Frenemies

Small girl friendships can be "complicated".

Astrid's BEST friend (I'm going to call her Lucy) is, according to Astrid, a "frenemy". Last year, which was forever ago, they were not friends. Astrid said she was bossy and mean and sang rude songs about snot and farts. Don't get me wrong, Astrid is quite partial to songs about snot and farts, but these particular songs were not to her liking.

This year they are "in LOVE". Last week Astrid received a note, "I love you because you're pretty and have shiny hair"...five year old girls are very superficial.

But it appears there is a decidedly uncomfortable dimension to this friendship, a Single White Female component.

Lucy insists that Astrid play only with her at all times. She must even eat her lunch bite for bite with her, wear her hair the same and woe betide any child who talks to Astrid. Astrid is not a shrinking violet and so when Lucy tries to enforce these rules, a loud disagreement ensues.

Astrid and Lucy are not the only fraught relationship in her class (it's just the girls though, boys are far less complex) and so their teacher is trying to shake things up by forcibly separating the pairs. Time will tell whether this direct action works or backfires...

If I'm to be completely honest, all of this suits me perfectly as it absolves me of any suspicion of social engineering. I was feeling a little squeamish about my meddling in the friendship. "Why don't we have Alice or Amy or Wendy over to play instead of Lucy", I'd say . You see, while Lucy is fine (despite the Jennifer Jason Leigh-ness) her dad kind of gives me the creeps. You know, when the hairs stand up at the back of your neck but you're not really sure why? He is disheveled, sadly not in a Tim Roth/Robert Downey Jr sort of way, but in a park-bench-trench-coat-what's underneath kind of way and he told me my shoes were "pretty" last time I saw him.....creepy.

So, I went jeans shopping...yes, thanks for your sympathy, I've almost gotten over the experience.

The sheer volume of choices that you have to make completely does your head in: skinny bogan legs, wide flower-child legs, low/mid/armpit rise waist, curve, length, colour, weird little faux crease marks etc etc. AND that's even before you go through the soul destroying fitting room experience, where the lights are 2000 Watt and artfully designed to make your pudgy bits look like enormous globs of congealed pure white porridge. Just how that's supposed to sell jeans is beyond me.

I'm not really a big fan of jeans (not solely because of the buying and trying). I appreciate their usefulness but they are so conformist and I have an annoyingly ingrained tendency to try to be "different". It's been with me for as long as I remember.

I hate being part of a crowd.

When everyone around me was getting tatts, wearing and dying their hair black, I wore turquoise and bleached my hair white...and, thankfully, I was dithering on the design of my prospective tattoo for so long, that they became mainstream and I decided it was more alternative to not have one. 

It's probably why I don't Facebook, dislike the latest, big label Avett Brothers' album and I have never seen E.T.!

I know how stupid it is, but it's ingrained, like I said. It's me.

Tara recently mentioned "mum (mom) jeans" and while I now understand, thanks to some helpful advice, what they are (highpants), the mums that I come into daily contact with at Linus and Astrid's school do not wear them. These mums are size 10 and below and get about in a uniform of designer jeans and pony tails.

Due to lack of time and the issues with hairdressers I've discussed before, I currently sport a bloody ponytail and...now, a new pair of jeans......I feel like I'm becoming a new millennium version of a Stepford wife.