about dd's birthday?

[ShowOfHands]

Now I should just qualify that I love my MIL. She is an extraordinarily kind, generous and helpful woman. Her and FIL do inordinate amounts for us and I love them huge amounts. In fact I feel terrible just typing an aibu about MIL but...

... oh and it's exceedingly dull btw, I bow down to your superior tenacity if you get to the end of this ...

anyway....

DD is about to turn 5. For her birthday every year my parents take her (plus dh and me) for a day out. This has historically been at local attraction a which has always been age appropriate and much loved by dd. There is also in existence local attraction b which dd is now of an age to enjoy and it's somewhere that both my parents and the ILs have been desperate to take dd to once she was old enough.

Are you all awake? Marvellous.

So this year my parents are planning on taking us to local attraction b. They are very excited. As are we.

Last night I mentioned to the ILs (they had popped round to help me out with a water/pipe/tank issue- dh stuck at work) that we will be going out on Saturday with my parents for dd's birthday. MIL said 'it had better not be to local attraction b as I want to take dgd there'. I said nothing as dd was in the room and she doesn't know where we're going, it's a surprise.

They're coming round later and I have to tell MIL where we're going. Doesn't sound like a big issue does it? It is. MIL is very needy, a bit sulky and takes things personally. She will cry. She will sulk. I will be blamed. She is as I said, a lovely, kind, generous woman. She's just at the mercy of her moods a bit. It's fine, it's a bit of a running joke tbh and in lighter moments she can laugh at herself.

DH is suggesting we invite MIL and FIL along on Saturday which is okay as a compromise but actually, my parents are true introverts and this is their treat for their dgd and I think they deserve to be able to do this for her and us.

The other option is to tell my parents the problem and go to local attraction a instead. My parents are kind and rational and would do this without a fuss. Any upset they felt they would hide from us.

I'm sending myself to sleep here you realise?

MIL will cry, develop a migraine and sulk a bit. She will accuse us of being ungrateful. More specifically she will be angry with me. Because I'm not her flesh and blood and it's my parents who are the ones taking dd to this place. FIL will finally intervene, talk her down, she'll be withdrawn for a few days and it'll blow over. I'll have to do a lot of careful damage limitation and we all move on with our lives.

Can I just clarify again that I love MIL. If this 'neediness' is the worst of her problems then I can cope with that. She really is a wonderful, kind, generous woman. She just is who she is. I accept that.

So what do I do? Change plans with my parents? Buy MIL flowers and apologise but be clear that we are going to go ahead with these plans? Or secret option c, cancel dd's birthday as it's going to rain anyway?

Told you it was dull.

What would your daughter prefer, though?

Threads like this always make me feel really tbh. I don't want to lower the mood, but we lost MIL almost a year ago, and she was the last surviving grandparent.
My kids never even met my parents - so a whole generation, a whole layer of the family is now gone.
Make the most of the fact that they're all still around.

I did NOT arrange the trip. My parents asked which day they could arrange a birthday treat for. I told them. I found out 2 days ago that they want to take dd to this place. I am now in this situation. I'll say it again. I DIDN'T ARRANGE IT.

I've had a lot on. I should have found out sooner what my parents had planned but in all seriousness, there's been a lot of other stuff happening and I hadn't envisaged this problem.

MIL knows my parents want to go there. My parents know MIL wants to go there. I've suggested all going in the past. It hasn't happened.

And I always thought the desperation to go there was merely looking forward to dd being of an age to enjoy it. Not a race to see who could take her first. We'll go there many, many times over the years I suspect. MIL can take her tomorrow if she wants. She knows that.

I seriously haven't planned to hurt MIL in any way shape or form. I've spent 13 years not hurting her feelings.

Floggingmolly. I do make the most of them. That's exactly what this thread is about. I see MIL every day. I phone her, I buy her presents, send her texts. I rearrange plans all the time to make sure she's as happy as possible. She takes dd out all the time. I love her like my own family.

Ha! I knew as soon as I clicked on this thread what local attraction B would be. SOH - I would say it's an excellent place to take DD with friends- they want to be running and climbing and hiding and den making without 6 adults lumbering after them 'narrating their play'. Honestly it is a place for lots of little kids to one adult, not lots of adults to one little kid. Hope she has a lovely day. (Is option A the DP?)

TBH I think you created the situation. Simple, your parents arranged a trip when mentioned to MIL should have nipped it in bud there and then regardless of her bottom lip !! But you not going now anyway so all a bit pointless.

Show, it's a tricky one, but I'm more worried that your DD is going to be dragged around said attraction looking at things that they're dying to want her to see and she may not be able to look at what she wants to! I know that's going slightly off the point but was the first thing that popped into my head on reading your post...

Yes Merry, option A WAS the DP

well the DP is much better for this wkend given the weather, it has a massive new indoor bit, that is very good (havent been to it since that bit opened but friends have) beware tho they have hiked up the prices!!

and BW is FAB but you need dry weather it can be cold but needs to be DRY! and i agree its great for a bunch of kids, your mil if like mine nad my sil will then moan they HAVENT seen the dd all day as they were off playing all the time!

btw i get what you mean about not taking both sets of grandparents, tbf mine dont mind but my mil nad my sil have this thing about 'not sharing the grandchildren' when they see them they dont like other relatives being around at the same time as their visits!!

Honestly, Bewilderwood is fabby fab, but it kind of irks me that adults have to pay full price as they are 'encouraged' to play with their kids - but the whole fun of climbing treehouses, swinging on ropes, sliding down slides is that you can do it an carefree and uninhibited way.

What happens in reality is that because the adults have paid so much they are also climbing the trees and swinging on the ropes - (which are all actually kid-sized anyway), and it creates all kinds of traffic jams so you have signs saying 'the wait to cross the rope bridge is ten minutes from here'. But the point is you don't want to queue to cross a rope bridge- you want to clamber across it full pelt.

If you can, take her on a rainy day out of season - it is quite well covered and she can scramble to her heart's content.

(They do nice birthday party packages actually, where you can use the yummy yurt for your birthday tea and the price is quite good because I think a couple of adults get in free. Something to think about for her 6th or 7th party maybe.)

Dont mention anything else about where you are going. As far as you are concerned you don't know. Then when you get back -

"I'm so sorry, I didnt know where they were taking us, complete surprise...anyway, DD had a fabulous time and when i told her you would take her there too she was so excited, she cant wait, i think you will have to arrange to go soon...yadda yadda yadda..."

We both think you should take both sets of gps

Your parents plans get cancelled to save the feelings of this passive aggressive, arch manipulator? You say she?s the most wonderful, most generous woman ever. She doesn?t sound it.

What you should have done is tell your mother in the nicest, most charming way to get knotted, it?s none of her beeswax where dd?s other gps take her for her birthday treat.

She has a host of birthday activities arranged for her gd and also gets to dictate what other gp?s get to do. I?d happily tell her ?nope sorry, my parents are bringing dd there. Suck it up Grandma' (I?d only think the last part, t?wouldn?t be aloud). What about your parents feelings, do you not have any loyalty to them? MIL would be my idea of hell, I cannot stand tantrumy, passive aggressive adults. You are an enabler of this kind of behaviour.

ooh i didnt know they did parties!! i have a boy turning 10 this summer and he loves BW i may mention that to him, dp can take him and a bunch of friends!

and yes its annoying adults pay full price and they do little ones by height, ds4 is TALL and so we have to pay a higher price for him when in actuality just because he was TALL enough for the equipment didnt mean that he could physically do it or was brave enough to at just 3!

and tree coverage is true, but you still need clothes that can get filthy/wet.

thetford is nice as well as they have lots of new climbing equipment and a 'mini go ape' now for younger kids!

(I was at BW last week and they have put lots of awnings up over the slippery slopes etc and covered the eating areas also so you wouldn't get too wet.)

what squeaky said - if local attraction b is where everyone wants to go, i bet your DD wouldn't mind going twice,,,do some stuff the first time and different stuff the second time! for some reason i have local attraction b as a theme park...

yy - thetford is fab - lots of running around and fantastic play equipment for £10 all day parking. and the mini go-ape looked amazing! Def one of the best family days out

exactly £10 for parking, take a picnic and jobs a good un

Ooh hadn't thought of Thetford. We were just going to go to the coast, get chips, stomp over the marshes, that kind of thing..

Can I just clarify a couple of things, so that people know I'm not an ogre.

I thought what we were all excited about was dd becoming old enough to go to this place. Chances are we will (we certainly plan to) go to this place lots of times over the years. We were all just looking forward to it. It's not a place we're only ever visiting once. I didn't know, genuinely, until last night that what mil was actually excited about was taking her first. Had it been the other way round and mil and fil were planning to take her, my parents wouldn't have remotely been concerned. They'd have loved hearing all about it and been excited about going with her on another day.

And my parents would have been fine with a whole family day out too if that's what I had decided. We do it a lot. My parents are friends with ILs, they natter on the phone and have even seen each other without us there. They get on, my parents would have been completely okay with the change of plans. But it was sort of their day and I assumed to do with as they wished. I didn't know MIL would be so upset by the notion of somebody else taking dd their first.

I wouldn't do Bewilderwood if the weather's going to be crap (well, actually I would I did and it was still fun but would be miles better without the rain).

I do not understand your thread then Show if everyone was going to be OK about it then it should just have been organised. With hindsight "that's what I had decided." and "I assumed to do" there are a lot of "I" in this are you sure this is just not all about you being in the centre of a situation.

Eh? There is a local attraction. DD was too young to go to it. Lots of people had mentioned in passing how much they were looking forward to going there once dd was older.

My parents arrange to take dd to said place for her 5th birthday.

I find out MIL is very upset about the idea of anybody taking her there first.

I ask for opinions on what would be reasonable in terms of fixing the situation.

I don't particularly want to be the centre of this situation. I didn't know there was a situation to be the centre of. Merely trying not to upset family members unnecessarily.

How is SOH supposed to explain that she had assumed the day was for her parents to arrange as they wished without using the word "I"?

I took DD to BW when she was 3, btw -- is there a big "over 5s" thing that I'm missing? She was a tall 3, mind you.

I feel your parents will miss out and your dd too. Obviously you have now decided but what about giving your daughter the option? It is her birthday after all.

I'm not sure how to talk about my family without saying 'I'.

No, no over 5s thing. Just it's ££ and we wanted dd to really enjoy and remember it. We thought at 3 or 4 she'd get a lot out of toddlewood but miss the other side of it, particularly the imagination bit whereas the DP she thoroughly appreciated the whole thing at that age.