Can't We All Just Get Along?

Oh Bother.

For the second time this school year I am bumping heads with another Mom (er... bumping heads with the same Mom for the 2nd time). In my opinion, it's over completely silly stuff, and I'm beginning to wonder if she just simply has a personal vendetta against me though I have no idea why (because other Moms who do similar things don't get a lecture from her).

Basically, The Pink Princess' teacher asked for help (she is finishing out the school year with a broken collar bone and a broken arm), and I attempted to follow the pseudo chain of command to contact this Mom and let her know, but when my phone call wasn't returned -- over 48 hours later, I decided to send out the teacher's request in a group email so that IF anyone could help, they would know about it sooner than later.

So I get a "nice" email back that basically says that everything I said was "OK" but that it was a duplicate of everything she had already said (it wasn't). And it would be sooo much better if I would just NOT email the entire class because that's just one too many emails and it should only come from one person, blah, blah, blah.

I agree with her. It's much easier to have ONE person be the "communicator" for the entire class. However, this was a teacher in need, who asked me for my help, and the "communicator" (this Mom) refused to return my phone call.

What would you do?

To top it off, I think it was bit ridiculous to lecture me about the group emails considering that the teacher asked me to do it (making it necessary), I haven't abused this power before, and there was only 7 days of school left. I really feel that it could've just been left alone.

King Isepik thinks I should have replied to her and the whole group and a) apologized, and b) explained that the teacher asked me to do it, and c) told this Mom to get off her high horse and realize that it's about helping this teacher -- not about how Mom's toes were stepped on.

I had already done this (in a very nice way) in a private email to the said Mom, and didn't think it was appropriate to do the group email (as attractive the idea was), so that's where it stops. For now.

In the meantime, I have at least 6 more years of dealing with this Mom so I would really like to figure out a way to get along with her, but at the same time I'm not going to be trampled by her for doing the right thing. Ugh.