Am I Being Overly-sensitive?

My daughter is the only grandchild on my parents side and when she was first born my mum was a doting grandmother and couldn't seem to get enough of her, but now she doesn't seem interested in her at all and seems bored if I bring her up in conversations.

What makes it frustrating for me is that my mum never stops talking about their neighbour's daughter Lily who is about 10 days older than our daughter. I understand that she sees Lily almost every day across the fence and that we live at the opposite end of the country, but it's really started upsetting me lately that she keeps referring to herself as an 'honorary' grandmother to Lily.

I burst into tears at our last visit because my mum had removed the photo of Alex from the special granddaughter frame we had given her for Mother's Day and there was a picture of Lily in it. In fact only one of the photos was of our daughter and the rest were of Lily, then my mum made a big deal of changing the photo to "make me happy" and couldn't find the photos that I had posted her a few weeks earlier.

I know it's not fair but I have started testing my mum to prove to myself that I'm not paranoid. I emailed her some photos of our daughter last week (they were actually photos of the dog) and she said they were "so cute" and "she's getting big" my mum hadn't even bothered to open the attachments.

The final straw came last night on the phone when I cut my mum off saying, "I don't really care that Lily got a new swing set, aren't you going to ask about Alex? You know your actual granddaughter?" After a big sigh my mum says, "I'm sorry, what about Alex then?" I started to tell her that Alex had taken her first steps yesterday and my mum immediately cut in saying that Lily has been walking since 10 months and is even running now, at which point I hung up.

Am I being silly getting upset by all of this? It just makes me so angry that my mum will quite happily prattle on about a kid that isn't related to her for half an hour and not once mention or ask about her own granddaughter. Will she even care when we tell her about grandchild number 2 who is due in November?

Sigh. Sorry about the rant everyone.

???? xx
That's really horrible of your Mum. Especially to go that far and remove the pic from the special frame. I don't have any advice but hopefully one day she will realise what she is missing out on and I doubt Lily will live next door for ever then what will she do

Oh my goodness, that is awful! How insensitive of your mum! You have every right to feel upset, I would be very hurt if my Mum acted that way.

I don't think you are being over sensitive.
Your mum is being dam rude.

Thanks for the support ladies it just worries me that as my daughter gets older she might pick up on it and just not understand that it's just how Nana is.

I received a txt from mum this afternoon since I wouldn't take her call and she explained that she likes talking about Lily because she hardly ever sees us so she has nothing to add to the conversation about Alex. She then went on to add it's the same reason that she gets on better with my sister who lives just down the road rather than me. Gee, thanks Mum!

I'm used to comments like that, but I'm going to have to explain to my daughter as she gets older about Nana's lack of social tact.

The worst part is mum just doesn't realise how offensive she can be, Dad told me that Mum went over last night to ask Lily's mum if we had a fight the last time I was down and if that was why I don't like Lily. Ahhh! She missed the whole point! Now mum's neighbour thinks that I hate her daughter.

Give me strength.

Well I think it's a cop out that she says she has nothing to add to the conversation about your daughter. She could ask questions! And what's her excuse about the photos?

Lol about her saying you don't like Lily to the neighbour. That's going to be awkward next time you visit!

Your mum has a photo in a grandma frame with a picture of the neighbours child, that's just not normal, actually that's freakish. Who has a photo of their neighbours child, sounds creepy.

As a mum, I wouldn't want to expose my child to that demoralising behaviour. Don't put up with this, it's upsetting you, will upset your daughter and being pregnant you don't need this. I would make it clear how you really feel and ask for some space. Perhaps over time your mum might realise what she is missing out.

Good luck.

Thankfully mum is rude not crazy. They have been friends with the neighbours for years and went to their wedding and everything even before Lily was born. Claire (the neighbour) gives mum the photos and is always popping over for coffee and chats.

My daughter has plenty of relatives on my husband's side that love spending time with her so she will certainly have plenty of loving family on one side. I'm just done with trying to push them together, if mum doesn't want to spend time with my awesome little girl then it's her loss, Dad prefers to fly up and visit us anyway.