Am I over reacting

[tommynose]

Dd is 3 and ds is almost 1 and I'm getting quite annoyed at the in-laws constantly using the word gob when they are refering to dc's, ie, take that out of your gob and how do you get something that big in your gob. Fil even said shut-up gobby to dd a few weeks ago when she was getting quite noisy.

Dd has just started pre-school. I know she will come out with some words which aren't very nice but surely not to here them from her grandparents.

When they visit they never seem to do jigsaws or look at books with them. They would sooner spin them around the room. Mil was rocking ds backwards and forwards the other day and then passed him back to me and he was sick. She blamed it on a toy he had been putting in his mouth, but he has never been sick from putting the toy in his mouth before.

I have kept quiet up to now but should I say something or still keep quite. Dh is always at work when they visit so everything is left to me.

They do have alot of really good qualities, thats why I'm wondering if I should say something or not or am I just over reacting.

[PortAndLemon]

Having a vent about it because it's winding you up isn't overreacting. Saying something about it to them would be overreacting .

Although you can try to be a bit pre-emptive with "Oh, DS has been a bit sicky recently so could you go easy on the jiggles today; I've had to be really careful what I do with him" or "DD, why don't you show Grandma the book you brought home from preschool / the new book you got this week / what we got from the library yesterday" and see whether that improves things.

[kreecherlivesupstairs]

Personally I do think you are over reacting a bit. As far as the doing jigsaws and reading goes, if I were a grandparent, I'd rather do something physical than (what I consider rather dull), jigsaw with them.
It is your children though, so port's ideas are good.

[CarmenSanDiego]

Personally, I would say something gentle or jokey about how that's not a very nice word or even something mock-self-conscious like, 'my little angel doesn't have a gob, she has a gorgeous angel kissed mouth!'

At the risk of being politically incorrect, I think gob is a horrible word and it won't go down well at school. Imagine if she says, "Miss! You've got something on your gob!"

Don't know about the spinning or rocking, hard to judge by your message whether this really is a problem, but again, I would say something jokey like, "Hey, gently! You want his head to stay attached" i.e. get your point across but don't make a big meal of it.

[julietbat]

As long as your DC aren't in danger from the physical play I personally wouldn't be picking that as a battle. It's actually good for them to have a range of experiences with different people.

Having said that, I would definitely need to say something (very politely) about the use of the word 'gob'. I don't happen to like it, would never use it in front of my dc and therefore wouldn't want anybody else to use it frequently at the sort of age when kids copy what they hear. That's only my personal opinion but with my dd at 18 months and soaking up words like a sponge we're having to be very careful with our language and it's something I would approach the in-laws about if I felt strongly about it.

[tommynose]

Thanks everyone. Some good advice given. Think the "gob" issue has to be dealt with.

As for the physical play thing (don't get me wrong I don't mind physical play at all) it just seems to be constant when they are visiting and it was the fact that ds was sick that concerned me. I like your idea port, will maybe use that and see what happens.