Does anyone else feel like their MIL isn't interested in their child, or favours their other grandkid(s) over your littlies?

My birthday was two weekends ago, and DH rang to ask her if she could look after Emma Rose so he could take me out to dinner. MIL said she didn't think so, because her kitchen is being renovated (for the third time in a year) and she didn't think it would be a good idea to have Em there because of the dust, etc. She also said she couldn't come over to our place to babysit.

Fortunately, DH's aunt and uncle, who live around the corner from us, were happy to have Em. In fact, they *always* babysit her. MIL has only looked after Em twice in the entire 14 months of her young life.

Birthday night arrives and we turn up at Auntie and Uncle's house, baby in tow, to find... MIL and FIL, who have come over for dinner. (In our family, people regularly turn up uninvited for dinner, and are usually welcomed, because they always bring booze.) They apparently had just arrived and had also just heard that Auntie and Uncle were babysitting their grandchild, since MIL was "unavailable".

I've been sitting on this for two weeks and I'm not sure what annoys me more, the fact that MIL couldn't come to our house to babysit but she could come to Auntie and Uncle's for dinner, or the fact that she never seems to want to spend any time with my child.

I have tried SO HARD to build a bridge between MIL and my child. I even went to the trouble of inviting her to a special girls-only tea at Cornwall Park, dressed Em in her finest and wore a plastic tiara in public, all in the name of bonding. I bought a fancy $40 photo frame and regularly give MIL photos of Emma to put in "your special frame", yet I've never seen it on display anywhere in her house. I've encouraged DH to visit his mother with my baby, so they can have their own bonding time without me (and MIL can play Mum to both of them, if she wants to -- isn't that what all grandmothers want? To get their hands on the baby without the mother around?).

I've swallowed my annoyance and visited her non-childproofed home and managed to keep Em's curious mitts off the various priceless antiques and expensive knick-knacks that clutter her dangerous low tables. I've analysed this topic endlessly over the phone to my own mother and taken on board all her suggestions about how I can be a dutiful daughter-in-law. I even make a point to say, in all my thank-you cards and conversations with MIL, how I really want Em to know her better, since I never got to spend a lot of time with my grandparents (two of whom died after I moved here, and whose funerals I couldn't even attend because of the distance). But all I get is a lukewarm response.   

What's left? It's gotten so obvious, one of DH's other uncles even told MIL off for never talking about Em, but mentioning her grandson ad nauseum. The aunties and uncles initiate hesitant conversations with me about why I think MIL doesn't want to be around my child. I try to laugh it off and pretend I don't notice, but the reality is, my heart is bleeding for Em. She doesn't even know. But what happens when she is old enough to see what's going on?

How would you deal with this?

Oh xanthesmum, you have no idea how much I would love to do that... but DH's family sees each other CONSTANTLY. We vacation together. Voluntarily. For almost every holiday. I LOVE them. His aunties and uncles are fabulous, his cousins are hilarious, and when they're around, I can even stand it if Evil SIL is there, because they all think she's an idiot too. So Em is always going to see MIL at the family things, and at some point, wonder why MIL doesn't pay attention to her... and pays heaps of attention to her cousin. Sigh.

You're right, though, in what I read between the lines -- I need to stop trying so hard because I'm getting nowhere. 

I think the hardest, hardest thing about all of this is my own mother is in the US and has seen Em twice since she was born, and it is driving her nuts that she can't see her more. So my MIL's rejection of Em is even more difficult, because she's being rejected by the grandmother who CAN see her whenever she wants to.