This is a long one, so bear with me please.
A bit of a background
I am one of three siblings, my sister is a single mother and my brother (much younger, single) holds an ok job. My parents and siblings live in a small town whilst I moved to London to study and work (20 years ago). I'm the only one in the family to go to uni and hold a 'professional' job.
Over the years, I've always treated my mum and siblings - I would take my mum shopping (cashmere jumpers, linen dresses, perfumes, new mobile phones and even a laptop). I took her to Barcelona (all paid long weekend) for her 60th birthday. I'd also take my family out for dinners (to the pub or pizza express - nothing too fancy) and pick up the bill etc. knowing that they were not able to afford it but I just wanted to spend time with them/strenghten our bond.
We booked a holiday cottage with my sister and invited my mum (splitting the cost between us) but she backed out on the day we were meant to leave because her 'car broke down and it was very expensive to fix' so I just asked her to join us the next day. She drove the next day and never mentioned the car but I ended up paying for the accommodation, with my mum saying that it was too expensive for my sister because she's a single mum (even though she agreed to the cost previous to that). I must admit my dp was very angry about this whole situation.
Since I've had my dd, my mum stayed with us for the first couple months to help and I'm really grateful for that. When I went back to work, I've put dd at nursery. Meanwhile when my sister had her son, my mum looked after him until he was 3yo (for free).
After having my second, I asked if my mum would help me with childcare and nursery drop offs and pick ups. I suggested she moves in with us until my son is ready to start nursery (at 2 years old). She asked that I pay her for childcare and we agreed that I would pay her £500 a month whilst covering her food, accommodation etc.
Both me and my husband hold well paid jobs and on the face of it, we are doing really well but we are 'self made' and have huge monthly expenses - mortgage on an expensive house (good area/schools etc.), car loan, student loans (about to be paid off) and credit card debt that we used when we were decorating the house, so £500 per month for childcare is not an insignificant amount for us but it's obviously less than nursery and we agreed because we felt that she was the best person to look after dc to give us a piece of mind.
Since she started looking after children (6 months ago) I've purchased her a few things as 'gifts' like a smart watch, taken out a phone contract with a new handset for her (her phone was old), covered her travel expenses, expensive trainers etc. All in all about £450 worth of things. She also requested to have a 2 week break in June to go home and rest, so I took annual leave to cover that.
Fast forward to now, we booked and paid for her to come on holiday in Spain (first in 2 yrs) to help with childcare and she agreed to that. She's asked my brother to join us in the villa. (I agreed that me and my brother split the villa cost for my mum evenly). On day one of holiday, both my dp and ds became ill, that's when she told me she was 'on holiday' and wasn't going to help. On day 4, my brother demanded we give him money back as he would/should not pay for my mum. He accused me of ripping him off, took out a hammer and threatened to damage the villa, I ended up asking him to leave and gave him all his money back for his share (£400) even though it was already half way through the holiday, as I didn't feel safe having him around.
My mum took his side and demanded that I pay her for childcare in June (I haven't yet done so, as she 'took 2 week off' to go back to her house and only came back to catch a flight with us) she then told me she no longer wanted to look after my children and accused me of being ungrateful and 'not generous' with my family when I said I've spent so much money on this holiday paying for everyone.
I was so upset, at my lowest point with both my partner and my son sick, I've had zero sleep (sharing bedroom with dc whilst my mum and brother had separate bedrooms), I was up all night giving him medication, he was so grumpy and tired all day. I could have done with help specially in terms of my daughter - just someone to take her out as I was pretty much stuck indoors with ds because of fever. The fact that she took my brothers side (who acted like a psycho) and I feel like I've been nothing but generous towards her.
I'm disappointed - I've agreed to pay her when she didn't ask anything from my sister. All my life, I never got given anything - she gave my sister and my brother money for a deposit - I never said anything but I feel that she expects me to pay for her everywhere - every dinner, every drink, every Christmas.
For my 40th birthday, she stayed overnight with dc so that my partner and I could go away for one night (first time since having children). She was already staying with us and paid to do so and said that was her 'present to me'.
I think what it is, is that I feel that I've been generous and paid for lots of things from my mum, so her to demand last month's payment whilst on a fully paid holiday is a bit 'much'.
I owe her money (£250), should I just give her money I owe her, or should I 'deduct' all the cost for 'gifts' (£450) plus the cost of holiday villa and flights (£500) - meaning we would be all square?
Am I being unreasonable deducting gifts and holidays?