We have had the "take it up with my DH" conversation. Almost every time now, actually - to the point where she'll start out her PA comments with "I know you're going to tell me it's [DH's] problem, but . . ." And I really couldn't care less what her opinion of my housekeeping is - yeah, she's better at keeping her house clean, but I'm a LOT better with money and with child-rearing than she and FIL are and I happen to think those things are more important

(Seriously, if DH had any other personality type, he'd be a total spoiled brat . . . it's only bearable because he understands how screwed up my FIL's expectations for him were, and he's pretty much deaf to the kind of PA stuff MIL tries to pull. For all I get annoyed with him sometimes, at least he's got reasoned opinions for the things he disagrees with me about instead of just parroting his mother.) Her comments are mostly just difficult because I don't want to hear them and because she's usually right - the house IS a mess, we DO need to keep the kitchen cleaner, etc. But they're arguments I'm having with DH already and I can't engage her without getting into "I totally agree with you but DH doesn't and here's a rundown of our marital troubles." Which she most decidedly does not deserve to hear.
On top of all this (which I didn't want to put in the OP for fear of it taking more than a page to read!), Babybartfast's birthday is coming up on Tuesday. We're planning family stuff Tuesday evening and a party for friends on Saturday afternoon. I would rather just have our nuclear family on Tuesday, but the only way I can keep the entire extended family from showing up at her birthday party Saturday is to have them over on Tuesday (right after I get back) . . . which means if the house gets messy over the weekend, there's absolutely no way I can re-clean the house before the cleaning ladies come the next morning. Search my previous posts for last year's Great Cake Debacle for some insight as to why birthdays make me twitchy around MIL
