but surely it is fairly normal to be more comfortable with your own parents, than the parents of someone else you haven't known as long (and haven't grown up with all your life).... i'm not saying the maternal grandma has 'more rights', but saying that in my case (and i'm wondering if in other people's cases to) it feels more natural and comfortable to leave my kids with my parents, i have zero worries...

i'd love for her to have them on a weekly basis for an afternoon or something, but she has so much on her plate it wouldn't be possible, but it annoys me that she continues to whinge she never 'gets' them... i feel like she's had 3 years to make a proper effort, and its not on my part that it hasn't happened... if she turned up and had more than 5 minutes to spare and offered to take the kids for a few hours i would be jumping with joy, but it just never happens.... i just get other people telling me she keeps going on about me not letting her have them, usually when they are novelty newborns mind you, for sleepovers...

my parents have only had my DS once, its hardly like they are always having him and she is never... there has only been one occassion in his short little life so far...

urrrrgh i just find it frustrating and i stress about the things she is saying to other people about me, as i don't feel she makes a true effort to actually 'help out', its more a lot of talking about wanting to help out, but then never actually being available. i suppose my next strategy is just to ask her if she wants to have the kids, and if she says she can't cos she is busy with XYZ, then i at least i have tried to accommodate her wanting them, and it has been her that has turned me down.... i think i will do that.