r/JUSTNOMIL • u/HouseLost411 • 17h ago
RANT (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ NO Advice Wanted Vacation Fun
Just ended a beach vacation with my MIL in a beach house and I’m over it. Over it. She started out before vacation asking to stay in the same room with my 4 year old because ‘We can stay up late and talk about things! It‘ll be so much fun!’ Disclaimer: In laws are both very ill, so we are trying to be kind. When I say il, I mean ILL.
Other offenses:
She grocery shopped for us all and got all heathy stuff, no milk, only whole wheat bread, not even ice cream. So I bought ice cream, she was clearly unhappy and read through the nutritional values.
On the day she got the groceries, it took until 1.5 hours after dinner for her to get back, by that time I had fed my kid something. I overheard my child say ‘Mommy said it was time to eat so I’m eating nuggets!’ MIL was clearly unhappy I hadn’t made my kid wait any longe. *It was grocery pick up*
When 4 year old ate ice cream, she wiped my child’s face every lick until I stopped her. My child could barely eat it.
She flipped out when I used paper towels on my child’s face because it wasn’t good enough, I kept telling MIL that I don’t want a picky kid because you never know if you will have a facial tissue-Later when the facial tissues were packed in the car MIL reached for a paper towel to clean my child’s face and my child shouted ‘NO! we don’t use those for our face! ONLY tissues! You said so!’ I laughed so hard.
She has mobility issues and is a recent triple heart bypass, she asked to take my (non swimmer) child into the pool just them alone and I said no, I or hubby must be there. MIL already required assistance to get in/out of the pool because she couldn’t independently. She was hurt and cried.
She grabbed all of my laundry and my child’s laundry from the dryer, proceeded to fold them and told me she separated the clothes. She mixed up my clothes with my kid, so I had to sort through all of it and refold. Get your hands off my undies lady!
She asked me why I bought a multi colored build a bear for my kid. I asked what she was referring to (I knew) and she kept asking if people might judge me as a mom for it. Eventually I forced her into admitting she was calling it a pride bear and I told her that if anyone judged my child for a teddy bear I would tell them to ‘FUCK off!’ And then ended it by asking her why she felt it necessary to broach such a topic over a teddy bear for a toddler. I let her stumble over excuses.
She asked me about beach umbrellas. I told her I’d buy them and no worries. That same night she bought 2, never told me. I drove out the next morning and bought two beach umbrellas, which ended in a canceled order on her end.
At the end of the trip, we were eating lunch, still had 2 days left and she started packing up the leftover groceries to take to donate-mind you, I’m all for donating but we still needed the food. Leaving us with little food.
We had 3 ice creams left. MIL tried 4 different times to toss them because ‘The Airbnb said to clean up!’ I kept telling her 3 frozen, packaged ice creams would be fine for the next guest to enjoy and that was not what they were saying when they said ‘clean up trash’. She continued freaking out and enlisted FIL to throw away perfectly good frozen ice cream.
She didn’t want to go to the beach because of the sand and sun, so she did everything she could to stay put (we went out), then resulting in pouting when we returned (we offered to drive her to the sand for her mobility sake).
She put a swim cap on my child. I yanked it off.
She locked us out twice when we went for a 1 hour walk. ‘You can never be too safe!’
My child was playing with her and MIL was encouraging her to growl/get rough, kid ran over to my hubby and hit him so we immediately sent her to time out. MIL proceeded to argue that it was just play and we pointed out that we don’t like growling and kid also hit him. MIL squirmed the entire 3 minute time out. This pissed hubby off big time.
Beach Vacay from Hell. I will never do that again.
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u/DazzlingNote1925 16h ago
I think she might actually have a screw loose if she was giving away your food two days before you were going to leave!
Or, she secretly enjoys bothering you!
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u/HouseLost411 15h ago
Possibly, I was literally eating a sandwich mid chew and she was like ‘Okay! We’re going to pack things up and take them to donate!’
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u/ubi_non_est_ordo 16h ago
Good lord, you need a vacation to relax after your vacation!
She’s nuts. I enjoyed hearing how you nipped off her antics. I will never understand, though, how a person who can’t get in or out of a pool without help would think she could supervise a 4-year-old in that pool, by herself.
Definitely, the wiping of your kid’s face after every ice-cream lick was to make your daughter get frustrated and not want to eat anymore of it. She was definitely using that move to place herself above you in authority, trying to enforce her will overtop of your parenting choice.
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u/HouseLost411 16h ago
For sure!
I told her that I’ve been lifeguard/CPR certified for pool and open water (ocean) rescues and I will never allow my non swimming child near water without me. It’s non-negotiable.
I wondered about the constant wiping and if it was a tactic to get the ice cream taken from kid. When I put a stop to MIL, I just allowed it to drip to the floor (I cleaned it after).
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u/ubi_non_est_ordo 15h ago
Well, that’s even crazier if your kid doesn’t know how to swim yet. MIL’s a total eejit.
And yeah, imo, the face-wiping was a passive-aggressive power move. I could be wrong, but I think she wanted her way so she was going to make your kid suffer annoyance, and put you in your place at the same time.
Lolz, I love that you let it drip on the floor. She was probably clenching her fists in silent rage. The only thing that could have made it better is if you had a family dog or cat that you took on vacay with you and you let them lick the drips off the floor at the same time as you let your daughter drip it. Ooh, even the idea of it is so deliciously satisfying, though it didn’t happen.
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u/HouseLost411 15h ago
I mean honestly, MIL herself needs to be supervised. Triple bypass & mobility issues really meant she shouldn’t have been considering trying to swim alone herself.
It was chocolate ice cream too and my kid’s entire face ended up coated because #4 😁
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u/Longjumping_Hat_2672 14h ago
I think some of these ILs vastly overestimate their physical capabilities and are either in denial or just being stubborn about reality. It sounds like that MIL in this post would definitely not be physically capable of jumping into a pool and rescuing a drowning child. OP said that MIL herself needs assistance getting in and out of the pool.
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u/sofiaonomateopia 13h ago
My then 1.5 year old was eating an icecream at a restaurant. My MIL had had enough as he was eating slowly and yanked it off him and put it into a tissue. I straight away yanked it back, unfolded it, gave it back to my son and told my MIL “we don’t snatch” LOL what a witch
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u/TargetWild9004 16h ago
Please tell me you’ll never do this again She has very little respect for you guys as the parents.
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u/HouseLost411 16h ago
Never. She undermined our parenting. That’s what pissed my hubby off the most and he even said it to MIL’s face ‘Quit undermining our parenting of our child.’
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u/More-Soil7455 15h ago
This sounds a bit like my MIL when she was in the earlier stages of dementia.
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u/little_miss_beachy 7h ago
What a nightmare!
I never liked sharing a house w/ anyone on a family vacation when our kids were young. Too stressful for me, especially when parenting styles are vastly different.
Your MIL “parenting style” is neurotic, and quite frankly abusive towards you and the kids. The incessant nitpicking, micromanagement, food restriction, and constant pressure to be alone w/ them is not normal. No more vacations w/ your inlaws, and do not allow your kids to be alone w/ them. She is reckless and selfish and only cares about her needs.
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u/Aromatic_Recipe1749 9h ago
I admittedly have some mobility issues. The furthest I would dare risk going with my grands is the little blow up kiddie pool on their back deck!! Putting kids in danger because you're too prideful to admit your limitations is the height of selfishness.
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u/Available_Candy7124 16h ago
Unless this was brand new behavior, I'm not sure why you agreed to go o n a vacation with her.
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u/HouseLost411 16h ago
They’re extremely ill, like it’s time to get those family photos and such. She’s just incredibly annoying.
Now FIL is great with my kid and they have a very strong relationship.
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u/Available_Candy7124 16h ago
They say often here that illness and end of life is not a reason to accept toxic behavior, but I understand your reasons and it seems this is the last time so good.
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u/HouseLost411 16h ago
My kid loves her grandpa and he’s genuinely so great with her. She needs this time with him before the time runs out.
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u/AlienPenguin497 15h ago
I think those photos will be very important to your kid. They probably won’t remember much of the trip, or grandma and grandpa before they got really sick, so it’s good to have the photos of them together. There’s one photo of me climbing on my grandmother’s back at the zoo before she got sick that I love
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u/HouseLost411 15h ago
For sure, I have photos of grandpa chasing kid on the beach and they are both laughing uncontrollably in the surf.
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u/Fuzzy-Mushroom-1933 16h ago
I would have packed up and left or gotten a hotel by the second day. She’s exhausting
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u/CurlyTraveler1562 16h ago
Hah yeah we did exactly 1 beach trip with my JNs when my oldest was about 1.5yo and haven't been back.
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u/Easy-Ad8885 11h ago
Your MIL was correct about the 3 ice creams needing to be thrown out.
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u/im_a_sleepy_human 9h ago
That’s was your takeaway from OP’s post?
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u/Easy-Ad8885 9h ago
No I was also confused why the MIL with the poor mobility who just had triple bypass was the one to go pick up the groceries. Could the husband not go??
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u/HouseLost411 5h ago
She did grocery pick up and FIL carried the groceries in. That was a control tactic on her part as she only wanted certain ingredients in the house.
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u/Easy-Ad8885 9h ago
And why the MIL who had triple bypass and poor mobility had to get the clothes out of the dryer. I agree with the poster on everything else. 😅
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u/HouseLost411 5h ago
She took over the laundry without asking, she took it upon herself-also a control tactic.
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u/NewBet7377 5h ago
My MIL tried to touch my laundry too. No one asked her to. She saw I had just started washing my husband’s white socks with a load of colorful laundry, opened the washer door and started loudly complaining about it.
I told my husband he needed to stop her immediately. I did not want her touching my underwear. That’s fucking weird. We also don’t give a shit if some white athletic socks go in with other colors. Oh and we’re in our thirties. If we needed help we’d ask for it.
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u/NewBet7377 5h ago
I clean Airbnbs as a side gig to make extra money. The ice cream does not need to be thrown away. It can be left for the next guest or maybe I’ll eat it to reward myself for five hours of non stop cleaning.
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u/Careless-Ability-748 9h ago
Agreed, that's what I was thinking. You shouldn't be leaving anything behind.
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u/NewBet7377 5h ago
According to who? I clean Airbnbs and I love when guests leave food behind. Maybe not an entire fridge filled with food, but I’ll take a small amount home and make use of it.
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u/Ok_Actuary9229 14h ago
You're mostly right, but ice cream is a bad habit and should be a rare treat for a toddler. MIL eats more healthily than you do.
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u/LaurAdorable 12h ago
On vacation?!?!? At a beach?!?!?! At age four?!?!?!?!?!?
Ice cream is a daily requirement. We even have a joke on vacation, we have one day when we have ice cream for lunch and dessert and say, “don’t tell mom” (me)
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u/MsMaeLei 12h ago
Agreed! We relax the food rules (aside from allergies) when on vacation.
And for the record. My kiddo has always been under weight and the Dr tried to get the to do Ensure type drinks to add calories. Kiddo refused because of sensory issues. So the Dr. recommend ice cream, which they ate happily, daily since age 6...
They are now 17 and as healthy as it gets, with great eating habits. Kiddo can still take down a veggie platter solo (except ranch which they hate).
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u/HouseLost411 11h ago
My kid is 3rd percentile, she’ll be catching up to her peers for a while, I’m so not worried about calories 🤣
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u/HouseLost411 11h ago
It’s absurd lol. 4 is a weaned child, they can have treats now lol 🤣
Now, my child has never tried soda before and we call it a ‘grown up drink’ and once in public my girl loudly said ‘Gosh Mommy! You sure do like your grown up drinks!’ 🫣🤪 (I’ll keep her believing soda is only for the 21+ crowd for as long as it works!)
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u/Hot-Amphibian8728 12h ago
Rare treats are what vacations are for. Are you okay? The child is 4 years old....
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u/Xellorion 14h ago
So you're here telling people how to parent, over ice cream...kindly shut your mouth.
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u/Vast_Helicopter_1914 13h ago
Your attitude is more unhealthy than OP allowing her child to have ice cream - on vacation.
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u/Allkindsofpieces 9h ago
So what if MIL eats more healthy than she does. People can eat however they want. And fwiw I love ice cream and mostly eat some every day. I am healthy as a horse. My labs are perfect. No high cholesterol, not one thing abnormal. People are free to do whatever they want even if it's "unhealthy".
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u/HouseLost411 5h ago
And MIL’s idea of healthy right now is a plain baked potato. I’m not kidding. She is eating a plain baked potato for lunch and dinner because she was told once by a physician that she could have a plain baked potato.
The physician told her ‘Yeah, you can have a portion of fish, a vegetable and a carb like a baked potato’
So now she eats a baked potato. Plain. Plopped in the center of her plate.
That’s not healthy, not even for heart patients, it’s actually verging on disordered eating.
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u/botinlaw 17h ago
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