Three Little Issues

My child woke up a vomiting volcano this morning; it was messy, it was inconvenient, it was a distraction.  My mother-in-law followed me around asking how the child in question was?  Had the child stopped vomiting? When was breakfast?  Unfortunately, I am one of those mothers who gets really, really angry if someone gets between me and my children in a time of need; sometimes, even  in a crisis, I need to just open my mouth and insert my foot before words escape.  They can never be retracted.

We, my mother-in-law and I, went to the grocery store today in search of Werthers' Caramels; the company makes round hard candies, round hard candies with caramel in their centres and rectangular caramels.  I honestly didn't think such a difference was important and bought the wrong caramels.  My poor mother-in-law spent the better part of the afternoon wondering why the grocery store no longer sold the caramels she wanted; I had to explain three times the store still sold her caramels but I had bought the wrong ones.  Worse, I couldn't go back and buy the right ones; see above.  The guilt for such a silly mistake has been overwhelming.

This final issue is more of a child verses Grandma issue and I want to side with Grandma and cannot.  We are currently reading a really stupid novel, "The Book of Three."  Just for starters, there is a quest for an oracle pig within the plot.  I am falling asleep reading this book aloud to my children.  For some strange reason which I honestly cannot fathom, my youngest child loves the book.  Grandma, on the other hand, does not and is now closing her door when I read.  She has asked my youngest to choose another book, any book, and the child refuses.  The matriarch has asked me to intervene and, though, I want to agree, this is one of those"we always finish what we start" moments.  It is that important to my youngest.  So, now I have to read aloud to the children during the day trying to get the book finished out of my mother-in-law's earshot.  So, I spend more time with the silly book than ever...no good deed ever goes unpunished.