I sometimes feel she's taking over a little bit and I'm not sure how to tackle this so I don't hurt her feelings.
Background - DD (2.10) is with DM & DF 1 day a week, the rest of the week she's at a CM (DH & I both work full-time). DD really enjoys going to her grandparents and she's so happy with them. I didn't see much of my GP's when I was little and I love the idea of extended family being around.
DM and I talk regularly about DD (1st GC!), and in most conversations she'll say something like "Oh I got her one of those (insert educational toy here). I could see she was ready to try it." The trouble is, DH and I want to do those things for DD first. We know the sorts of things she's into, we can tell when she's ready to move onto new things (e.g. the latest thing is threading beads), but we would like to be the ones to introduce her to them.
DM worked for many years in the education system before retiring, so I can completely understand why she thinks it's important to introduce the next stage of learning, but I sometimes feel as though she's trying to hothouse DD a little bit and at times I feel a bit steamrollered, particularly as DM doesn't consult me on what she's buying.
There are a number of things which really bother me about this. Firstly, I don't want DD to expect new things every time she goes to her GP's. I think you can have as much fun with a football in the park as you can with a new toy. Secondly, because DM and DF have refused every offer we've made to pay for the day DD's at theirs, I don't want them to then spend their hard earned pensions on toys. Thirdly, the latest thing to appear was a slide for DD to use in their back garden. DH flipped out over this, as he'd already mentioned to DM that we'd thought about doing something similar for DD's birthday, which is a couple of months away, and he feels she's "stolen our thunder".
I'm quite happy to be told I'm out of line here as I really do feel that DM is just trying to help, but would welcome any thoughts on this, particularly how I should approach it with her, as she can be prickly if she thinks she's being criticised...