Classic mother in law quotes...What's yours?!

[manuka]

Mine has just said this beauty - [with reference to 8month old dd who had woken from nap and was grizzling, clearly not going to go back to sleep] "Why don't you just leave her until she's screaming her head off?" !!! I thought that was a real corker and had to share that with you all!!!
She had in fact pooed herself and got stuck in a crazy position in her cot so on reflection I'm glad I didn't follow mil's advice.

My MIL is fab! But on telling her I was pregnant with no. 3, she said, "Obviously we won;t look after it on a Wednesday (when she has the other 2)- it was your choice to have it, you can look after it!"
BTW, now he's here and cute with blond curls and blue eyes, she loves him to bits - but she still doesn't have him on a Wednesday!

Don't let him play with that Thomas the tank engine train set, you'll make him autistic!'

Let me squeeze your nipple and then she'll latch on....

various at different times....

"Oh that'll put paid to your sports coaching then"

.....on our announcement that we were expecting child number two, no congratulations or anything

"I can't believe you let DS watch this rubbish...you can't even understand what the characters say, it was much better when my (DS) XXX watched Bill & Ben" Her comparison in the articulation of the Teletubbies and Bill & Ben

"I can't stay and look after DS for the rest of the afternoon, I have a hair appt"
after we'd returned from the hospital having been told that our DD then 8 wks old had a hole in the heart and that we needed to return that afternoon for a scan to find out whether she'd need an operation to fix it

'I'm sorry to tell you that men just don't stay with women'. She imparted this gem when I was about 8 months pregnant with ds. She has a particularly dim view of the world and everyone in it and likes to make sure she spreads it around....

When we were planning our wedding I walked in on my mil and dh's sil (as thick as thieves as usual) 'making a list of who to invite to the wedding' - MY BLOODY WEDDING!

When I announced I was pregnant with dd1 'Oh dear that is a blow' - favorite daughter in law was still childless at the time

'Are you feeding that baby again?' Er no I though I would let her make her own tea actually (baby was 2 weeks old and I was trying to establish BF)

'I bet you'll be glad when you don't have to do that anymore' BF at 6 weeks old

Spudmasher - at least your MIL asked first . Mine just used to grab my breast in one hand and DD in the other and tried to push us together. She would also keep holding part of my breast back with one hand during feeds as she reckoned DD couldn't breathe properly. After asking her several times to please stop touching me she would instead bellow instructions at me via DD, i.e. 'DD, please ask Mummy to make sure you can breathe' and 'tell Mummy she's going to suffocate you', etc...

Manuka - no, am not a musician any more (used to be) but DP's guitar was in my eye-line when I was sitting at computer thinking of a nickname!

Havent had time to read whole thread, but evening after wedding to her son my mil said, as I suggest opening a bottle of Dom Perignon for the family to share "shouldn't we save that for a special occasion?"
She is usually lovely and laughed when she realised what she had inferred.

when dh rang his parents to tell them we were expecting again, I didnt actually hear what they said but the next thing dh said was "oh we saw him the other day, he didnt look very well" or something. They had asked how a family friend was who had cancer so presumably no congratulations or anything.

Also, the day after the birth of ds, my MIL came to the hospital with a bouquet of flowers. I thought this was nice until she said "These are from JOhn (a family friend of theirs)" so not from the woman I had produced a grandson to but from a man who they met when his company was laying their garage floor a few years before

i still thought it was nice though

When I was 4 months pregnant with my first child ( we wern't yet married) MIL had a quiet word with my DH and told him he didn't have to keep the baby if he didn't want to.

MIL to DH (when we first got together on hearing I expected him to help with the housework) "Make sure she looks after you properly"... What apart from providing the roof over our heads supporting him through a period of unemployment and doing all the cooking

When I first moved in with dp, mil hated me and when we did a dump trip she said, 'perhaps we should leave Hayley here'. Honestly. She said it, dp reckoned he hadn't heard

Shortly after DD was born MIL told me that while the love of a mother for a daughter is good, the love of a grandmother for her granddaughter was very special!

I was totally boggled and very hurt.

Now I'm no longer so hormotional (love that word) I realise she was not saying that she loved my daughter more than I did, but just trying to let me know how close the bond between grandmother and granddaughter can be. She was very close to her Granny, I on the other hand never knew either of my Grandmas because they both died a long time ago.

We get on very well and she rarely says things that p*ss me off any more.

Actually to give her her due, she took the news that her oldest son was going to marry a woman that she had never met, who is eleven years older than him and who also had tattoos, pretty well

Anytime mine calls to our house she arrives with a big shopping bag full of cakes, buns, icecreams and chocolates for the kids! It drives me crazy as I'm trying to get my kids eating healthily, only rewarding them when they've eaten all their meals. Sometimes, they could be eating their dinner and she'll arrive with all these goodies, then they don't want to know about their food anymore!
At the same time she's had the cheek over the past few years to lecture me on how I feed my kids - she criticised me for giving them crisps at "parent and Toddler" group years ago, yet I only went there once weekly and it was the only time they got crisps in the week!
I do get sweet revenge though (been the cause of many an argument with DH!) - when she leaves I get the buns and cakes and put them on the bird table. Within minutes the crows have them all eaten!

Ha! I've looked everywhere for this thread!

I've already said this on MN but it truly is a classic...

She said, of my beautiful 8-week-old daughter, her first and only grandchild...

'I always think of him as a boy'

She did, too, (or pretended to). Bought her a train set when she was two months old.

even after eight years

Not MIL, but FIL. We named DD1 Eleanor, a name I'd chosen when I was about 12, there was no question that that was what she would be called. MIL and FIL came to see me in hosp after the horrendous birth and we told them what we called her, but FIL decided that he didn't like it and that he would call her Enema

He's stopped now as DH told him it really upset me and that I would hit him next time he did it

Haven't read all of these - love my ILs but Grandpa-in-law (95) came out with a classic when I was BF DS. 'If I scream loudly enough do you think I could get on there too?'. When he came to London for BILs wedding he took all the 'naughty' business cards from the phone boxes to show his friend.

My god eemie she's really mental!!!! My friend's mother was like that. they cut her hair short when she was little and called her Jack!!!!!???!!!!!! sickos

Guitargirl- thats a great name for a band! Might nick it if that's ok with you? Think our band could do with name change. What did you play?

where to start?

(on us announcing 1st pregnancy)
MIL (blank silence, looks at FIL)
FIL (blank silence, looks at telly)

a month later when we were all arguing about their non-reaction, "what do you want me to do, jump for joy?" (FIL, complete with little jumping gesture)

short while later, when showing them our precious first scan picture
"oh. it doesn't look anything like SIL's scan pictures. hers was much better"
(well it would be wouldn't it!)

(on why she fills the kitchen full of crap which she forcefeeds dd's with)
"children need sugary drinks and biscuits to give them energy"
(err..a massive hyper followed by a crash you mean?)

"Ooh you are cruel to the kids, why don't you get them any childrens food?what do they eat?" (meaning stuff like turkey twizzlers and other assorted crap
(err...normal food, cut into smaller pieces?!)

(on being told by the doc to stop smoking/drinking cos she's got high blood pressure and 'funny turns')
"i cant have high bp-i've never been fat" (disregarding the 20 a day/bottle of wine and brandy etc!)

"you can't breathe in someone else's smoke"

(FIL)
"it doesnt cause cancer, doctors just say that cos they dont know what else to blame"

(me lying in hospital after cs with dd2, after dd1 had been born with cp)
"well, you've missed your chance of a boy now. even if you have another baby, it wont be a boy cos they have to come in the right order [girl,boy,girl,boy etc] and you've messed it up now"

(about dd1, whose cp hand moves on its own accord)
"oh what have you been doing to her to make her so nervous[that her hand is twitching like that] ?!"
(err...it's brain damage, how many times/ways can i explain it!)

(MIL and FIL, playing with dd's, play-fighting)
"come on, put 'em up, put 'em up [etc] i'll fist you! i'll give you some fist!"

(wtf? even if joking, please dont say that!)

(in car, dd2 crying in carseat when she was a baby)
"oh what's mummy done to you, putting you in that thing, come to nana and sit on my knee...." [starts undoing harness]
(err...NO!)

ooh this feels good to get it off my chest, i might come back another day when i think of the next lot

For me it has to be my mum rather than my MIL, who I really like quite a lot.

When DD was first born she used to give us lots of sage advice like, "Why do you need a baby bath - once a week in the kitchen sink should be good enough" As if that wasn't bad enough, when I looked shocked at this her reply was "Well, why not, I bath the dogs in the kitchen sink"

Also, more recently (and nothing to do with the kids) I had arranged for DH's grandpa to pick my folks up and take them somewhere. I warned them well in advance that he is always at least 10 minutes early. So as he's pulling into the driveway, my mum starts making a coffe. I ask her what she's doing as she has to leave now. "Well, I'm sorry but I can't possibly go out without my coffee" - um, she drinks decaf.

And on another visit she insisted on bringing her own walnuts in her suitcase becauase a)she couldn't possibly survive a week withtout walnuts and b)the ones that I could buy for her here simply weren't good enough. WTF?

My all time favourite though is my DAD (who as you may have guessed has never actually given birth) telling me when I was pregnant the first time that childbirth didn't really hurt that much it was just uncomfortable!!!

Still, they're not as crazy as some of your lot.

My favourite quotes would be from my Mum as well not my MIL. Love my Mum to bits but she can be a bit idiosyncratic. She also loves to give parenting advice which is a bit rich as she only ever had me and I can't say she did all that great a job with me. Anyway she loves to comment on DD's eating habits. Once she said "So are you giving her a proper lunch today or just bits of rubish?"

Also when DD1 was first born and I was dropping with exhaustion, breastfeeding issues, up all night pumping milk and with very little support from DH, she came to stay and spent the whole time complaining about how the house was a mess, and then took herself off to bed with a big yawn saying "oh I hope I sleep well tonight I am quite weary".

Dad, bless him, sat up all night with DD in his arms so I could get some shut eye.

mrsm - our parents sound the same. When dad visits he's always helping - offering to do baths, change nappies, walk the dog, whatever. My mum offers to help but really what she means is "I can set the table or make a salad if there's nothing really good on telly right now". Anything else is pretty much too much trouble.