u/jademeaw

I really appreciate that my MIL wants to have visits in her house. she likes having toys at her house for my son, and I understand that it’s her home and she has every right to care about her belongings and of course wants to make sure my son won’t break anything (so do I, of course). I’m just finding myself increasingly conflicted about how to handle visits there.

My son is 18 months old, so he is obviously very curious and wants to touch, explore, open, move, and investigate basically everything. I’m not saying I allow him to be disrespectful and messy just because he is a toddler, me and my husband discipline him and make sure he learns how to behave. But we all collectively know toddlers are e a ball of energy. \*edit: I also want to add that he is not AT ALL being destructive, breaking and demanding things, but simply being excited and happy to be there! He loves to be at her house!

But when we visit my MIL, I feel like me and my husband are constantly following him around saying “no,” redirecting him, keeping him away from the stairs, closing doors, stopping him from touching decorations, etc. **I absolutely understand that it is our responsibility to supervise him in someone else’s home**, and we do. I don’t expect my MIL to toddler-proof her entire house for us and don’t want her to do anything she isn’t comfortable with.

The difficult part is that it sometimes feels like the expectations are higher than what is realistically possible with an 18-month-old. For example, she has beautiful wooden floors and is understandably protective of them. She has bought toys specifically for my son to keep at her house, but sometimes gets frustrated when he drives the toys around on the floor or throws a small ball from one of the toy sets. Again, I understand why she doesn’t want him touching certain things. But sometimes I find myself wondering what the expectation is supposed to be when the toys are there for him to play with and he is doing developmentally normal toddler things with them.

There is also a fireplace with a large stone underneath it that has somewhat sharp edges. This is actually something my MIL **asked me for help with**. She had mentioned that she was worried about my son hitting his head on it and asked me to help find some kind of cover/protection for the stone. She said she used to have it when her kids were little so I spent time looking for different options and sent her several that I thought would both be safe and fit the style of her house.

She never responded or acknowledged the options.

I didn’t take it personally. I assumed maybe she changed her mind or didn’t like any of them, and that’s completely fine. It’s her house, and I don’t expect her to use something just because I suggested it.

But then she continued mentioning how worried she was about my son hitting his head on the stone, including saying recently that WE hadn’t found a cover for it. Yesterday mentioned I happened to have an extra piece of foam padding that could potentially go around the sharp edge, so I offered it to her. She said she didn’t want anything like that in her house and mentioned that my FIL already thinks she has too many toys (she has three toys and one of them is a book).
Again, I completely understand that she doesn’t want something in her house that she doesn’t like aesthetically. It’s her home. I just found myself confused because **she had originally asked me to help find a solution, I did, she didn’t respond, and now she’s still worried about the exact same problem while also not wanting a solution.**

There are other little things like this too. At one point my FIL suggested covering the water filter because my son is obsessed with turning the water on and we are all exhausted of either moving the water filter around or having to run around him, but my MIL immediately rejected the idea. Again, totally her choice. But then we’re back to constantly chasing him away from it and hearing her say “please you have to tell him to stop” while that’s quite literally the only word we tell him, while chasing and keeping him away from anything and everything.

I’m starting to dread bringing my son there because I feel like I’m spending the entire visit policing him and not at all enjoying the dinner or the time with family. And occasionally there will be a comment along the lines of “you have to tell him no,” even though telling him no and redirecting him is basically what we’re doing the entire time.

I’m starting to wonder if her house just isn’t a very toddler-friendly environment right now, and maybe it would be better for us to spend time together elsewhere. But I also don’t want her to interpret that as me keeping her grandson away from her or being passive-aggressive.

So I’m genuinely unsure how to approach this respectfully.

Would you consider this a normal situation with an 18-month-old, or am I being unreasonable? How would you handle visits when the grandparent wants the toddler there but also has very little tolerance for toddler behavior? Would you simply reduce visits at their house and suggest meeting elsewhere, or is there a better way to approach it?

I really appreciate that my MIL wants to have visits in her house. she likes having toys at her house for my son, and I understand that it’s her home and she has every right to care about her belongings and of course wants to make sure my son won’t break anything (so do I, of course). I’m just finding myself increasingly conflicted about how to handle visits there.

My son is 18 months old, so he is obviously very curious and wants to touch, explore, open, move, and investigate basically everything. I’m not saying I allow him to be disrespectful and messy just because he is a toddler, me and my husband discipline him and make sure he learns how to behave. But we all collectively know toddlers are e a ball of energy. *edit: I also want to add that he is not AT ALL being destructive, breaking and demanding things, but simply being excited and happy to be there! He loves to be at her house!

But when we visit my MIL, I feel like me and my husband are constantly following him around saying “no,” redirecting him, keeping him away from the stairs, closing doors, stopping him from touching decorations, etc. I absolutely understand that it is our responsibility to supervise him in someone else’s home, and we do. I don’t expect my MIL to toddler-proof her entire house for us and don’t want her to do anything she isn’t comfortable with.

The difficult part is that it sometimes feels like the expectations are higher than what is realistically possible with an 18-month-old. For example, she has beautiful wooden floors and is understandably protective of them. She has bought toys specifically for my son to keep at her house, but sometimes gets frustrated when he drives the toys around on the floor or throws a small ball from one of the toy sets. Again, I understand why she doesn’t want him touching certain things. But sometimes I find myself wondering what the expectation is supposed to be when the toys are there for him to play with and he is doing developmentally normal toddler things with them.

There is also a fireplace with a large stone underneath it that has somewhat sharp edges. This is actually something my MIL asked me for help with. She had mentioned that she was worried about my son hitting his head on it and asked me to help find some kind of cover/protection for the stone. She said she used to have it when her kids were little so I spent time looking for different options and sent her several that I thought would both be safe and fit the style of her house.

She never responded or acknowledged the options.

I didn’t take it personally. I assumed maybe she changed her mind or didn’t like any of them, and that’s completely fine. It’s her house, and I don’t expect her to use something just because I suggested it.

But then she continued mentioning how worried she was about my son hitting his head on the stone, including saying recently that WE hadn’t found a cover for it. Yesterday mentioned I happened to have an extra piece of foam padding that could potentially go around the sharp edge, so I offered it to her. She said she didn’t want anything like that in her house and mentioned that my FIL already thinks she has too many toys (she has three toys and one of them is a book).
Again, I completely understand that she doesn’t want something in her house that she doesn’t like aesthetically. It’s her home. I just found myself confused because she had originally asked me to help find a solution, I did, she didn’t respond, and now she’s still worried about the exact same problem while also not wanting a solution.

There are other little things like this too. At one point my FIL suggested covering the water filter because my son is obsessed with turning the water on and we are all exhausted of either moving the water filter around or having to run around him, but my MIL immediately rejected the idea. Again, totally her choice. But then we’re back to constantly chasing him away from it and hearing her say “please you have to tell him to stop” while that’s quite literally the only word we tell him, while chasing and keeping him away from anything and everything.

I’m starting to dread bringing my son there because I feel like I’m spending the entire visit policing him and not at all enjoying the dinner or the time with family. And occasionally there will be a comment along the lines of “you have to tell him no,” even though telling him no and redirecting him is basically what we’re doing the entire time.

I’m starting to wonder if her house just isn’t a very toddler-friendly environment right now, and maybe it would be better for us to spend time together elsewhere. But I also don’t want her to interpret that as me keeping her grandson away from her or being passive-aggressive.

So I’m genuinely unsure how to approach this respectfully.

Would you consider this a normal situation with an 18-month-old, or am I being unreasonable? How would you handle visits when the grandparent wants the toddler there but also has very little tolerance for toddler behavior? Would you simply reduce visits at their house and suggest meeting elsewhere, or is there a better way to approach it?

I just don’t understand. My best friend of 13 years hasn’t answered my texts and has been actively ghosting me. I live abroad and there is absolutely no way I’ve done something because I haven’t seen her in two years. We occasionally text and share memes/pictures but she has suddenly stopped any communications with me. I already asked her is everything is ok and don’t feel like bombarding her with text messages, but I feel left in the dark. This is hurting me to a point of not being able to think of anything else, i love this person

this has been a bit of a persistent issue between us. It seems so silly because it is but the fact that it is a recurring problem is so annoying!

months ago mil said she really wanted to give us this big slide, she said it could just “go on the corner by the couch” and that her kids had it growing up — in her big ass house.

I measured the space and honestly just wasn’t happy with how crowded we were going to be, it is a small space and I am avoiding clutter because this is not a permanent home. Also there are many other toys that our child could use instead of that one, I agree the slide-house would be amazing but only if we had the space. That’s what my husband told her at first and she said ok.

Yesterday, she asked me to go to a store with her. Apparently there was some big sale for baby clothes and stuff and she thought we (focus on WE) should go and to let her know when I would want to go (focus on this too). I said that I’d love to go, we don’t need clothes but baby could use small new toys. She then asked me when and unfortunately I was out with my baby and didn’t get to answer her right away. About an hour later she texts me saying she already went to the store, bought the clothes and toys herself. That’s totally fine but why ask me in the first place if she’s not going to be in a position of waiting a bit for me to tell her when I could go? When that was all her own idea? But fine.

My husband sees her to get the clothes and toys, and that’s when she tells him she got the clothes because baby’s clothes were too small (it is not, we have tons of clothes that are not small and I don’t love having more than we need). I do love one of the toys she got and so did our child, but two of them were not age appropriate unfortunately so that was that. I’ll need to return some of the clothes due to taste but that’s ok, I’ll keep some for consideration. None of this would have happened if she had stuck to her own plan and we went together, I would be there to help her make the decisions on what baby needs. It’s her own money but sometimes it goes to waste because she gets what she personally likes rather than what my kid needs, and those are two distinct things most of the time.

All that aside, that’s when she tells him that she wants to buy the big house/slide for our apartment. She says the things she thinks we should get rid of to fit the big toy in our house and that she really wants to get that because she really likes it. My husband says he is worried about the size and will talk to me. We talk and I am vocal about how this is upsetting me because we’ve had this same argument before and already came to a conclusion of not getting it, I can’t understand why we’re revisiting this. He then says he would love to have it because he had it growing up and I remind him of the BIG house he had growing up. To no effect. I decided to withdraw from the discussion and tell him to do whatever he wants, I didn’t want to feel like I am in the middle of something and I just felt outnumbered.

Conclusion, the big ass toy will arrive soon. Now this is my fault for not standing my ground, but I was exhausted. These are just two silly examples but that’s my life. The persistence, undermining, and the fact I have to FIGHT for my own decisions as a parent. My husband usually is with me but I guess he just really wants to toy as well, because of that I felt like I should soften a bit and so I did. But it only served to make me feel like crap.

Also just a reminder that we deeply appreciate mil, this is not me shitting on her lovely intentions as a grandmother, but just me venting on how she can be too much to a point of ignoring what we want for both our house and child. I think there’s a line that can’t be crossed and sometimes she crosses it.