My MIL is the world's most doting person and does not have a malicious bone in her body. I happen to be very fond of her - although she drives me a little nuts with how involved she is in EVERY aspect of her kids' lives. Both of my SILs had babies last year and MIL babysits their boys all of the time, often at the drop of a hat. She loves doing this and has offered many times to do it for us when DS gets here.

Here's the problem: I researched everything that we bought/registered for to make sure that we had as safe an environment as possible for DS. That's fine and dandy for my house, but MIL's house is DANGEROUS! Granted, she has two adjoining rooms that are somewhat baby-proofed and have gates in the doorways, but the rest of the house is full of mountains of clutter that could come toppling down at any moment and I HAVE seen both boys in those rooms during family functions. In fact, on Sunday we were there for a birthday party and one of the boys was walking around under her kitchen table (one of those old metal & formica combos from the 60s). If my DH hadn't put his hand in front of the baby's head, he would have sliced it open on the sharp metal underneath. MIL has all of her old gadgets from when she was a baby in the 40s and uses them with my nephews. One of them in particular really bothers me: the Baby Tenda. It looks like a cross between a midget high chair and a desk. It has sharp edges at baby eye-level, rusty metal parts running every direction and disgusting fossilized baby food on every surface! It looks like a torture device for infants!

She also does other things with my nephews that bother me. Case in point, on Sunday, she was feeding one of my nephews COLD ravioli and he didn't like it at all. Made horrible faces and spit it back out. But she kept shoving it in his mouth. And she kept giving fingerfulls of icing from the birthday cake to both nephews and then LICKING her fingers - only to put them back in the boys' mouths! Maybe I am just an inexperienced, idealistic, first-time, not-quite mama, but I don't want my kid force fed food he obviously doesn't like, given copious amounts of something that is just straight SUGAR and I don't want random people just sharing their germs with him because they are too LAZY to use a napkin or wash their hands!

I don't want to tell MIL that she can't babysit or that I don't think she's very good at parenting safely because I know it would hurt her deeply. How can I handle this gently so that DS gets time with his grandma and I can leave him there without worrying the whole time that he's being cut to ribbons or loaded with sugar?

Am I overreacting?

Thanks, if you have made it this far. I appreciate any feedback you can give me!