Does anyone understand this? Yes. am i being rather paranoid? No.
Why can't people just be nice without an ulterior motive? I ask myself this question every day.
There is one mother in particular who was like this with my family, and this is how I fixed it: go along with it and come Christmas, give them a big hamper. (I spent £45). Even the mother admitted the present was "overly generous." I've haven't had a repeat preformance of her unacceptable behaviour since. If it involves a reciprocal action which involves money, these types won't go along with it because in order to 'beat' you or 'outperform' you, they would need to spend even more money. And she can't hardly say to people "oh, I don't want them around again because they gave our family an overly generous hamper."
Examples of this woman's past behaviour: The Tests
She gave my dd a paint brush and asked her if she knew had to paint brush strokes.
The pencil and paper test as you described.
The going to the park and asking my daughter whether she could climb the "huge" frame. My daughter could. Her daughter could not and dd and I were promptly asked to go back home because they had somewhere to go to.
The table manners test: Asking my daughter, "what do you say when you want to leave the table?"
The toilet test: "oh Helen, can you use the toilet? Do you want to show me how?"
"I've got a skipping rope in my hand, can you skip?"
"Do you want to play catch? Do you know how to throw a ball" (dd says yes and throws ball). "Can you catch the ball?" (dd says yes, and catches the ball). The words in quotation marks are what the mother actually said.
Now, I know what some of you are saying/thinking, "but she's only being friendly, she's playing with your dd, what's wrong with that?" The thing is, all play is very short lived. For example, the ball game. When dd threw and caught the ball once, this other mother decided try something else. In other words, once my dd demonstrated whether or not she could do the skill, the 'game' or play promptly stops.
I ended up having to do the hamper thing because although I was polite, my dd was begining to say things to the mother and daughter in a really sarcastic tone of voice, "can you do this? can you do that? Let's play 'can you draw?'"
Then there's:
the search through the bag, look at the labels on the clothes dd is wearing, asking about dd routine; what dd eats, what sports dd plays and then testing them.
Another confession: I thought the whole thing was hilarious. I sat on her sofa, reading my book with a cup of tea and biscuit and left her to it!