I am ready to scream (and/or cry)

jessica31876

New member
My daughter's baby shower is tomorrow. I have been planning this shower since May (at least). My daughter just called me and said her mother-in-law said the pavillion we rented at the park is too small and too close to the playground and there is no way it is going to fit all the people who are invited. Then suggested to my daughter we have it at her house (meaning her mother-in-law). She wanted to have the shower at her house from the day she found out my daughter was pregnant. My daughter asked me to plan the shower because she knows I would not act like that. I allowed my daughter to choose the theme and let her be involved in planning because that is what she wanted.

Her MIL made all the cupcakes and is preparing the finger foods. I made the decorations and paid for the printing as well at Persnickety Prints, paid for the cupcake wrappers (not cheapy ones but ones that went with the party theme and cost 5 dollars a pack) and paid for the rental fee for the pavillion. If we do not use the pavillion there is no refund and if the pavillion which is rated to fit 25-50 people wont fit the people coming to the shower her little bitty house which is at most 1000 square feet with only a couch and sofa for seating is not going to fit it either.

I hate being brought into this because it really just makes me angry with my daughters MIL and honestly I am getting over a stomach flu which hit yesterday so I am feeling icky anyhow. I am not sure I am even going to be able to make it to the shower with how badly I am feeling. I feel ok if I am in bed but as soon as I get up to do anything I start feeling like I am going to get sick again.

I dont know what to tell my daughter besides tell her MIL how she feels and hope she can be adult enough to accept it but it does not seem like she is going to be.
 
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ugh sucks! i would suggest your daughter to do whatever she wants, it's HER baby shower, if she wants to have it at the pavolion so do it! dont let mil win....

or have two seprate ones one at mil's, one at the pavilion

and she ask YOU to do the shower, and you paid for the stuff....

and all this at the last minute....?

just my opinion
 
I think the decision is pretty simple...the pavilion is PAID for and has been the venue from the start...no reason to change it. Plus, if there are that many people coming, how would you possibly inform them all of the location change on such short notice?
 
my daughter asked me to do it because her mil planned a lot of the wedding and reception and my daughter's ideas were shot down constantly. She did not want that again at her baby shower. I felt bad because her MIL was feeling left out so I asked her if she would like to help out with the food since she works in the school cafeteria she can cook dozens of cupcakes at once and she volunteered to do the finger food. I also told her if she wanted to help set up that would be good too. So I made it clear that I was throwing the shower but welcomed her to be involved as well....just not to take over the whole thing like she did with the wedding. My daughter did not even want to have a wedding to begin with but warmed up to the idea eventually and neither did her husband but MIL insisted so her son went along with it and my daughter just said fine
 
I told my daughter to just tell her MIL that we would make it work at the park. Walmart is just down the road (littlerally like 2 miles away) and if need be we can go buy some cheap chairs if we need more room. We are bringing extra chairs (adirondack folding chairs) and an extra six foot table so there will be four tables three with seats and one without. There are 40 people who are supposed to be coming and the pavillion is rated to fit 50. I think it is fine. I think her MIL just wanted it to be at her house all along and this is her last ditch effort to have her way. My daughter is at work so she cannot really talk to her about it and called me on a break crying because she does not know what to do and is worried if she tells her MIL no she will have no cupcakes, snacks or food...because oh yea her MIL insisted on buying all the food. I just found out that part today because my daughter had planned on buying the food herself. We would have but she did not want us having to do everything
 
wow! sounds like mil really taking over and wants everything done HER way. um no! hopefully you can convince your daughter to stand up for herself and do what she wants, it's HER life...
 
You have no idea. She asked my daughter to give her my number. I dont like her so I have no problem telling her *I* planned the shower and asked her to be involved so she felt included not because I NEEDED her help. I was trying to be nice to her MIL for my daughter's sake but if she is going to call my daughter at work and get her so upset that she is crying I have no problem telling her where she can take the cupcakes, food and snacks and head to BJ's right now for party supplies myself.
 
The place is rented and paid for. If MIL decides not to come, you can easily pick up little cupcakes, snacks, deli meat/rolls or whatever at a store.

The celebration is about your daughter and the new baby. It's too bad that MIL isn't supportive.
 
Not a pleasant situation for your daughter to be in (and for you neither). What if her husband tries to talk about it to his mother? The place is paid for, so I would have it there anyway.
 
So glad to say that my daughter's husband took care of it. I sent him a message to please call Crystal that she really needs to talk to him and I guess she told him what was going on and he told his mom to knock it off.
 
Man-Your daughter reall is in it for the long haul with this crazy crew Jessica! I feel bad for you!
 
Well I am kinda warming up to her husband. He still upsets me at times but I figure that is normal for any mother. But her MIL I just do not get. She knows the dr told my daughter she really needs to avoid stress and we paid for this pavillion over a month ago. She could have went to look at it a whole lot easier then we could. It is 50 miles round trip for us in a car with no air conditioning whereas she lives about one mile from the park. IDK...just trying to not really think about it to much because I want tomorrow to go well for my daughter and for her to just be happy.
 
awww all that stress sucks. I hate family drama. Some people just have no manners. I hope it all goes great now that her husband told his mother to back off a bit.
 
went fine until my son-in-laws aunt showed up. She sat with her daughter talking about me and how I did not help set up and how its not right her sister had to do everything so Im assuming her sister (my daughters MIL) did not tell her my husband and I paid for nearly all of it and she volunteered to setup while I took pictures for my daughter and son-in-law or that I had a stomach flu so it was probably not a great idea for me to be dealing with any food preperation.

She (the aunt) made a big production of saying goodbye to everyone except my family and friends and Crystal. Once she was gone everyone had a good time. My son-in-law said he is done with his aunt if she is going to behave like that. The whole thing started from two things....one was when I was talking to one of the digi-scrapping people from here on facebook about the baby shower and referred to my daughter's mother in law as MIL and her niece got all snotty and said "she has a name. It is Linda not MIL" So yes while she does have a name and had I been talking to my daughter I would have said Linda but my friend who has no idea who Linda is would understand when I referred to her as MIL.

The second was I did not help plan the wedding because the official planning really started the day my son died. My daughter got her invitations on July 22nd and the aunt felt like I should have still made time to plan the wedding despite my husband being in the hospital, then in-patient rehab and finally out-patient rehab which lasted until January and my daughter got married in November.

Needless to say she made it very uncomfortable for everyone there and made my daughter cry but nobody would really say anything to her about how she was behaving.


From the looks of your FB post it didn't go well for a bit at least. Sorry Jessica.
 
Oh no! I don't know why some people have to be so hurtful! Seriously, if she wasn't there for Crystal (who the party was for! Hello!) then why did she have to ruin it for everyone there.

Make sure she gets a sickly sweet thank you card the doesn't mention any of the problems or hard feelings. Chances are they just have confidence issues and try to make things hard in others so they can feel better about themselves.

And don't listen to what they say. You are a seriously nice and caring person, and you have done amazingly through all the hard times you have been going through lately. It seems that no matter what you do for these people will make them unhappy, so now you know and you won't have to try so hard next time. Sticking your ground and doing what will best help your daughter is all you really can do. I'm sure she will be needing a lot more if you than them when the baby comes, and you may need to tell them to back off. It's bad enough with pregnant hormones, but those post-partum hormone along with no sleep and cracked nipples make everything so much harder. Make sure that thy respect her wishes throughout all of that.
 
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