I'm back! With a MIL vent (she could have killed my son!)

UFCasey

I have been completely MIA. FIL still having health issues. Work has been sucking more than usual. Blah, blah, blah. Let's get to the story about how my MIL could have killed my son, shall we? 

Last Sunday my husband and I dropped by my in-laws house with Rocco so they could see him. FIL was napping, but MIL was ecstatic to see Rocco. DH and I were looking exhausted because Rocco slept horribly the night before and MIL nicely offered to let us take a nap in the guest bedroom upstairs and she would watch Rocco. Almost as soon as we got upstairs I heard the front door open and close, but I thought nothing of it because MIL likes to walk Rocco around outside in the front yard.

An hour later DH's cell phone rang and it was my FIL asking where we were. DH told him we were upstairs sleeping and MIL should be home with the baby. FIL responds that he didn't hear/see either MIL or Rocco. DH and I go downstairs, and sure enough neither of them are anywhere to be found. We knew immediately where MIL went - to my husband's brother's house who lives 1 block away. Now there is backstory (which is way too long to get into), but we have explicitly told MIL before that she is to never bring him over to BILs house. DH called MIL's cellphone and she answered and confirmed she was indeed at BIL's house and said she would come back since we were awake.

DH and I were pretty upset at this point and decided that we would just get in the car and pick MIL and Rocco up so we could just leave to go home that much quicker. Well, we get to BIL's house and don't see anyone, so we drive back to IL's house to see if maybe she walked the other way (there are two equal distance ways to get from IL's house to BIL's house). Once we got back to IL's house, we saw coming from the other direction a car, SIL's car. With MIL in the front seat holding Rocco in her arms!

Ladies, I just about lost it. DH telling me to stay in the car and seeing our 10 year old nephew get out of the backseat of SIL's car were the only two things that kept me from getting out and commiting physical violence on both my MIL and my SIL (SIL never allows nephew to sit in the front seat of any car, but she is ok with driving her car with my 11 month old son in the front passenger seat?!?!)

I still don't know what to do about this situation. We have just not talked to IL's since that Sunday (the silent treatment is effective when dealing with his family). But how do I trust MIL to ever babysit Rocco ever again? She disregarded the fact that she agreed to never take Rocco over to BIL's house, and then to top it off she rode in the front seat of a car with Rocco in her lap. WTF. If that air bag had gone off for any reason at all, my son would be dead. DEAD. I cannot trust her judgement whatsoever now.

Oh and yay for her doing this *** now, when Rocco's birthday party is this month. I can't just un-invite the woman, but I also cannot sit in my own house and be fake nice to her in front of other people knowing she could have killed my son and she has yet to apologize for it!

Oh! Which reminds me - she called DH's cell phone twice on Sunday, and then on Monday left a voicemail calling him rude for not answering his phone and that she was not going to talk to him for a week because of it.

Sorry for the novel.

ababymaybe

Holy crap. Forget trusting her with him. For now for sure. Maybe ever. I would say her privileges in that regard are suspended indefinitely. I would try to forgive her enough to allow her supervised visits for LOs sake but even that would be really hard for me. I am livid FOR you.

sharksfan

Wow, you have every right to be upset.  I probably wouldn't uninvite her to the party, but I would make it very clear to her that she is only allowed supervised visits until further notice.  I'm glad Rocco wasn't hurt!

CMonkey515

Wow. Your MIL is a real piece of work. There is no excuse, what so ever, for what she did! I give you credit for not going crazy on her when you saw her with Rocco on her lap! I think, at this point, you need to end the silent treatment and let her know how incredibly irresponsible she was. If I were in that situation there is no way she would EVER see my son unsupervised again. The fact that she went against your wishes by taking LO to your BILs in the first place just shows her disregard for any ground rules you set. She obviously can't be trusted. I'd still invite her to the party, but you need to clear the air first. If she doesn't like it that's too damn bad!

Shannon526

CMonkey515:

Wow. Your MIL is a real piece of work. There is no excuse, what so ever, for what she did! I give you credit for not going crazy on her when you saw her with Rocco on her lap! I think, at this point, you need to end the silent treatment and let her know how incredibly irresponsible she was. If I were in that situation there is no way she would EVER see my son unsupervised again. The fact that she went against your wishes by taking LO to your BILs in the first place just shows her disregard for any ground rules you set. She obviously can't be trusted. I'd still invite her to the party, but you need to clear the air first. If she doesn't like it that's too damn bad!

Perfectly said and ITA that you should talk to her about it now before the party so it wont be as awkward.

PS: Welcome back and I love your siggy!

ETA: Spelling fail

pennysuedog

Um, you do not trust her again.   She just does not get to have Rocco by herself again until Rocco is old enough to tattle on her.  I'd be frank and say something like...

"You knew our wishes/rules and you went against them.   You crossed the boundaries and although we love you, the trust is gone and we have no peace of mind leaving Rocco with you any longer.  Even though we know this is hurtful that was not the intention.  Rocco comes first." 

I think she was quite sneaky in breaking the rules, and I wonder how many times in the past she brought him over to your BIL's.  The car thing is a whole other issue.  Although you are most upset about this matter, I believe this could be ignorance on your MIL's part. If this was the only digression I would have just given her the lecture of a lifetime.  

morsey2011

pennysuedog:

Um, you do not trust her again.   She just does not get to have Rocco by herself again until Rocco is old enough to tattle on her.  I'd be frank and say something like...

"You knew our wishes/rules and you went against them.   You crossed the boundaries and although we love you, the trust is gone and we have no peace of mind leaving Rocco with you any longer.  Even though we know this is hurtful that was not the intention.  Rocco comes first." 

I think she was quite sneaky in breaking the rules, and I wonder how many times in the past she brought him over to your BIL's.  The car thing is a whole other issue.  Although you are most upset about this matter, I believe this could be ignorance on your MIL's part. If this was the only digression I would have just given her the lecture of a lifetime.  

all of this. I am sorry you're having to deal with it. 

jonnygurl76

Wow. MIL would not be allowed to spend time alone with DS. Ever. We already have this rule in place and she hasn't even attempted something as frucked up as that.

PurpleDrewbie5

pennysuedog:

Um, you do not trust her again.   She just does not get to have Rocco by herself again until Rocco is old enough to tattle on her.  I'd be frank and say something like...

"You knew our wishes/rules and you went against them.   You crossed the boundaries and although we love you, the trust is gone and we have no peace of mind leaving Rocco with you any longer.  Even though we know this is hurtful that was not the intention.  Rocco comes first." 

I think she was quite sneaky in breaking the rules, and I wonder how many times in the past she brought him over to your BIL's.  The car thing is a whole other issue.  Although you are most upset about this matter, I believe this could be ignorance on your MIL's part. If this was the only digression I would have just given her the lecture of a lifetime.  

Yep. This. Don't want to be harsh but the silent treatment is ALWAYS a bad idea. Not addressing a problem does not make it go away. I would apologize for not answering her calls because it is rude to screen calls. Tell her you were still cooling off and now you need to tell her what's going on and tell her she is no longer allowed to watch your LO. Honestly, she knew the rules, she broke them and now she has to face the consequences. Bottom line, she is not to be trusted.

Stewartandmaura

ITA with the PPs. You have to be firm. But it doesn't sound like rational convo goes very far with her. 

Maybe it would be more effective to bombard her email with video links to unrestrained children in car crashes or children in the front seat in car crashes.  That's the evil bish in me talking. Apparently I haven't had enough coffee yet.

 And sorry, E posted this for me before I was finished typing out my evil thought.

 

DoctorWorm222

Good on you for not b!tch slapping her then and there. You have far more self control than I do.

Fianschneid

Until she can gain your trust, I would not allow her to be alone with your son. She can come to the party, but she shouldn't babysit again.

I'm so sorry this happened. It sounds really scary and I probably would have lost it on her and everyone else involved.

UFCasey

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read that novel and respond. I don't want to quote a million times so here's my individual responses:

ababymaybe - that's where I am at right now.

sharksfan - I agree. I know eventually I will be able to move past this, but in the meantime I just see her pestering us to death to change our minds sooner than later and that's going to drive me crazy. So I am tempted to just tell her that she will never see him unsupervised, just so she won't ask anymore. But then it will look like I am being too harsh.

crystal - DH is more furious that she disregarded the whole BIL house thing, because he thinks she is just truly ignorant about the car seat/airbag death risk. He also thinks she should be invited to the party because not inviting her would cause WWIII and it would be awkward having people ask where his mother is when she lives in town. I fully expect that her presence will ruin the party for me in at least some small way. I don't want to see her.

wishful  - me too

CMonkey - you described how I feel exactly! I do need to clear the air before the party so that it won't be the elephant in the room, but I'm just not sure how I am going to be able to do so logistically. This coming weekend I will be out of town for a wedding, and then the next weekend is the party. I'm thinking DH will just have to go over there and talk to them without me while I am away. I don't think this is a phone conversation.

Shannon - thanks!

Super - I agree and thanks.

Penny - She actually has brought him over to BIL's house before. At that time, we had not specifically said not to do that because we felt like it was a known issue - we don't speak with BIL, so why would we agree to having our son be taken over to his house? But then after that first time, we straight up said "Do not ever bring Rocco over to BIL's house again." and she agreed! And then she does this sh!t.  My husband also thinks MIL is just ignorant about the front seat thing, but my SIL is most definitely not ignorant and I could kill her for it. But in the end, I feel like even is MIL is just ignorant, what other things could she be ignorant about or unintentionally neglectful about while babysitting Rocco? Her house is three stories and not baby proofed. Now I question her ability to even judge what things might be harmful to him.

morsey - thanks

canadian - EXACTLY!!!

jonny - Sorry your MIL sucks too.

Purple - I agree with what you are saying about the silent treatment in general, but with DH's family, it's different. If we had just waited until the nephew wasn't around and then expressed our anger/upset over the situation, she would have just either gotten more mad at us and said we were being ridiculous, or she would have said sorry and then would consider the subject dropped and would make us out to be the bad guys for keeping Rocco from her when she was sorry and wouldn't do it again. The silent treatment lets her KNOW we are really freaking pissed and that this is a big deal. Of course, the silent treatment can't last forever, but since she already inacted her own 1 week silent treatment, we are now forced to go longer than that to show her it's not her not talking to us, it's us not talking to her. It sounds juvenile, I know, because it is. But this is the level of communication we have to sink down to in order to get them to take us seriously. As stupid and backwards as that sounds.

Stewart - I would totally do that is either in-law knew how to check their email in the first place haha! Seriously.

Doctorworm - the nephew was the only thing keeping me in check. I wouldn't want to do something like that in front of a 10 year old. Now if he had actually been hurt, 10 year old would have witnessed an assault and battery.

Fianschneid - I agree and thanks.

PurpleDrewbie5

UFCasey:

Purple - I agree with what you are saying about the silent treatment in general, but with DH's family, it's different. If we had just waited until the nephew wasn't around and then expressed our anger/upset over the situation, she would have just either gotten more mad at us and said we were being ridiculous, or she would have said sorry and then would consider the subject dropped and would make us out to be the bad guys for keeping Rocco from her when she was sorry and wouldn't do it again. The silent treatment lets her KNOW we are really freaking pissed and that this is a big deal. Of course, the silent treatment can't last forever, but since she already inacted her own 1 week silent treatment, we are now forced to go longer than that to show her it's not her not talking to us, it's us not talking to her. It sounds juvenile, I know, because it is. But this is the level of communication we have to sink down to in order to get them to take us seriously. As stupid and backwards as that sounds.

Your MIL sounds A LOT like my mother...I am sorry that you have to deal with this. You would think common sense would tell a person babies don't go on laps in the front seat but maybe not. I am upset for you that she directly defied your wishes. There is no excuse for that.

Also, I just creeped on your blog and LOVE your most recent article about negative comments. I would choose a newborn (even a screaming one) to pregnancy any day. :-)

UFCasey

PurpleDrewbie5:

Your MIL sounds A LOT like my mother...I am sorry that you have to deal with this. You would think common sense would tell a person babies don't go on laps in the front seat but maybe not. I am upset for you that she directly defied your wishes. There is no excuse for that.

Also, I just creeped on your blog and LOVE your most recent article about negative comments. I would choose a newborn (even a screaming one) to pregnancy any day. :-)

I am sorry your mother is anything like my MIL!

Thank you so much and I completely agree! I just hate it when people try to tell a pregnant woman that her life is going to be over and miserable once the baby comes. The baby is the best part, hands down! Those people can suck it. Pregnancy is bad enough without having to deal with a-holes.

Nita2603

Wow, that would have made me flip. I would not leave my kid with her again. She cannot follow the rules, she doesn't get unsupervised visits. End of story.