I recently moved to a new state basically without knowing a soul. I met a woman who has two children, a daughter my twins' age and a boy two years older. We talked a lot while the kids were in swim class, and stayed after the month long class to let the kids swim in the pool.
The first time we got together in the park, post-swim class, she called me when I was 5 minutes late. I am generally very punctual, but am brand new to the area, and misjudged my timing. I apologized and explained we were one block from the community center drive and would be there in 2 minutes. My bad.
The second time we got together I received a call on my cell phone at 12:44 p.m. We agreed to meet at 12:45 p.m. I was shutting the car door when she called, but laden down with books and bags, didn't answer. I walked up to her and explained that I didn't pick up because I was getting out of the car and laden down with books.
We played there and then went to my house. She frequently corrected my children: I was correcting my daughter for nearly hitting me with her bike, and this "friend" says, "DD, say 'excuse me.'" I told my son to go to his room to quiet down, and she came inside and told him to go outside and help pick up toys. These are but a few of the times were I really felt like boundaries were crossed.
She had a twin pregnancy and lost one of the twins. I have twins. She also is returning to work in 8 weeks after being home for 8 years with her children.
My told me later she had found out her transmisson was out of her car and just wanted to cry because it was going to cost a lot of money to fix. In part, I could give her "grace" and write off her behavior to a bad day. But in other part, I feel like she seems to have so much hostiity toward me that I want to gracefully get away from a "frenemy" at best.
She is a much, much stricter parent than I am. She boasts of taking away her son's much-beloved Wii for ONE YEAR at age 6 because he had a tantrum at soccer, while simultaneously letting her daughter and her son's friends play with the toy. (Needless to say, I would, and could, never be that draconian with my children.) She had never, ever let her children eat cotton candy. I let my daughter who has life-threatening food allergies and had never found safe cotton candy before be a cotton candy glutton at the library (with the library's blessing when I explained this was the first time we had ever found safe cotton candy and my DD usually cannot eat any of the offerings at parties, festivals, carnivals, etc).
What do you think? Advice?
TIA
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