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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

MIL birthday cake - I know I am being childish

414 replies

Happy36 · 20/07/2015 17:19

Today is MIL's birthday. We are on holiday with them so all staying in the same house. She spends the entire time in the kitchen watching television. Last night I went into the kitchen and said, I hope you don't mind, I am going to make a cake. It's her birthday today and I bake rarely; my husband who helped me with the cakes vakes even less frequently than I do. So it was pretty obvious we were making her birthday cake.

Then after she had gone to bed, we iced and decorated the cake and put it in the fridge, where everyone could see it.

This morning my husband spoke to his father and said that we would give MIL her gifts and sing Happy Birthday and cut the cake after lunch (when my husband's younger brother usually gets up). So I told the children and they were wonderfully stoical about waiting until 4pm to give their grandmother their cards and gifts, and to try the cake.

Now it's 6.15pm and there's no sign of any present-giving, (slightly irrelevant but I am angry so I'll add that brother-in-law has eaten multiple slices of brioche smothered in Nutella) and the kids know that they mustn't complain as it's not their birthday which is almost heartbreaking to watch. I asked my husband to have another word with his dad but he said it would be rude as it's his mum's day and we will do the singing, etc. when she says she wants to.

Now father in law has just shouted upstairs that we are going out in 20 minutes. I have no idea what is going on and my husband is taking a nap.

I know I am being very childish but I rwally needed to rant. Sorry.

OP posts:
WallyBantersJunkBox · 20/07/2015 21:23

I very much fear that the MIL had been tied to the washing line in the garden, whilst the DGC dance around her like a maypole in the scene of "The Wickerman".

Op comes out babbling wildly and wearing a necklace of BILs teeth where she urges MIL to blow out the candle - aka FIL's lit thumb sitting proudly in the centre.

I think I need a lie down. And some cake.

In my head it's a tray bake. With Maltesers and buttons in stripes on the top.

ProcrastinatorGeneral · 20/07/2015 21:26

Tiramisu with pistachio ice cream or nothing folks.

Fuck Victoria sponges, just fuck them.

????

WallyBantersJunkBox · 20/07/2015 21:27

If it is a Vicky sponge, and it's gone in the fridge, I'm totally judging.
Should be buttercream and jam at room temp.

eddielizzard · 20/07/2015 21:28

this better be bloody good. coat hangers at dawn.

tilliebob · 20/07/2015 21:30

There's no cake but I've spilt my cuppa laughing at some of the comments.

You witty bunch and I agree about Victoria sponge - bleugh

MrsHenryCrawford · 20/07/2015 21:34

What a strange holiday. Doesn't seem like much fun.
I think it's a carrot cake

SparkleZilla · 20/07/2015 21:34

Update needed!!

piddlemakesmegiggle · 20/07/2015 21:41

Dear oh dear, all of you Victoria Sponge haters - it is the only cake that will do on such an important person's birthday. Do you have no understanding of tradition at all? Next you'll be wanting to eat it on the actual birthday. Rapscallions the lot of you

Olddear · 20/07/2015 21:44

For a MIL of this calibre it'll probably be a three tiered number

CrapBag · 20/07/2015 21:44

Great, now I want cake, or digestives. Neither of which I have.

Come on OP, that's a long time she's dragging out the bloody cake/presents giving!

justwondering72 · 20/07/2015 21:54

OP

Are your PIL French? It's the only thing that would make any sense I this saga. And would explain the Nutella-brioche scoffing,afternoon napping BIL.

HoldYerWhist · 20/07/2015 21:54

I have bloody oreos. That's it. Sad

CigarsofthePharoahs · 20/07/2015 21:59

I bet...
The mil has decided that she does want cake but the op has snapped. She is sat hunched over the cake snarling 'No! No! You can't have it now! It's all miiiiine!' whilst grinning manically and scaring bil with her bloodshot eyes. She is keeping them all at bay with a deft wave of a tablespoon.
Or they've got back in, no one wants cake any more and they've all gone to bed in a huff.
Wot, no update???

stealthsquiggle · 20/07/2015 22:03

Oh FGS, OP. I am tiiiired and have to get up at yuck o'clock. Can you not shove the cake in MIL's face and then come and update us so that I can go to bed? Please?

florentina1 · 20/07/2015 22:04

Sound like my late MiL. Cue excited kids giving her presents a stiff thank you then then the gifts placed on the table. Quite often not even opened before we left.

One Xmas when we had been in the house since midday, it got to 9pm and my Dh said come on kids bed time. MiL said oh they have not had their presents yet, We bloody knew, they were 3 and 5 and waited patiently all day for the gifts to be given. That was the last Xmas we spent with them.

ProcessYellowC · 20/07/2015 22:04

Oh no - just found this and thought oh this was ages ago, it'll all be resovled now. Need to know what has happened!

I hope you're singing along to MacArthur Park right now in bad karaoke styleee...

CinderellaRockefeller · 20/07/2015 22:05

Why would you not go into the kitchen and say "MIL, do you want some of the birthday cake? Know the kids are keen to give you the presents and so on" rather than all sit stewing in different rooms?

MemphisBella · 20/07/2015 22:05

They arrive home from a mediocre carvery dinner. There's tension in the air. They all know what will happen next.

They enter the kitchen, MIL twitching and pulling towards the door.

"I'll just head upstairs to freshen up!" She trills.

OP leaps into action, blocking her exit. The children break into song. The fridge door swings open to reveal...

An empty plate; crumbs scattered across the glass shelf.

BIL chuckles to himself. He wasn't really sleeping all morning.

WallyBantersJunkBox · 20/07/2015 22:09

Fuck, now I want a mediocre carvery dinner.

EatShitDerek · 20/07/2015 22:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

minionwithdms · 20/07/2015 22:32

Arghh, you have to tell us what happened to the cake!

JellyQuivvers · 20/07/2015 22:34

m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbq3kc29Tmg

Scarydinosaurs · 20/07/2015 22:39

Breakfast cake???

Surely not.

I guess OP's fingers are too sticky with cake to type an update?

BBQsAreSooooOverrated · 20/07/2015 22:41

Still no update. :(
What became of the Cake?

TheRealAmyLee · 20/07/2015 22:43

Damn I've not been so invested in cake since I found the lemon drizzle thread in classics....

Come on OP THINK OF THE CAKE! Cake