What do you do when you are around other parents and your rules for your children are entirely different? I had a dear friend over with her 3 children. One of them spent a fair amount of time jumping on the couch. (I don’t think this idea of fun had occurred to Reilly yet) Another one of them took Reilly’s cars and drove them along the wall at about 3 1/2 feet up – wheel marks now span the length of the house. My first comment was “oh, we don’t do that” and my second was “ooop, please don’t do that”. Since my messages were not reinforced by their parents I understood it was not a battle that I could really fight without long-term tension.

I guess things getting ruined were just that “things”. It wasn’t worth causing problems in a friendship – next time we’ll just get together at the park.