Grandma Is 'Special'

My mother is always complaining that Nicholas doesn't like her.  Nicholas likes very few people and if you ever don't do things his way he stops liking you.  Yes, this includes me.  He doesn't like me a lot of the time.  My mother tries playing with him the way she thinks he should be able to play.  I tell her that he isn't one of her perfect and super intelligent children (we must have been since she is always saying that me and my sisters could do more than him at his age) and cannot comprehend much less play the way she wants.  So he gets frustrated and upset and doesn't really want much to do with her.



So my mother does what she knows how to do best: buy his love.  Yup.  My child knows what an ice cream truck is only because she will buy him ice cream from the ice cream truck every time we are there.  Even if he hasn't eaten.  Even if I say he shouldn't have any.  They both just wait until I'm in the bathroom or something, there is *always* an ice cream truck near by where she lives.  She buys him other things like Thomas trains and Thomas socks (btw, anyone know where I can find some???  He's outgrown his and insists on still wearing them.) french fries, blue berries, etc.  This isn't news, I had all sorts of outrageous things growing up.  She'd f*ck up big time then buy me something I'd asked for.

Since her daughters were perfect (as mentioned before) none of us took to pacifires even though she tried.  She has always criticised me for giving Nicholas one and has always said I need to take it from him.  Because they're bad and messing up his teeth (doc says they're normal) and he's too old for them (ummm, I used a bottle until I was 5...) and I'm not putting my foot down and just taking them away (again, a bottle at 5!).

Today we went to meet her downtown because she made me food (see, still buying me) and she had a special gift for Nicholas.  Guess what that gift was:

Yup, that's 8 pacifires.  2 are Soothies which were real hard to get him off of and she knows that!  And now I can't just hide them because he opened the gift himself and keeps talking about all the Soothies grandma gave him.  Luckily he can't open the three Evenflo packages so I can try to make them disappear after bed time.  No way he is letting go of the Soothies, though.

Funny enough, we went to Walmart and we were looking at some clearance shirts and pants that my mom liked.  She laid out two shirts and asked him which one he wanted.  He turned and picked a pink pair of pants.  She just about flipped out which I thought was real funny.  It's a cool colour and one that he doesn't have so of course he wants that one.  I may just buy him a pink shirt, just to get back at her for the pacifires.