To be peeved with mother who 'forgot' arrangements for her dd to come over to play

[hmc]

Ha ha! - feel like I am taking my life into my hands asking you lot if I am being unreasonable.

Arranged with mum of a newish girl in class (think she started after Easter if I remember correctly)for her dd to come after school to play with my dd - since both girls have established a firm friendship. I would pick up her dd from school at the same time as mine - so she wouldn't have to turn out with her toddler in tow.

Am not entirely without fault - on the day in question it occurred to me - Holy crap! dd has her dyslexia tutor straight after school! (tutor sees her at school when school finishes) so dd wouldn't be available until 4pm, not the usual 3.15 departure time.

Decided I must ring the mum of other girl - was going to give her some options (1) I would pick up her dd at 3.15 as pre-arranged and she could hang around with me and ds for 45 minutes for my dd to finish with her tutor, or (2) we could reschedule if her dd would prefer (3) she could pick up her dd at 3.15, and I would subsequently collect her dd from her house (short distance from mine) at 4pm when dd had finished with the tutoring.

Didn't however have her phone number so rang school office - who understandably wouldn't pass on her number, but rang on my behalf and left a message on her answer machine asking her to phone me (they left her details of my phone number).

Well she didn't phone me all day - so I had little option but to go to the school at 3.15 to collect her dd (at the back of my mind was the fear that she hadn't checked her answer machine all day or had been out and about a lot - and I didn't want her dd left forlorn and not collected)

So I schlep up to school just to collect her dd (mine - remember, is still being tutored until 4pm)....to be told by the form teacher that the other child "isn't in today - planned absence" wtf?

Now everyone makes mistakes - but shouldn't the mum concerned have made grovelly apologies to me next day or so? She hasn't said a thing!

Dd is pushing me to invite the child again - but I can't quite bring myself to talk to the mum (I should just get over myself, shouldn't I!)

[Salbysea]

maybe she's pregnant. Lists and diaries were no good to me when I was pregnant because I was always forgetting my handbag / leaving it places (including the yogurt isle in sainsbury's)

[Wordsonascreen]

Shes probably having an affair
With the school secretary and has blacklisted that number from the phone hence not receiving the message.

[Hullygully]

Ask her what happened.

eg Hope you had a good time in Wales, I'm not surprised you forgot our arrangement for your dd to come over. Would she like to come another time?

Here

See you soon then , fuckwit

[Hullygully]

Words - yes, or equally plausibly some little space mice landed and were a bit hungry so they ate through the phone cord..

[Simple]

YABU. If you had been picking your own child up at the normal time it wouldn't have been an issue.

[hmc]

Lol wordsonascreen!

Yes, might just follow up next arrangement with a bit of paper with my telephone number, and date and time on it...

[toccatanfudge]

I would ask her if she'd got the answerphone message.

(there is a possibility here that she will lie through her teeth to save herself further embarrassment and say no)

Either way then ask her if she wants to rearrange, and offer to write it down on a piece of paper for her (I have personally given up using a diary as I was then always losing my diary and feeling even more ) for her. There is a high chance that the paper will be lost however, so a little reminder the day before/a few days before the rearranged date could quite well be appreciated by her.

In any event, be nice to her and approach her nicely. Of course she could just be an ignorant, silly woman.........but she could be like me and one of those that just has never managed to sort out her head with arrangements and stuff.

We don't mean to be like it, it's just the way we are. Sometimes we manage little spurts of ultra organised times.......and then turn into fumbling messes who rely on their 9yr old to remind them about school stuff

Usually we're very nice people we just need a little understanding and forgivenes from our friends to keep us up to date with stuff.

[shouldbeironing]

Maybe there have been some crossed wires somewhere about what date it was and she is seething inside because you didnt collect her DD on the day she thought the tea date was happening. Who knows? You need to at least give her the benefit of the doubt until you have actually asked her/spoken to her.

[flaime]

Not as bad as me going to DD's classroom to drop off a change of clothes as she was going to her friend's house, only to witness DD's friend going off with her grandma without my DD!

Turns out the friend had told my DD that day that she couldn't go round but the mum had not bothered to tell me - if I hadn't have been there picking my other kids up and decided to take some scruffy clothes for her god only knows what would have happened.

[Cretaceous]

I had a bit of confusion with a new kid at school - I talked to the mum (in real life), then the stepmum (on the phone), without realising they were two different people...

Gosh, flaime, that wasn't too good!

[Goblinchild]

You can get to a stage in life when you have so much going round in your head, that some detail just falls out. You are a lucky woman if you;ve not reached that stage, but believe me, a lot of us have.

Well said cat64. I'm frequently at that stage, despite calendars and diaries and all the rest.

I might well have forgotten.
Then apologised.
Then decided that someone so intense was not a good friendship choice for someone like me, and gone back to a civil nod and no further communication.
Me and mine needs friends to cut us some slack. On occasion, very large amounts of slack. We are equally tolerant of weakness in return.

[Goblinchild]

'if I hadn't have been there picking my other kids up and decided to take some scruffy clothes for her god only knows what would have happened.'

Wouldn't she have gone to the school office and then they'd have phoned home? That's what happens to the uncollected and late at my school.
Doesn't excuse the parent for not letting you know more directly.

[MrsGuyOfGisbourne]

YABU - i agree with Goblinchild that there are so many things to remember abiut teh kids that sometimes things slip thru the net.
One of teh reasons I can't stand palydate aarrangements - just makes everything too complicated

[hmc]

Goblinchild - it is not the forgetting I was perplexed about - it was the lack of apology which you yourself have identified as something you would do in the circumstances....

....and as for "then decided that someone so intense was not a good friendship choice for someone like me, and gone back to a civil nod and no further communication", I've not been 'intense', and I have no desire at all to buddy up with the woman in question (have enough friendships to maintain without investing in any more) - have just been trying to organise for both children to play together after school at both their requests [shrugs].

I will give it another go for dd's sake but my heart isn't in it - other woman is oddly aloof imo (rather than merely distracted and a bit bumbling like the rest of us)which I find a bit disconcerting and off putting.

[hmc]

Or perhaps (more charitably) she is chronically shy - she doesn't seem to talk to anyone if she can help it (ponders....)

[Goblinchild]

'other woman is oddly aloof imo (rather than merely distracted and a bit bumbling like the rest of us)which I find a bit disconcerting and off putting'


Oh well, I'm comfortable living in my Aspie household, but there are few NTs that can cope with OH and DS because they are odd.
So I understand how unconventional responses can make you feel disconcerted and a bit off put.
I'm teaching my son how to buy a train ticket tomorrow, with real strangers he has to talk to. I aim for him being competent to travel without his notebook by August. It's my July project.

[BuzzingNoise]

YANBU. Ok, so you both forgot, BUT she surely has heard the ansaphone message by now and should say something.

[verytellytubby]

I was glad you put DD as I thought the thread was about me for a minute!

I've forgotten loads of time. I now put all playdates (hate that word) in my I-phone with a reminder! I have 3 DC to organise and I'm slightly disorganised. Never used to be.

[Jenbot]

I say give it another try for the kids' sakes.

[hmc]

Goblinchild - ahhh - hadn't considered that ...perhaps she is aspie! I must remember that everyone is not obliged or indeed able to behave in the 'conventional' way for a variety of reasons