closer and this seems to work fine. So my question for those out there that actually read this- How often did you visit your grandparents growing up? And if you now have kids of your own, how often do they see their grandparents? Is every two weeks that unreasonable?