Act One. On Tuesday, armed with a pile of photographs of the kids I had printed off Snapfish, I dropped by Mr-Mama's house after dinnertime. After plying her with her choice of photos, I told her that I wanted to talk with her about something. Her first response? "What did I do wrong?"
I assured her that she did nothing wrong, it was just something that had been on my mind and I wanted to share it ... and I launched into all the soft soap that J-Mama had directed me to lather her up with, including a reference to how lucky I am to have her for a MIL compared to some of the relationships I know other people have - including her! She would not be distracted and just kept asking, "What did I do?"
I told her, with as much diplomacy as possible, that we have very different taste in clothes for baby girls and I don't want the Seagull to wear sparkles or tulle or animal print. She said, "But there is so much cute stuff like that out there!" I said, "I know there is a lot of it out there, but it isn't my taste. And I know there is other stuff out there too because I have girlfriends who share my taste and have managed to dress little girls for several years now." [Thank you, Twinkle family.] She got huffy and said, "Fine, I just won't buy her anything that doesn't look like it's 85 years old and comes from the grandma shop." I responded, "That would be fine." I repeated that if she would rather not buy the Gull clothes that meet my taste, I certainly understand but I am not trying to stop her from shopping. I just don't want her to waste her time and money buying things that the Seagull is not going to wear.
The conversation went on in the same vein for a while. Thirteen minutes, to be exact. I recorded it on my phone, so that when she inevitably blew it out of proportion and told Mr. J how mean to her I was, I could prove that in fact, I bent over backwards to deliver the message as kindly as I possibly could. (No, I didn't tell her I was taping it.) Little did I know that would not be where the next blow fell ...
She was sulky and grumpy but I could tell she knew she was thwarted. At the end of the conversation, she brought up Bear's birthday, which is next Saturday. She and Mr-Papa will be out of town, and she asked if they could "come over to [our] house, or [we] could come over here" to her house on the weekend so they could give him his presents. I said we were busy on Saturday but Sunday would probably work at some point and I would talk to Mr. J. She said she was riding in the morning so it would need to be later in the day. I said that was probably fine and we could talk about it later.
Act Two. Mr. J and I discussed the Bear's birthday. After thinking it over, I really did not want her to bring over her huge pile of presents to be opened in advance of his actual birthday. She bought so many things for him last year, and she insisted on coming over to "watch him open them" the day after his birthday. Of course, at age 1, he was not interested in 9/10 of it, and it was just completely out of hand.
We are having a very low-key celebration for the Bear on his birthday, with his aunts and cousins and my parents. There will be a few presents and cake but nothing elaborate or massive. I felt like if Mr-Mama did her thing first, the Bear would be totally confused - he is only turning 2! - and would not realize that his actual birthday was in fact his birthday.
OK, I didn't want her Giant Pile of Presents to overshadow our more modest offerings. If she wants to go out of town on his birthday, fine, she can give him his gifts when she gets back ... or she can leave his presents for him to open on his actual birthday like any normal person who is thinking about the gift recipient instead of herself. Ahem.
I didn't tell her she had a limit on how much she could buy him - though I would have liked to; I just told Mr. J that I wanted to wait until after his birthday to give her stuff. Ready for Act Three?
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