We went out to dinner with my DM this evening, me thinking it will be nice for her to see her only DGC and catch up because she never visits us and we're always going to her home. It was a buffet due to her raging on about it but I thought it would be reasonably good for picking at bits for a child that's doing BLW.
DM has her food and and starts putting stuff aside for my DD to which I said, "Don't give any yet, I'll be back in a minute." I go to get a plate that me and DD can share and come back to see that DD has something around her mouth. I was a little worried about DD possibly having been sick as she has a food allergy and we're trying to reintroduce it. DM says "No, I gave her a chip."
At this point I got annoyed and told her that I'd specifically said not to give DD anything yet (DD wasn't in her high chair yet, had no bib on and has real form for smearing food everywhere of late when she was as tired as she was) and she needs to respect what I say as a parent. DM says "it's just a chip" and I remind her of instances where she has done this with other things* and continues to do so by making excuses like "Oh I did it but I only did it X amount of times" or "on X occasion but not usually". She will downplay any circumstance she has defied my wishes but continue to tell me about it as if it's to make a point. Whilst I'm glad I know because I'd be angrier if she lied, I'd rather she doesn't do it at all. I reminded her it annoys me as much when my in laws do it and she started saying "would you say this to your DH's parents?" But when I said "no, I'd expect my DH to talk to them about it because he's their son," she went on saying "but would he though?" This was in front of DH and she knows we have big issues about this. Every conversation with me putting my foot down as s parent she makes me feel as though I'm awful about it, I end up snapping because it's always shrugged off with a 'yes, yes, get over it' attitude.
Now I'm starting to think maybe I should let this and other instances slide? There was an awful atmosphere at dinner after and DM ended up saying if we were going to hang around at the table, she was ready to leave but we could stay. On one hand I do feel bad and want to say something but not sure what I should be apologising for.
- Like Me and DH have an issue with DM sharing photos of DD and wanting to post them on Facebook when we've explicitly told her not to. When she found out I had on a couple of occasions (shared with only a very select few that I'd chosen), she started making comments about not being able to do it and then I found out she had been sending her photos to lots of people because she let slip.