Grr Arg Arg

I was castigated by my MIL today for not having sent thank you notes to her random friends who sent us baby presents after our daughter was born - her cousin had presents for both me us and my BIL's babies. Despite my previous lack of gratitude.

I have to say, at the time I found it weird that people I didn't know were sending me baby presents. I thought I did send out thank yous, to be honest, but then, with a new baby, the difficult breastfeeding, the feelings of bereavement that resurfaced after the loos of my mother and her anniversary - I might have had other things on my plate. That's point one.

Point two is, if your husband's mother's friends and relations send presents, why is it automatically up to the woman to send thank you notes to people she doesn't even know? Why is the onus more on me, while my husband is left out of the equation? It's up to him whether we visit his family or not, send them cards or not, in my opinion.

Personally, what I think would be most appropriate would be for me to pass on our thanks through my MIL, who should make a point of saying something.

Now I may be totally wrong about this, but I would not expect something in return for a baby present. But perhaps I'm totally wrong. My MIL insisted that she had managed to thank everyone when her children were born - but they also never had tantrums, said they hated her, caused any trouble, refused food or all the things my child does. House work was no effort for her, and she never put a foot wrong as a mother. So why would something like that have posed a difficulty for her, indeed.

My husband can't understand why I'm bothered by this latest one - well, I do have issues with what I perceive to be injustices and I feel wrongly judged.

But clearly the thing to do is go out tomorrow and buy a little pack of thank you cards, so I can write up and hand one to her every time one of her friends passes on a generously and painstakingly knitted polyester cardigan in a shade of neon pastel peach - or six. Still though, I think it's sad the milk of human kindness has to be conditional...

If pregnancy gave you hormonal superpowers, there would be smoking lazer eye holes in my mother in law today. Perhaps that's all this post is about after all and I really am a lazy, ungrateful cow!