I always said I'd be the cool headed mom, not really causing my children any grief when we were out in public and the like. You know, that mom that confronts the bullies, over-protects their kids and walks around on egg shells with their kids when she's in public with them. For the most part, I've pulled this off rather well over the past 16 months. I mean, when one of the kids in Brayden's tumbling class approached him for no apparent reason and scratched the crap out of his face, I just let well enough alone. The other mom was kind of freaking out, but Brayden was fine, and he's got to learn to fend for himself in this wild and crazy world we live in. But all that changed today.
I toted Brayden all across our region today running errands, the biggest of which included a trip to the shoe store to try on EVERY brand and style of tennis shoe for his little feet. With our bi-annual consignment sale approaching, I needed to make sure I knew exactly what kind of shoes would fit Brayden's feet. He did so well, so we went to the mall to celebrate by eating some Chick-Fil-A nuggets and wrapping up our morning by going to the indoor play place that the mall has. I have a pet peeve at these play places. You see, it seems that some moms don't really like to follow the rules. The rules that I must say are CLEARLY stated at both the front of the play place and the back, with a clear description of WHO the play place is for. And it's for children who are 3 ft and under. Generally, on any given day, there are at least 2 kids that are FAR taller than the maximum height limit for the playground. I tend to give a blind eye, but not today. For today, there were two kids (both close to 8 or 9) who were dropped off by their parents. That's right, there were no parents attending to these children. Pet peeve #1: don't leave your kids in a public place by themselves. PERIOD. The rules clearly state that children should be attended. These kids were both at least a foot over the max height. Then there were 3 boys-- all 10 or older. All HUGE. Clearly bigger than the max height. Their mom was there, playing on the game boy in the corner, paying no attention to what her kids were doing. So, all 5 of these kids were running from one end of the playground, doing vaults over the tunnels and slides that are made for 1-3 year olds. My insides kind of turned when I saw all these kids, but at that point B was set on playing and I didn't want to ruin his morning, especially considering that he was so good during our outings. My problem is that my son, all 25 pounds of him, sees nothing different between himself and a 10 year old. And he ADORES older kids. So he runs straight to the back to the vaulting pre-teens, and practically gets decapitated by one of their feet. That was it. The straw that broke the camels back. I guess you could say that that flying foot ruffled my momma bird feathers just a bit too much. And I let loose.
Me: "LOOK. You kids are all clearly over the max height limit. So you need to watch out for these little kids who the PLAYGROUND IS ACTUALLY FOR. If he wants to play on this tunnel, then you all need to sit on the seat and watch him. Don't be jumping around on these things without watching what you're doing."
Kid who was dropped off by imbusil parent: "You're not my boss."
Me: "I may not be your boss. But if you can read, those are the rules. Talk to the person who made the rules if you have a problem with it."
The other 3 BIG boys who had the Nintendo playing dope mom in the corner, sulked quietly over to their mom who was clearly watching the whole thing play out and made not a peep. The two dropped off kids talked quietly amongst themselves afterward until their mom showed up. The BIG boys kept jumping, but stayed clear of Brayden. I couldn't believe I actually went off on the stranger kids, but seriously, someone has to say something or some kid is going to knocked out. And today will go down in the history books of how I became that mom.