transformyself

I think I"m getting better at this.

Weeks ago, I put a NC boundary in place with my neighbors and their daughter.

Slowly, over the past few days, that's been slipping. To be fair the boundary was, "we're going to be unavailable for awhile. I'm telliing you now rather than turn your daughter away at the door."

So I didn't put a time limit on it.

We just found out my son and the daughter are in teh same class this year. Ok.

She's come over a few times to bring toys for my dogs. She gives them and leaves right away. The kids were playing together outside, which is OK.

I got a text from her mom last night that invited youngest son to the zoo with them tomorrow and said, "do we need to get together to talk about the kid? I feel like the dream of you living across the street turned sour" which really pissed me off for some reason.

I think I feel guilted. Like my making that boundary was crushing her dream?

Anyway, I responded with , No, my family just needed to regroup.

But then the girl came in my house and was all over my 12 year old again and jumping on the couch, so I'm obviously going to have to re-state the boundaries again, or rather more clearly.

What I did at the time was this: I said, "Ok, we're going to pick up Daddy and because no friends are allowed at our house when I"m not here, S, you have to leave now."

She said OK and started to leave.

My kids said, "can we go over to her house?" and I said, no, we have to talk bout the rules to which they responded, "we like it better when there are no rules, this is no fun."

Oh well. They'll adapt. Or hopefully make enough money to put themselves into therapy when they're 30.

I"ll most likely be done moving us out of this house this weekend anyway, so we'll be around the corner rather than across the street.

I'm struggling with this though. I don't want to deal with it, really, I was happy with them just out of our lives. I asked AH to talk to the dad, find out how much the zoo is and let him make the decision to let youngest son go to the zoo. That's ok with me, if he goes, because my issues are the daughters interactions with the 12 year old and not being supervised at home iwth the tv and internet.

I"m comfortable with him going to the zoo, just not hanging out at her house.

Ya see, I'd have to sort out all the specifics, and tell her parents our boundaries. I have to decide of the friendship is worth it.

Mostly I"m pissed that I have to do all of this AND get my paper out AND move AND deflect idiocy from AH. Off to a meeting I go...

love, transform

barb dwyer

meeting sounds like a good idea!

I never was a 'kool aid' mom in our neighborhood when my kids were young.

I heard my son explaining to another kid on the porch one day...

"If she's at the drawing table, don't talk to her...just come back to my room"
"If she says hello to you, then you can answer her. Don't talk to her if she's got a deadline"....

LMAo!

Later, I became quite popular because I'd tolerate their metallica...
actually I liked it.
I was also about twenty years YOUNGER than THEIR parents.

but it was never okay to tear around or mess up my house.

So I can't relate to that.
But you've set boundaries
and that's what happens with new boundaries -
you have to run fence.