Pigs are flying

I swear somewhere out there pigs are flying. Really. The other day, we had dinner with the in-law. It was the mother-in-law's birthday. Since it was the big 6-0, we are "required" to do something special for her birthday. When D brings it up to her, she says 'no, no, no, it's not necessary.' Of course, a few days later, D tells me that we're having 2 tables. This is what D was planning to begin with, but whatever happened to 'oh, it's not necessary to do anything?' Anyway, it's not for me to say anything. And I told myself that I would bite my tongue and be nice. But then the day before the dinner, D tells me that his mother said she was making a dish for L. My jaw dropped. Excuse me? She's making a special dish for L? In the 3 years that we've known about L's allergies, she has never made a dish especially for L. She's never made anything specifically for my children. She's cooked because she's cooking for everyone. She might say, oh, T likes this dish or L likes this soup but it wouldn't be because she went out of her way to make it especially for them. So ergo, pigs must be flying somewhere. D even acknowledges this. Not the pigs, but the oddity of the action. Well, I thought perhaps she might have been just saying it and that when the time comes, she would have some sort of excuse and not have done anything. But then the day of, D confirms with his mother that she made something. So I thought wow. But nonetheless, I still brought food for L. Good thing. When at the restaurant, and it came time for L to eat, I brought out the container of food that mother-in-law made. L got very excited and said he wanted to eat it. He still seemed excited when I opened the container. By the time, I got a fork to scoop some of the green beans onto his plate, L changed his mind and didn't want it anymore. A span of seconds passed, so I have no idea what happened. I detected a weird odor to the dish, but I swear I did not convey it to L. I did not want to influence his thoughts. So good thing I brought the beef with peas and carrots because L devoured that. He did not touch the green beans that I put on his plate. I have to admit that made me smile internally.

But honestly, that night was actually pretty pleasant. The in-laws were very pleasant to me. Mother-in-law was courteous and didn't make her usual snide passive aggressive comments. Father-in-law kept on serving me. When they left, mother-in-law made a point to tell me that they were leaving. I think someone must have said something to them. Otherwise I cannot understand where this change of behavior has come from. Has someone shown them the light? what makes me believe this even more is that D tells me that his mother asked if we could take a family photo and others, so that she can enlarge them and hang them up. Someone must have noticed the fact that she does not have any pictures of us as a family. Nor does she have any pictures of her grandkids. I refuse to give her any pictures because lord knows what she does with them. There is no grandmotherly pride in her. There is one baby picture of T. And that's it. T is almost 6 years old. After giving her pictures and seeing that she does nothing with them but talk, I don't want to bother anymore. D just feels obligated to give her pictures. I secretly enjoy it when he forgets to give them to her. We'll see what happens on Sunday. Let's see if the pictures get taken. I hope they don't. Oh, let's see who's going to take the picture. And with whose camera? Will I be responsible for them? For developing the pictures and enlarging them? Um, I don't think so. Call me a snotty daughter-in-law, but I just don't think a zebra can change its stripes.