My mom and godmother are throwing me a baby shower which I am very thankful for. My mom did not ask MIL if she wanted to help because for our wedding shower, we had to drag her to it (some of her family was traveling from MI to NY to surprise her and last minute she decided she didn't want to go, she lived in TX an DH had to literally drive down there and say she was going). Also, she was not in a good place financially so she was unable to help with anything (not that we expected her to) Because of these reasons, my mom did not want to put her in an awkward position by asking her to help if she could not. Also, with the bridal shower/wedding/and now baby shower the people she wanted to invited nearly triples the invite list and included people DH or myself have never met (including her neighbor from when she was little and her old babysitter who is like 75 years old). I caved for the wedding and allowed it (even though I thought it looked like we were fishing for presents from people who had. no. idea. who. we. freaking. are! But I told her no for the baby shower.
Now MIL is butt hurt she wasn't asked to help and that I said no to people, so my mom did tell her she needs help with making food and decorating the day of. MIL was not impressed with her answer so she has decided to throw me a separate shower in MI 6 weeks before my due date. She has told my mom NOT to invite anyone from MI anymore. Now DH and I have to take off of work, get a hotel, come up with gas money to go to MI from NY and back again. I find this selfish and dumb on my MIL's part. Maybe it is just my crazy hormones but I am pretty upset about it. She got a wild hair up her butt and decided this would be the answer to her being mad.
Ugh...sorry!
Re: MIL Vent
As PP said, if you don't want to go, then you don't need to.
I can't fault your MIL for wanting to do a shower herself for you and her son. From your past experience you know that she likes to include everyone she has ever had a connection with
Sounds like she's got an idea in her mind of what a grandmother should do but because she's not really able to herself, is going to huge and ridiculous lengths to make it happen. I agree with PP that DH needs to step in, but I would try to sympathize w