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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to ask my MIL what the hell she was thinking?

54 replies

Tee2072 · 23/03/2011 15:07

Let me preface by saying I would never actually ask her and that she is a lovely MIL and I have none of the prevalent MIL issues seen on MN.

However, I would like to call and ask her where her brain was when she was choosing birthday presents for myself and my husband this year.

For mine it was a voucher to a local store that sells nothing but expensive, breakable china/glassware/things like that. I have a toddler. All of my pretty stuff is stored away for the foreseeable future. She well knows this. Usually I get a voucher for clothes. That I could use this year as I've lost nearly 2 stone!

My husband? He got a dressing gown. He has a perfectly fine dressing gown. Which she also knows as she comes to visit quite often to see the aforementioned toddler.

It is not that I am not grateful for her thoughtfulness. I am. She doesn't have to remember our birthdays at all.

But what the hell was she thinking?!?!

OP posts:
Deliainthemaking · 23/03/2011 15:46

YABU and ungrateful,

I feel for your MIL her nice gesture has been so badly taken,

I'm guessing shes an old woman who maybe feels out of touch and is not sure what to get people.

Pagwatch · 23/03/2011 15:48

Do people really out all their nice things away because they have a toddler?
Confused
I just put mine up a bit.

Original poster
Tee2072 · 23/03/2011 15:48

Well, that's a horrid assumption, deliainthemaking. She usually gets great gifts or vouchers for stores I adore. This is part of what is so puzzling.

And she has no idea it was so badly taken. As I just said, I made my manners and thanked her graciously.

Does no one READ any more?!?!

OP posts:
Deciduousblonde · 23/03/2011 15:49

I did, Tee2072 :)

mousesma · 23/03/2011 15:51

I think everyone read it but can't understand why you are so affronted by her perfectly reasonable gift.

Pagwatch · 23/03/2011 15:51

Aw tee2007
I am sorry the bun fight isn't as exciting as you hoped.

Maybe a more imaginative bun fight may have ensued from something other than the mil/unwanted present debacle. Hardly pushing the envelope really.

What about aibu to eat my hamster.
Or aibu to be annoyed that mil is satanist.

In fairness the rest of us can only work with the material we are given.

whatsallthehullaballoo · 23/03/2011 15:52

Oh My birthday gifts from last year from my parents...

A bottle of red wine (I drink white but they said it was left over from xmas)
An box of out of date chocs (but my mum had had a box and said they tasted fine)
A mug with my name on (I am not 7yrs old)
And a plastic bag charm from the market which they put in a River Island bag (because they said 'you wont tell the difference then').

YANBU

Original poster
Tee2072 · 23/03/2011 15:52

Pag most of them are actually just up high. I was using hyperbole. But I only have so much up high space so some of the truly irreplaceable, such as the aforementioned perfume bottle and the rest of my collection, are in boxes until he's older.

And at 21 months he's nearly 3 feet tall. So they won't be up high much longer! Especially as just today he's figured out that kitchen chairs are a.) moveable and b.) climbable!!! Grin

OP posts:
Jacksmania · 23/03/2011 15:52

A doorstop shaped like a turd???? Wow. That's... erm... original?

Tee - YANBU for wondering what she was thinking :o

Just want to share the most unsuitable gift ever - when I had very very short hair (Princess Diana style, around 1995) - a friend gave me a gorgeous pack of glittery, lovely, sparkly.... pony tail holders!!! I still to this day. Actually, so does she - she was the first to admit that she thought "oh, these are just JM's style!" and then when she gave them to me, went Shock [oh bugger]Blush.
:o

And the dumbest piece of advice I ever got was "never kid-proof your house. You have to house-proof your kid."

Yes, from a childless older man. double

I think not kid-proofing to any extent is just silly. Yes, they do have to learn what they can play with and what they can't. But I'm not having JB find out at the expense of having my incredibly heavy glass sculpture fall over and drop on his head.

mousesma · 23/03/2011 15:54

Pagwatch, i think

  1. not if you are really hungry
  2. only if she keeps offering your pets as blood sacrifices
Jacksmania · 23/03/2011 15:55

No, no, it should be "AIBU to eat my hamster without pepper and salt or HP sauce"!!!

Pagwatch · 23/03/2011 15:57

Thank you mousema.

I was not sure. The hamster is annoying and I am mighty peckish. It is also low carb. Which is helpful.

The blood sacrifices are ok. It is the bloody whirling and chanting. But religious freedom and all that

oldwomaninashoe · 23/03/2011 15:57

Tee, just wait till he starts playing football in the lounge when you ate not there and hides the broken pieces behing the radiator!
(can you tell I have four sons Smile

Original poster
Tee2072 · 23/03/2011 15:58

Darn it, Pag, you're right. I just don't have the right mindset for this, I guess!

OP posts:
Pagwatch · 23/03/2011 15:58

Aibu to let my satanic mil eat my hamster?

Pagwatch · 23/03/2011 15:59

There there tee2072.

Give it 5 years.

Jacksmania · 23/03/2011 15:59

No, YANBU. As long as she puts on plenty of hot sauce.

Original poster
Tee2072 · 23/03/2011 16:00

oldwoman, I already have that with his dad, who kicked on of our son's balls and nearly, not quite, but nearly broke a vase.

I'm American so my first words to him were 'Mom always said, don't play ball in the house' which is classic Brady Bunch. I don't think he got it!

OP posts:
Original poster
Tee2072 · 23/03/2011 16:01

Thanks Pag!

OP posts:
pinkbraces · 23/03/2011 16:02

Presents sound fine to me, its the storing away your "pretty things" as you have a toddler which I find most odd.

Why would you do this?

Original poster
Tee2072 · 23/03/2011 16:03

Again, does no one read? Did they miss the fact that my perfume bottle collection contains a 2nd Century BCE bottle from Egypt? That is not in any way, shape or form replaceable? That I would rather store it away than find it smashed to bits and my son covered in glass?

Why is this hard to understand? Or do most people just not display nice things to begin with?

OP posts:
FanellaFox · 23/03/2011 16:06

We are tee-total. Have been for yonks. Everyone knows this. Everyone. Yet, we always get at least 5 bottles of wine at Christmas Hmm. They always get regifted however, so it saves me putting any thought in I suppose Grin

Olivetti · 23/03/2011 16:08

Oh I feel the same way about an old Charlie bottle from c1992. Definitely need to have it professionally wrapped and stored away, to stop DD getting her sticky little paws on it. And it was from Woolworths, which makes it doubly irreplaceable.

Original poster
Tee2072 · 23/03/2011 16:10

FFS Olivetti. Obviously you don't understand the concept of a true antique. What a stupid comparison. Are you really that ignorant or just think you are amusing? Because you sure as hell aren't amusing.

::is pleased we are now getting to the bun fight, although it's not about what I thought it would be about!::

OP posts:
MadreInglese · 23/03/2011 16:13

come on Tee, you'll have to get better with the personal insults if you really want a bunfight Grin