Am I a mean co whow is overreacting?

[twinsetandpearls]

Dd ( 4.11) had a friend's daughter sleep last night the friend is 9. As a treat dp bought dd a game of operation. When they went to bed last night we checked all the pieces were there and put it on a high shelf so that dd couldn't reach it and loose the pieces.

The friend who IMO should know better at her age got the game out for them to play but and the they went to sleep with it on the bed it fell off in the night and now three pieces are missing.

I have told them both off and have said that f the pieces are not found before 5pm when dp will take the girl home the game will be thrown away and the girl is not allowed to sleep over for the rest of the summer.

On top of this dd bedroom is a tip and is covered in half eaten sweets and everything is pulled out of the drawers and boxes. I have told them both that they cannot leave the room before it is tidy.

THanks Cam, I am feeling like a rehabilitated narky, draconian obsessive compulsive old nag.

Ah - a happy ending! Well done TWaP you done good mamma!

TS&P, I think the problem is not so much the game, but the entire situation - you have been really taken advantage of and I think the game is just the final straw.

I think you have to be very honest with yourself. If you want to become a foster parent, become a foster parent, but this 'fostering by accident' is obviously putting a lot of strain on you. It is OK to invite somebody to the cinema (more than most people would do!) but then tell them to go home - they don't have to move in with you!

THis was never meant to be a sleepover for all the reasons below, she was supposed to be coming for tea with her mum, a few hours end of story.

But it is hard to say no to a child begging to come and sleep when you know what they are going home to.

I am quite soft and do get taken advantage of but I don't really care as I would rather look back at my life and think that perhaps a few people took advantage but I did my bit to make my little bit of the world a happier place than think well no bugger has got one over me but having never actually done anything to help anyone else either.

SO you haven't founf the missing bits yet? They couldn't have gone too far?

Sounds likte the girls Mum is taking the piss. How do you get on with her?

You sound like a lovely, kind person TS&P. All sorts of people get upset over broken toys etc - my DP is an only child and finds it very hard to see broken jigsaw boxes and damaged toys as he was so careful with his. It really upsets him.

I have quite an up and down relationship with her mum, she is a lot younger than me and has a lot on her plate so when I remember that we get on OK and she is best tolerated in small doses!

Her mum is quite lovely, a very funny woman who is good company and we o ahve quite a lot in common she has an absolute heart of gold.

She does however have a very hard life and this coupled with her youth and naivety means that she can be quite difficult. For example I got managed to talk my boss into getting a job when I found out she was really short of money and she was fantastic for a few weeks and then started not turning up. Another time we were hiring a cleaner and she kept saying how daft it was when she could do the work and really needed the money. So reluctantly I let her have the job and just as I feared she was great for a few weeks and then it all went wrong. There have been other similar incidents.

This is making her sound like an awful person and she isn't she just has a lot on her plate, everyday is a struggle financially and emotionally and i think she is so absorbed in her own difficulties that sometimes she acts in a way even she would find intolerable in others. But under her tough exterior there is a funny warm woman who just needs a few more breaks in life.

Bozza so in answer to your question she probably is taking the piss but is doing it unintentionally as she just seems to operate in a very different way from most people I know. She quite often has run ins with people and from talking to her I know that she genuinely thinks she has not behaved unreasonably.