One of the most frustrating things for a mother to be is right. Despite what our teenagers and toddlers think, we don’t want to be right because that usually means we have predicted some dire outcome, been resoundingly assured we are wrong this time, and lived, once again, to see our ability to predict the future fully validated. You’d think we could get some sort of satisfaction out of this. But we don’t, because we are most often the ones who have to fix whatever went awry after we predicted it would. I can’t even count how many gallons of liquid I have sopped up after being begged for a “full glass this time and I promise I won’t spill.” I don’t know how many knees I have bandaged after my warnings of potential injury went unheeded again. I never want to add up all the money I have spent for uneaten restaurant food that a “starving” child just had to have and then left untouched. But the worst I-was-right is when a child insists on bringing some impractical item that they swear on their lives they can’t live without and will carry until their arms fall off…and it ends up getting dumped off on you about five minutes after leaving the car. That makes me crazy. In Helen Oxenbury’s Tom And Pippo Go For A Walk, Tom insists on bringing Pippo despite his mother’s suggestions…and Pippo ends up in the mud. At least mom didn’t have to carry him.

http://www.amazon.com/TOM-PIPPO-GO-WALK-Oxenbury/dp/0689712545

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Oxenbury