Adults are worse than children

I feel I may have once touched on the pettiness of adults but I can't be arsed to look and see so if you feel this is familiar on my part...well, what can I do? I'd tell you to bugger off but I'm rather nice so I won't. Just move onto your next blog I suppose. Or suffer through reading this one.

You know how when you were a kid you'd fall out with your friends at the drop of the hat? Or how there was that one girl (and let's face it...it's always a girl) who could make everyone mad at you? That girl in my case was called Margaret, who once managed to turn the entire fifth grade against me, they even marched around my house so I was afraid to go back to school after lunch. The power some kids have!

She's a stripper today. Makes way more money than me. And apparently has a much, much better body.

Anyhoo, I digress. Back to the adults behaving like children.

I have been friends with a group of mums since we were in 4 year old playschool. We weren't personally in playschool, our children were. Alot of us went to the same school for elementary. We were joined by a mother who knew a playschool mum from living in the same neighbourhood. So we were all one big happy group.

In theory anyway. I was sort of looked down upon for leaving my children for a month to go to Ireland in the aftermath of 9/11. (Honestly, who would turn down a free trip to Ireland?? Not this girl.) As women, we are somewhat naturally catty- I can admit that about myself- and I suppose there were times when someone always felt like they were on the fringes of this group of mum's.

But nothing was ever to big a deal. It was things like "That Danielle. She thinks her children walk on water, when they are really little devils." That sort of stuff. You know, catty. And then November arrived.

We had a friend who moved to another city about a year and a half ago. She came into town with her family and a group of us went out to dinner (myself, 2 other mums and our families.) Ah feck this is turning out to be a long story. I've not the patience for it. Anyway, there was a sleepover and the next day when M (note the initials) when to pick up her son, B's son said something to her about her son being rude and M yelled at B's son. B was slightly offended but let it go and thought everything was fine. Then M's son started picking on B's son at school. B still said nothing, but realized M wasn't talking to her. This is because M believes her son is being picked on by B's son. Does this make any sense? No, not to me either.

So long,long story just long...B and M are not talking and N (yet another mum) has been thrown into the middle and is hearing both sides. She tends to side with B and thinks M needs to calm down. I agree with her as M is a wee bit on the high strung side and tends to make a mountain out of a molehill. The problem I have with M is that she is taking out her frustration on all of us, from her friends to the volunteers who help out with hot lunch.

On the last day of school before Christmas and summer vacation we always go out to lunch with our kids. This year it was off, so I thought I would do it with 2 other friends (C and F) and then decided to invite B. Then that morning I said to N that why should we lose out on our lunch because they were fighting. However, this did not extend to me asking M. So here is my dilemma. I have a very guilty conscience and feel terrible about not asking M. I am also slightly afraid that she will find out that it was me who arranged the lunch and the full wrath of her anger will be upon me. God forbid. She can be very frightening. I am not sure if I should let it be known that we went out and apologize or if I should just let it be and hope no one lets the cat out of the bag.

Being a mother of a school aged child is much more difficult than being a school aged child.