To have walked out of close friend's house

[vannah]

This happened a few wks ago: my closest friend has children has 2 young DCs as do I. Bit of a distance between us so we dont often get to visit. We drove for an hour, arrived to find the room sparse, all toys packed away...kids standing in middle of room not knowing what to do. The mum sat there eating her lunch. My 4yr old stood behind me on the sofa and was repeatedly told off by my friends saying it's dangerous to stand on a sofa...(her shoes were off, she wasn't on the edge) I didn't think it was unsafe and I'm very safety conscious .

Eventually they brought some enormous pink baby Lego down which the children played with for A few mins. My 7 yr old son sat quietly on the sofa next to me, I eventually gave him my mobile to play on, realising that they would not be bringing any toys out other than the baby Lego. The 6 yr old girl stood up and said "I'm going upstairs, come on mummy, " then glared at my daughter who had the notion of going up with her. So off went mother and daughter upstairs...whilst DD sat in my lap, trying not to cry..

She eventually climbs out of my lap and decides to look around the room, her radar homing in on the 'hidden' toys, about 12 food containers behind the sofa with Lego friends...her eyes light up but my friend jumps in and says no she's not allowed to play with those because of the small parts... (their youngest is 2) at which point dd bursts into heavy sobs with her head buried in my chest and won't stop crying or look up. Fed up, I politely inform my friend that we are leaving due to traffic , despite having been there for no more than 40 mins. At that point he says "oh no, she can do the Lego in the other rooms..," but I already have their shoes on.

It's strange, because whenever their daughter comes to our house (she's 6) she opens every cupboard and helps herself to all the toys, goes upstairs whilst her father affectionately calls her little miss nosy Parker. We don't have these issues with school play dates, never seen anyone hiding away ALL toys...

He is my closest friend of more than 20 yrs, its silly that I'm close yet too embarrassed to say why I feel so bad. He sent a MSG to say hope dd ok when we left but since then no communication. Seems awful to damage a friendship over this but I feel so cross. Obviously, wont be taking DCs there again. Am I being unreasonable? Thank you...

Oh what did abbey say ? Pity it's gone bet it pithy and wide and solved the entire thread

bet it was
And yes someone's on the ball with the big red button

wise ffs

Ah go on MNHQ, undelete the Abbey message, it was hilarious gobbledook. Unless it was actually coded evil? Who knows

(proud I actually read it in the nano second before it got deleled)

gobbledegook
ffs

Katie I rather like gobbledook, kinda neat contraction

mint, acksherly

' he is my closest friend'

sorry love says it all. Mom hates u and dad embarrassed, move on. Apologies if I wrong!!!

If they're not getting on, weren't you suspicious it could have been them having an argument vannah?

It's made it look like you were storming off, but if you'd noticed at the time you could have exited with a 'I can see we've come at a bad time, I'll ring you in a couple of days'.

Friends behaving in an out of character way would make me wonder/ask whether they were OK, not think I didn't want anything to do with them.

Shite just seen delete !! Not fair ...,,

'Watch this! '

I think shinyblackgrapes has more power than she's letting on Annie

Please explain in simple terms, wot he hell ???????

mmh-hmm that was some quick work by shinyblackgrapes

weirdy post by numbername (not me, tra la la) at 12 16

reported at 23 20

gorn by 23 22

They were odd but I woudlnt let a kid stand of the sofa as others have said and I'd have told a 4 year old off for tantrumming tbh. I'm not very strict either.

When it comes to deletions, this is not a drill, this is the real thing and MNHQ passed with flying colours.

Perhaps black grapes is the custodian of the clipboard, monitoring these things?

If you're happy to let your child stand in other peoples furniture then maybe your friend is right to worry about her and your respect for other peoples property. Also there was absolutely no need for your child to 'sob'.

Fastest finger first! [grins]

even!

If you didn't notice that telling your daughter that it's not safe to stand on the sofa was her polite attempt at getting her off it, then I wonder what else you missed. Sounds like the six year old was pissed off with her too, what happened before she said "I'm going upstairs, come on mummy" with a rude glare? Was this a response to something your daughter did?

Sounds like a very tense atmosphere, you probably caught them in the middle of an argument and it was weird of them not to provide more toys for the children.

I can assure you that I have no special powers. I can't even do smileys properly FGS!

(What did the post say shinyblack?)

shameful needy plea for you to PM me

(and I've got a couple of posters I'd could suggest you use your MN lightening bolt on)

"The mum sat there eating her lunch."

That says it all for me. Mum is pi**ed off (over something) to an unimaginable degree. She's sitting there, eating her lunch. Where is everyone else's lunch? This is me when I'm making a point to my beloved DH.

I would give them another chance.

Why not a casual contact - "there's a new soft play / park / fun pub / insert as appropriate / near us. Why don't we all go and check it out?"

My first thought was that you pissed the mum off by letting your DD stand on her furniture. It would sure piss me off if someone allowed their child to do that in my house.

Sorry for getting off topic vannah

It is awful to have an argument just before visitors come round or you're going over to someones else's house.

You know you have to get on with it, the last thing you want to do is act as though nothing's happened.

Could they have thought you'd be OK with the lapse in how they normally are with you because you're such good friends?

Sounds very odd, if they have children similar ages to yours, that they weren't willing to let them play with anything, but then it was very rude of you to let your child stand on the furniture! Also the 'sobbing' seems OTT. I'm also surprised you didn't have things that you'd got with you (if it's an hour's drive away) you could have whipped out when you realised there was a problem, or asked their children out right "Do you think you might fetch something out that my dc can play with for an hour while we are here ?"
Agree with the supposition of a lot of people that you might well have arrived as they were rowing / had just rowed.
If this really is a true friend, then I would have phoned the next day, or a couple of days later and said that you realised when you were there that there was ... shall we say.. a 'tense atmosphere' and you were just hoping it wasn't anything that you'd said or done, and that you were wondering if everything was OK now.