I have been BUSY! Keeping two tween-agers occupied isn't as easy as it looks. And with them around, there's more cooking and cleaning to do or else we spend the day going out and spending money. Oh how I long for the days when a trip to the park or the beach or a bike ride was sufficient. Not anymore.

Of course, I didn't see much of them in the first few days after school let out. Son had his bezzie mates round for a sleepover, then he went to another sleepover at one of the mate's. Then he spent half a day at home. Then another friend came over and spent the night. Daughter went to a friend's on Saturday night, was home Sunday, went shopping with another friend Monday and a sleepover that night at a schoolfriend's. Then Tuesday I took them and two friends shopping and to the cinema to see Harry Potter (fantastic!).

Here's the difference between boys and girls. At my son's sleepover and the one he went to, the boys played games and swam in his friend's pool. At the sleepover my daughter went to, the girls sat around telling each other their worst faults.

Maybe it's a 12-year-old thing. I seem to recall doing that too, with disastrous results for the friendship. Daughter's school friends did this at the last sleepover they went to as well. That resulted in some hurt feelings on the part of one girl. I know that because I am friends with the mother of that girl. I took the mother to lunch for her birthday last week, and she proceeded to tell me all about her daughter crying and feeling left out, etc. If I don't sound very sympathetic, it's because I'm not. This particular girl dumped my daughter two weeks into the school year. I didn't repeat anything my daughter had told me about the girl. I did say 12-year-old girls can be incredibly bitchy. I did say my daughter had also gone through a rough patch earlier in the year when nobody was calling her. I am fairly confident that information was passed on.

At this week's sleepover, Daughter asked the girl why she had quit calling her. Now here's where I get really pissed off. The girl's reply was that she thought Daughter had started acting bigheaded and she wanted to teach her a lesson so she quit having much to do with her! This from the child who boasts about her father's Porsche, her expensive new bedroom, the expensive holidays her family goes on. So Daughter tells me what the girl said and my voice starts to get really loud and indignant and Daughter starts to get defensive and won't tell me anymore. So I calm down and ask her if she thinks that was fair of the girl to say. She said she thought it was, and that maybe she hadn't been such a good friend to the girl.

I said no more and have not brought it up since. But I am incensed! I think Daughter is afraid of losing friends and so will put up this little madam for the sake of peace. The only thing that consoles me is that I doubt this relationship will last much longer than another school year, if that. I wish I could tell Daughter that women don't do this sort of thing to each other, that they grow out of it. But we all know that isn't true, don't we. Women are each other's best friends and worst enemies. I have wished many a time that I had a man's emotional makeup. I sometimes envy men their ease in keeping conversation on a surface level. Still, they have their problems too, don't they. There are still the Wannabe Alpha Males jostling for superiority in sport, cars, and women. And the men who will not show one iota of emotion. And the ones who are from Mars and other planets.

I'd put a 12-year-old girl up against them anyday. I know who would win.