[hennypenny]

Ok, usually I'm not stuck for how to explain things to my daughter (five years old) but this time I feel like I'm going to hurt her badly however I say this news.
Ok, a bit of background: my parents and I have been fighting ever since I fell pregnant (they didn't approve, not that I care) and were treating me rudely in my own home, ignoring me and the pregnancy, and talking over the top of me to drown me out every time I tried to talk.
I told them they would not be welcome in my home until such time as they could stop ignoring me, and stop ignoring the pregnancy (didn't ask them to be happy about it, but to at least acknowledge it).
This turned into a nasty fight that went on for months. All the while, they refused to show me that bare MINIMUM respect in my own home. Haven't visited our daughter for 7 months.
I was getting too stressed being pregnant and everything, it seemed everytime I asked them if they were willing to try not to ignore me and the other behaviour, they launched into these attacks on me which were irrelevant to the arguement, just for the sake of being spiteful. Kept sending me these lists of everything bad I've ever done in my life (mostly stuff that most ppl do when they're young, you know, like getting drunk at my formal, stuff like that). Hell, the stuff I did then, is so far from the person I am today! I mean, I don't even drink alcohol at all nowadays...
So I sent my own list to them. Something I would never have lowered myself to do, except their attacks were just getting worse. I outlined every single abusive thing they've ever done to me, and used the word abuse to describe it. This shut them up (temporarily)
Then I told them, fine, you can't be bothered making an effort to show me this basic human respect in my own home, I give up. I won't be seeing either of you again. You can see my daughter (and eventually unborn son) any weekend you want, as long as you give a few days notice. My fiance will supervise these visits (we don't trust them to be responsible for our kids)
Their attitude was 'oh well, we're sorry you see it that way' (wtf??) then started giving us grief about how they only wanted unsupervised visits. We held our ground, and said, supervised in our home only, with me not there. They tried every manipulative trick to make us change our minds.
Fast forward: they ended up telling us that they only saw 3 options. The first was unsupervised visits. The second was legal redress, which they said they wouldn't consider. The third was for them to not see the kids til they were legal age. They tried to put the guilt on saying they may never see the baby, and dad would be 70 by the time they saw my daughter. Not once did we ever suggest that they couldn't see these kids!
I told them that we were absolutely not flexible on the supervised visits. I would not be held responsible for any decisions they made from hereon in.
Next, they got back to us, saying they did seek legal advice (not sure if they are telling the truth about that or not). They reckon they were 'advised' to not see the kids til they're legal age. Whatever, my kids will no doubt be better off without their influence in their lives anyway.
The problem I face is this:
they still want to be able to write letters and send presents and parcels to the kids. I agreed to it, because I was just so happy that they won't be anywhere near my kids for so long. The trouble is, how do I explain to my daughter when she asks, why her grandparents will send letters and a ridiculous amount of gifts (they're the type to always try to buy love) and in those letters tell her they love her, yet they don't want to see her? At all? I'm really afraid of confusing her, hurting her, and making her feel rejected. I feel like to this day, my parents have once again found a way to manipulate us, and as usual, I have to be the adult picking up the pieces.
Thanks if you've lasted to the end of this post, I hope it makes sense. I feel so lost.