5) TACT AND DIPLOMACY

You know how we mums have to carve out a network of people to help us achieve the unachievable? Like match working hours with school drop offs and pick ups somehow? Well, I've managed to do that with the help of an equally busy mother of two, who also owns a huge dog, and likes to keep herself fit through swimming and horse riding. So far, so much in common. The bad news, she's as tardy and disorganised as I am!

So, at parents' evening, having been told by my seven-year-old that he had to be at school for the register by 7:30 (when it's actually between 8:30 and 8:45) , I queried this with his teacher, to raise a laugh.

"Well, he would benefit from arriving at school a little earlier," was her exact response. That was me told! I hadn't realised that assembly was at ten to nine. So by showing up at quarter to, we weren't technically late but nor were we giving him much chance to take off his coat, hang up his bag, put his lunch bag on the trolley, hand in his homework, read a book and chat with his mates before being ushered into the hall.

Poor kid. I was a little chastened. Especially as he had truthfully told his teacher that he was always ready on time, but it was his mum or his neighbour that he always had to wait for! Oops! So how to broach this with my school-run sharer? My sister-in-arms. My fellow mum and tantrum-tolerator who's only too willing to divide up the odd bottle of wine or home-baked delight with me too?

Of course, I chose the coward's way out. At a night out with our other halves, after more than a few halves of the bottled kind, I told her a carefully edited version of the above story. I said we (noting to myself mentally that, of course, she was always waaaay later than I ever was when it was my turn to drop off) really must make a new half-term's resolution to get the kids to school earlier. Aim to leave home at ten past, then we might actually get to leave by quarter past and get to school by half past instead of quarter to.

She laughed, but my OH did tell me I'd handled it in a sneaky sort of way. How else could I have handled it without sounding obsessive-compulsive or seeming to rebuke her for being disorganised? Aside from that other playground etiquette dilemma where another child has hit or bitten your child (or vice versa, which is even worse) that must rank in the top ten of delicate matters we mums have to contemplate.  Any tips?