MIL is peeved at me - is she right? (inc. pic of awesome cake!) NEW UPDATE #75

[Peregrine]

I can sort of see why MIL may have gone with a cake vs. single serve thing.  If there are three people going out for ice cream, MIL, DH, and BBF, that's three potential people having ice cream cake.  Each probably had a slice.  If everyone wanted cake, why buy three separate single serve pieces of cake? 

I can totally see MIL and DH taking baby in for a treat on her birthday and things sort of snowballing.  From a store employees perspective, I would often ask questions as someone was buying something....

Employee:  Oh I see someone is having a birthday!
BBF:  Yay it's my B-Day
MIL:  Yup we came to get a little treat for the b-day girl
Employee:  How fun, we should sing to her!
MIL/Dh:  Ummm ok, fine.

Thats not to say that this situation didn't happen because of a larger issue of not respecting boundaries....But I certainly don't think there is malicious intent for the MIL to top SBF's birthday celebration for her kid, then a collusion between MIL and DH trying to get BBF to lie to her mom and hide the extra b-day celebration.  I guess this is one of those situations where I wouldn't apply malice when it was possibly stupidity or just plain a snow-balled situation.

[Reason]

I can sort of see why MIL may have gone with a cake vs. single serve thing.  If there are three people going out for ice cream, MIL, DH, and BBF, that's three potential people having ice cream cake.  Each probably had a slice.  If everyone wanted cake, why buy three separate single serve pieces of cake? 

I can totally see MIL and DH taking baby in for a treat on her birthday and things sort of snowballing.  From a store employees perspective, I would often ask questions as someone was buying something....

Employee:  Oh I see someone is having a birthday!
BBF:  Yay it's my B-Day
MIL:  Yup we came to get a little treat for the b-day girl
Employee:  How fun, we should sing to her!
MIL/Dh:  Ummm ok, fine.

Thats not to say that this situation didn't happen because of a larger issue of not respecting boundaries....But I certainly don't think there is malicious intent for the MIL to top SBF's birthday celebration for her kid, then a collusion between MIL and DH trying to get BBF to lie to her mom and hide the extra b-day celebration.  I guess this is one of those situations where I wouldn't apply malice when it was possibly stupidity or just plain a snow-balled situation.

If that happened, why would the husband try to conceal it though, instead of just saying what happened and how the situation snowballed out of control due to a store employee's enthusiasm?

[Slartibartfast]

DH didn't try to conceal it, he just doesn't talk much    I've also been really out of it recently (see new baby and lack of sleep, above), so we really don't take the time to sit and swap stories about our day much anymore.

Again, I don't believe this was malicious on DH's part, and I'm confident Babybartfast wasn't coached to lie.  If anything, MIL likes to encourage Babybartfast to tell me all about any adventures" right away, especially when it's something about which she suspects I'll have something to say 

[MacadamiaNut]

<snip>

Again, I don't believe this was malicious on DH's part, and I'm confident Babybartfast wasn't coached to lie.  If anything, MIL likes to encourage Babybartfast to tell me all about any adventures" right away, especially when it's something about which she suspects I'll have something to say 

Makes total sense.  If BBF was coached to lie or hide the cake secret, MIL wouldn't have just spilled the beans like that when she spoke to you about how she was eating the last bit cake.

MIL sure did have her cake and eat it too though.  In more ways than one!

[Xandraea]

1600 insects.  That's what your MIL gave your daughter.  Lady bugs are kind of cute, but they are still insects.  What does she think you are going to do with all of those insects?  If it were me, I'd give them back to her and make her take them to HER house.

I lived in a rural area in KY for two years and I had to vacuum (at least) THREE TIMES PER DAY because of the freakin' Asian Beetle invasion.  They'd come in somehow, by the hundreds, and die all over the windowsills and floor around windows, after leaving brown spiraling trails everywhere.  My dogs had the most horrific breath when they ate the ones I missed.  It was ridiculous.  Come to find out, Asian Beetles were brought in as a "solution" to another bug problem, but they multiplied out of control. 

I would not consider 1600 Ladybugs to be a gift.  Add my vote to those for releasing the insects at grandma's house, if you can't find a local plant nursery that could make use of them.

[bansidhe]

(BALLERINA ASTRONAUT BIKER DINOSAURS IN SPACE!  Cool, right?  She's played with the dinosaurs several times since then!)

I'm way late to this thread. Sounds like the whole thing is blowing over and it was more miscommunication than ill intentions. Yay!

I just wanted to say that you need to save a picture of the Coolest Cake Ever. Ten to one when your daughter gets older, she'll remember that cake, not the ice cream cake.

[SoCalVal]

Slartibartfast -- did you know your cake pic is now making the rounds on FB? (Cake Wrecks posted it on their page as a positive; I just came across it in my newsfeed)

[laud_shy_girl]

I love that it's had 942 likes and 240 shares. It's the next CW legend.

[LEMon]

Where?  I went looking for it and can't find it.
(Thanks in advance)

[Jones]

Where?  I went looking for it and can't find it.
(Thanks in advance)

Let's see if this works

[JenJay]

I logged into my FB account and did a search for "cake wrecks". It's the most recent pic they've placed in their timeline album. Crazy!!

[ladyknight1]

I am in a similar relationship, but DS is now 14, so pretty good about knowing when not to go along with his grandmother. I don't believe your MIL is malicious, but I also don't believe she thinks you will ever follow through with these decisions. With you and your DH not being completely on the same page, these kinds of conflicts will continue.

OTOH, even if we had a birthday party on a day that was not my DS' actual birthday, we had a family party for DS. That may be something to do in the future. As long as your MIL has so much unsupervised time with your daughter, you will have situations like this.

[Slartibartfast]

Slartibartfast -- did you know your cake pic is now making the rounds on FB? (Cake Wrecks posted it on their page as a positive; I just came across it in my newsfeed)

That's fantastic    The extra-cool part is that my friend who made this met Jen (the lady who does CakeWrecks) at DragonCon this year and they're always teasing each other online now.  And I don't think Jen knows it was my friend who made this cake 

[KenveeB]

Slartibartfast -- did you know your cake pic is now making the rounds on FB? (Cake Wrecks posted it on their page as a positive; I just came across it in my newsfeed)

That's fantastic    The extra-cool part is that my friend who made this met Jen (the lady who does CakeWrecks) at DragonCon this year and they're always teasing each other online now.  And I don't think Jen knows it was my friend who made this cake 

I just saw this on CW's FB feed and came here to make sure you knew about it!

[Slartibartfast]

I guess you could call this an update: Babybartfast still plays with the dinosaurs (there was an anklyosaurus in addition to the T-rex).  I found a pirate ship backdrop (like this one) which is in no way the correct size for the dinosaurs but she plays with them anyway.  Along with a random assortment of her other small toys - cars, princesses, dragons, astronauts, army men, plastic frogs, etc.  It's fascinating to just sit outside her room when she doesn't know I'm there and eavesdrop on her play sessions