Alrighty, so I’ll set the scene for you. We’re pretty low contact with MIL for all of the reasons we all know here, mainly boundary stomping, cosplaying mommy etc. We haven’t seen MIL and father in law since my first’s three year old bday at a restaurant which was in March. Our second babe is now 8 months old. We skipped Easter and my husband didn’t see her on Mother’s Day. So, we invited them over to our place. Now, we have this whole history of her trying to play mommy, which stems from when we paid her to watch our first 3 days a week and it ended with us having to let her go and hire an external nanny because this woman was literally believing she was the third parent (texting me to wash my baby’s hands when we were in music class over the weekend -she wasn’t even there, standing over me in the nursery and singing lullabies while I was rocking her – the mom ones, grabbing her, running to the nursery to snatch her before I could, withholding etc etc etc, I eventually found my inner mama bear hence the firing). After that saga, we didn’t see her for months and maybe 6 months ago we had a talk where she asked me what it was and I told her she ignored my boundaries and was overbearing. Fast forward to yesterday, she’s on her best behaviour. She’s on a swing chair in our backyard and I hand her baby 2. I say, “take her and I’m going to get a jacket for her because it’s getting chilly”. This lady says to me, “Please get her a new bib. This one smells like vomit and I know I always get nauseous when I smell vomit so she does too.” Ya’ll, do you think I let my child smell like barf? My baby does not even vomit and that was a new bib. Did she spit up while we were outside, sure maybe? I felt that bib and it was dry and had no smell to it. Like wtf lady. Can you not keep your unsolicited bs to yourself? Do you not think I know when to change my baby’s bib? I dunno. It rubbed me the wrong way and I can’t shake it and I don’t want to see her again for months honestly. I have regret that I didn’t say anything back to her in the moment, like “it’s fine, I won’t be doing that. Give me my damn baby baby now you turd muffin.” Like after all of our history, wouldn’t you keep this to yourself?! She has ZERO self-control/ awareness. What do you all think?? What should I have said in the moment?
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“If you feel nauseous then give me my baby back and go get the jacket for her please.”
Bitch clearly thought she could have her moment to get a little dig in.
This kind of comment is somewhat ok if she didn’t have the history she has but damn, she needs to learn to stfu sometimes
I think I would have just touched the bib, bent down and smelled it, and if it smelled fine, I would have said “seems fine to me, maybe you’re smelling something else?” And then gone and get the coat.
OR taken the baby back and gone “the bib is clean, but if you think you might puke, I’d rather it not be on the baby.”
Honestly though, I think you handled it fine. Not everything needs to be a hill to die on (also, ruminating just makes you feel worse). So long as you know you’ll call her out in the moment on the important stuff (which it sounds like you do), just roll your eyes and don’t beat yourself up about something on the smaller side, like this. If she does it again, you can look at her and go “okay, I let it go once already, but remember when we talked about being overbearing…?”
Should have sniffed dramatically and said “actually, I think that’s you. Do you need to borrow a clean pair of pants?”
Sorry you have to deal with this but I hope you get a chance to get her back in the future!