Saga of the Little Blue Truck

Are y'all familiar with Little Blue Truck? I sure am. I could probably write out every word to the entire story right here and now. The Bear loves that damn book. It showed up at my house around Christmastime, and I've read it at least ten times a week since. Where did it come from? I really couldn't say. It's not like my child didn't have a giant mountain of presents courtesy of his extended family. Maybe it was slack of me, but I opened everything in sight of the gift givers and with no need to write thank you notes, the specifics of who gave my kid which board book were not entered into my mental catalogue.

Why does this matter? Well, it seems Mr-Mama was at our house today, spotted Little Blue Truck, and got worked up. Evidently she was the source of Little Blue Truck, and that book was supposed to stay at HER house. She tried to take it with her, and Mr. J had to beg her to leave it behind given that the Bear is obsessed with it. Now I am supposed to call her and apologize for making off with Little Blue Truck, and promise to buy another copy that can live at her house.

You've got to be kidding me. First of all, it's not like anyone actively stole the damn thing from her house (with the possible exception of the Bear). An extra board book makes its way into the huge pile of gifts I am toting home from her house, and somehow I should have noticed? Second, in light of the giant and ever-increasing pile of garbage she has already bought for him, she balks at replacing Little Blue Truck?

Is it just me or is this drama unreasonable? Mr. J said so himself. In the past couple of weeks (months) she has just been over the edge about every little thing, a veritable font of crazy. There's a pair of new Bandolino boots sitting in the box on the floor of our bedroom because when I tried to ask her about returning them (on the grounds that I don't like to wear flats and don't need another pair of black boots) she got chippy with "that's what they are showing this year" and "everyone is wearing those" and acted like it was a high crime to not want something she bought without asking me first.

I kept the boots for now (what a waste of money - those things are expensive!) because I have been told before to just take her gifts and say thank you even if I don't want them to avoid hurting her feelings. But this is starting to verge on the pathological. I am not going to live my life on pins and needles, keeping every POS she decides to buy me and calling every three days to apologize for something.

I told Mr. J I will "apologize" this time as a favor to him, but don't think this is going to be a habit. Next time his mother acts like a nut, he needs to tell her she's crazy - or at least, he needs to deal with it without my involvement.