Have a nasty feeling IABU - MIL inviting a friend round while babysitting

[ScooterJuice]

MIL very kindly offered to babysit the DCs this evening. The usual way it goes is, we take her out for dinner at the local pizza express with the DCs and then she comes back to ours, we do bath and she babysits while we go to the cinema. We always leave a bottle of wine in the fridge for her and she says she loves spending the time with the DCs.

So this was the plan this evening. DH got an email about 15 minutes ago saying she'd invited a friend of hers over to keep her company while she babysat and they were hoping to join us at PE as well. We have met this friend before but don't really know them.

My main issue is that the house is a bit of a mess and I KNOW MIL goes 'exploring' when she babysits - things in our bedroom moved around, the older DC has said that granny was looking in the cupboards etc. My housekeeping is patchy at best and post-xmas it's pretty messy here (and we have a load of stuff down from the loft being sorted through in the playroom etc).

Of less importance is my kneejerk reaction to MIL babysitting with a friend after YEARS ago when DD2 was a baby she had a (different), friend round and they drank too much and when DH and I got home DD2 hadn't been allowed to sleep and had been dressed up and was massively overtired and upset. But that was years ago, no suggestion anything like that would happen this time.

AIBU to tell DH I don't want to go out anymore?

She offers to do it. She loves seeing the DCs.

What happened is (no surprise), DH came back having spent £60 on dinner (he also paid for the friend, MIL 'forgot her card' and friend didn't say anything), and forgotton to use his Taste card (grrrrrrrrrrrr).

I said a babysitter would be a lot cheaper. He said 'mmmm'.

You must be nuts. Babysitting would be a heck of a lot cheaper. Tell your MIL she can see your dcs when she's learnt to behave herself and stop raking through your private possessions. If somebody did that in my house they'd never step foot through the doorway again.

leave dodgy photos of mil in places she might take friend poking - lets her know you know and the most embarassing thing will be funny mil photos :-)

Next time, you just tot up the bill, divide by 4 and tell the friend "that's your share". You can be completely straightforward about it.

Maybe the friend won't be very keen to keep your MIL company babysitting if they have to pay for their own meal; then you only have to deal with the snooping.

You could get a webcam. When you get home you can watch it with her!

Why don't you just grow a pair of bloody balls and tell her to PAY for her mate and to STOP looking through your stuff?!