My MIL lives in the same town and wants to babysit in the tricky period between school-out and dh coming home from work, which is a two hour period. Now we have a very good afterschool club which the three can go to, the downside is it's expensive and they need to know when children need it on the Friday before the week it's needed.
So MIL has emphysema, she has some very bad days and not so bad days. She lives with my SIL who is a vulnerable adult, able to walk the children home from school but not really capable of being a responsible adult on her own, so I only ask MIL when she is around, I never just ask SIL.
IF: we ask MIL in advance "Can you have them Tuesday" she says yes, not just yes, but also cooks a meal for them and offers to do this and that on top of just two hours care.
IF she is then taken bad, she never tells us. Just soldiers on, while gasping and looking like death. Sits around quietly and gets SIL to do any heavy lifting. Children are old enough to amuse selves/computer/telly.
IF: I, like a sensible parent, decide to employ the afterschool club, MIL takes it like a slap in the face, and gets all weepy and acts like we're scum for daring to employ outside help when she could do it for us for nothing. And she loves to see the children.
IF I ask afterschool club to have the children every day next week, because MIL is bad in health today, sod's law will invariably state that MIL will be hale and hearty all next week and will spend every day mumping and moaning about how the children should be with her not at afterschool club.
So I've got a choice of either inflicting three children on a very ill frail gran or I am the DIL bitch from hell who dares to use the afterschool club.
And the afterschool club need advance notice but nobody knows how MIL's health will be, it changes on a day to day basis.
Has anyone been up against this kind of thing? What would you do?
Boarding school, and/or moving to Australia is out of the question.