This makes playgrounds, where I'm almost guaranteed to have to interact with other people's children, unbearable for me. I hate them. Not as much as I hate mall play areas, but I still hate them. I realize I am probably alone in my hatred of playgrounds and other people's children, but there you have it - my dirty little secret.* However, having children means having to suck up things you hate as much as possible and do them anyway so that your children don't become unsocialized kids who don't know what monkey bars are. So, yesterday, off to the park we went. And not just any playground - the local playground. With auxiliary parking a 15 minute walk away for when the real parking lot fills up. With a merry-go-round. With fancy brightly colored foam-ish flooring and every piece of equipment you can imagine.
There were something like a million people there, it was hot, I was cranky and hungry and at a playground - so generally dyspeptic. Elisabeth is a good kid, good at sharing, good at waiting in line - so not too much work except that you always have to watch her tricks even when they're not all that exciting. And you have to help her with the monkey bars and the zip line and the climbing wall. Essentially there is very little she will do by herself without whining about it. Anyway, she walked over to a play house and this tubby kid running around waving a corn dog was in there. He just looked at her. His mom was kind of hovering over him. Curiously she was NOT yelling at him as he ran with a sharp pointy stick in his mouth. That is neither here nor there. Also in the play house was a younger kid who looked exactly like tubby corn dog kid. He was probably 21 mos old - a lot like Charlotte. Being a lot like Charlotte, he walked right over to Elisabeth and shoved her.
I suppose I'm proud that Elisabeth didn't shove the kid back, although I wanted to shove the kid. She, instead, turned to me and said "Mommy, that little boy shoved me." So I said "thank you for telling me and not shoving him back." I turned my glare on the mother of the corn dog wielding tubby kid, awaiting my apology for her kid's behavior. None came. She just smiled and nodded. So I guided Elisabeth away and loudly said "we don't shove. It is not nice. That little boy's mother should explain to him that shoving is bad." Feeling pretty smug, we walked over to the big firetruck.
I kept my eye on the corn dog family. Strangely the mom wandered away from the shover and left the park with the corn dog kid. About to holler after her that she forgot her other kid, I witnessed the little shover push another kid. At that point it occurred to me that oh my gosh, the little one wasn't her kid!!! The resemblance was uncanny, though. Especially when I saw the family that the kid actually belonged to. I wanted to ask the dad if he was sure his wife wasn't sleeping with that other woman's husband or something. Night and day. But I felt very relieved that I hadn't let the corn dog mom have a piece of my mind about her shoving kid. That would have been embarassing!!!
* Another thing I hate about playgrounds - I have to run around after my kids. Making sure they take turns nicely, making sure they don't climb the wrong way up the slide, saving them when they get stuck way up on some piece of climbing equipment, etc.
1 comment:
The hardest part about playgrounds for me is that not a single other Mom at the playgrounds we go to actually pays attention to their own child...hence the shover.
I feel your pain.
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