Ok, so here's the compact version.

My mother read a text message that I sent to my SISTER on her phone. They were traveling together, DSis sent me a text message warning me against ever traveling with my parents and we had a back and forth about what was going on. Basically, my mother was being very stress inducing to my sister, who was traveling with her 7 month old infant. She was yelling at my dad about everything, making things more complicated than they needed to be, etc. Basic stuff that I bet most of our moms do while traveling. So, I responded compassionately, and joked to her that there was a reason why we had never traveled with them up to this point and "thanks for the warning, I'll make sure that never, ever happens".

My mom read the message. Basically, my sister left her phone on a counter, went to change the baby, and my mom read the message when she heard the phone go off (I have NO idea why she felt this was okay to do).

Now she is mad at me and is going to call me today to "talk about what happened." This happened about 2 weeks ago, and she hasn't called me since, so I called her the other day.

I am upset that she was eavesdropping, and sort of feel like that's what she gets for doing so. The conversation was between my sister and I, and we were commiserating, as siblings do. I am peeved that my sister was so careless too, but whatever, can't change it.

For the record, I meant what I said. We will never travel with them. The closest I will even entertain is being in the same place where they are at the same time, but our time together would be severely limited, because my mom always stresses out on vacation and never has a good time. She comes home and complains about everything. I don't need that on my vacation, ever. I feel like they should sort of already have gotten this hint, as our kids are 5 and 7 and we've gone to many places without them (my parents).

I need some advice on how to approach this. I don't want any drama. I don't want to fight with her, but I really feel violated about all this. In the past, I have heard secondhand some not so nice things she has said to my siblings about my parenting methods (of my special needs kids, nonetheless) that were very hurtful, but I never confronted her about them, because those things were never said directly to me. I feel like what is said between two people is meant for those two people. Am I wrong here? Should I apologize for what I said? I just don't know what to do.