To be annoyed by this?

[princessglitter]

My dh's brother popped by unexpectedly while I was upstairs feeding the baby. My older dds, 3 and 4, were playing with their craft set and there were some toys on the floor where they had been playing.

We went to MILs house today and from what she said : (e.g.'oh [BIL] couldn't live like you, with toys out everywhere. But I said to him you have 3 children...') it was obvious he had been commenting on the fact that the children had toys out.

Apparently his ds has to play with one toy at a time and only in his bedroom. Not got a problem with that - it is up to him, but he only has one ds, who is 10. We have 3 under 5s and both work fulltime. The house is always clean but the children do get toys out sometimes.

AIBU reasonable to think that if you drop in on someone unexpectedly you should take them as you find them and not make comments about the state of your house to others?

Your BIL sounds like a stick-in-the-mud. His poor DC.

Tell him not to pop round to my house anytime soon, he'd get a shock...

I'm trying to encourage my 10-month-old DS to start moving (he's recently started bumshuffling) so there are toys scattered all over the living room in the hope that he will shuffle towards them and play

When I say to MIL to ignore the mess she says she isn't bothered but has said to ds that my house is always messy [angry.

Someone being tactless isn't an excuse for stirring .

I love the way my children will get out the toy cars, use Megabloks to build a garage, add in a bit of wooden railway track from the garage to the doll's house and then invite the Playmobil people to live in their town.

I couldn't bear to tell them that they could only have one toy at a time.

YANBU.

My sister is like this :(

Her ds is 2 and constantly has a cloth in his wee hand, he was cleaning skirting boards the other day when I was in lol (copying mum, not that she was forcing child labour on him!!!)

But I like a tidy house, mine is tidy sometimes, mostly not, but we try :)

BIL is a knob :)

YANBU

I always force child labour on my two boys. They are always cleaning something. I make them unload the dishwasher too, and they are still young enough for me to convince that it is a special treat.

They have loads of toys out though. They are everywhere...

we don't see BIL often - BIL is nearly 20 years older than dh and lives on the other side of the country, so dh doesn't really know his sons and we don't see BIL often at all. His visit was totally unexpected, as we didn't even know he was in the area.

MIL has irritated me too, if I'm honest.

They both sound rude. And a bit odd.

One toy at a time?! How is his DS supposed to play properly?

BIL is a horrible, horrible person. His poor DS, the other 2 are probably better off without him.

jesus wept your BIL would have a heart attack in my house!!

my two boys (aged 6 and 3) play with their toys all over the place and always have done. (only my bedroom is out of bounds).

But when i start running their bath at night that is "tidy up time" and all the toys go back into the various toy boxes we have or else anything left lying out is "confiscated".

Can't think why MIL would bring it up unless she was stirring it.....

[looks behind self and thinks daughter has a brilliant imagination and i must sign off now to go and pick it all up]

YANBU he is an ass

Crumbs, I'd hate to think what he'd think of me - I work part time, only have one child and my house constantly looks like a bomb has hit a toy shop!