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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]MIL has a good heart and only good intentions, but she does not think before she speaks and often says/emails/texts things that drive me crazy. Next weekend she and FIL are babysitting our toddler DD while DH and I attend a wedding. Today she sent me a packing "Wish List" outlining all the things I need to pack for DD (no joke it was at least 25 items long and included things like pajamas and socks - obviously I will pack those!) she also referred to DD as her "living baby doll" and demanded I pack at least two pretty dresses and dress shoes (wrote "very important" next to them with about five exclamation points following).

I was going to pack dresses for DD anyway bc MIL buys her so many of them and I always try to make sure she's wearing them around MIL bc I know she gets a kick out of seeing DD dressed up. So I guess what really rubbed me the wrong way is 1) I resent being given a packing list, as if I couldn't pack for DD myself and 2) my daughter being referred to as a living doll.

I don't want to start a fight with my MIL[b] but these types of emails are typical of what she sends to me on an almost daily basis. DH's strategy is to ignore her and call her once or twice a week to address all her emails at once. But I have found that if I ignore her, she will either flood my inbox orcall DH to complain that I didn't respond. I got 14 text messages from her in two hours the other day. [/b]

As I typed this I realized I really have two issues: whether or not to let her know how I feel about this particular email, and how to handle communications with her going forward. I think she means well but she's completely overbearing and driving me crazy.[/quote]

This is your real issue.  That would drive me nuts.  I would talk with DH about it, and I think I would back off a bit from your ILs.  Let DH handle most of the communication.  Write back to such an e-mail, "DH will get back to you on that," forward him the e-mail, and then ignore follow-ups.  It sounds like DH has figured out how to make her back off from him, and now she's going to you.  Time to learn a thing or two from DH and get her to back off you also.

As for the list, I think I'd write back something like, "Thanks, we've got it under control" and also consider that as a standard response for such ridiculousness.[/quote]

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