Just a few days ago I tried out a facility in Gig Harbor that recently just re-opened. Upon first glance I couldn’t imagine a better afternoon outing for me and the kiddos: a café (including kiddie snacks), espresso, indoor playground facility, and all the gossip magazines you can handle. I could just visualize Tristan running around making friends, while I drank my coffee and caught up on all my juicy, unnecessary celebrity gossip. However, let’s get down to why this didn’t turn out as awesome as the picture I made for myself in my head. For those of you that don’t know there is a high likely hood at some point in the city of Gig Harbor to run across the snooty bunch. Apparently I wasn’t the only Mom with the same idea, in fact I was amongst familiar territory that I found super amusing…all moms of toddler boys who looked as though they were a “wild” bunch. Upon first glance I thought this must be too good to be true, look at all these active boys that Tristan can befriend. However, I was a little disspointed quickly into our outing when every Mother around me took the relaxing part a little too far, like zone out far. There were kids pushing, shoving, stealing toys, teasing, taunting and running a muck. As a self defined “hands on Mom” I took the approach to discipline Tristan each time I caught him not sharing, each time he took a toy from another kid, each time he even accidently hurt another kid I had him apologize (he took the extra step of kissing and hugging <3. I felt my son was indeed on his best behavior. The other Moms had devil children, in fact one kid threw a toy at my head, and then when I said “No-No we don’t throw things at others, it hurts them and its naughty” the mother of said devil child glared at me! I thought to myself, it’s one thing to have an active child, but a totally other issue when you let them run around with no boundaries like a bat out of hell! I was proud to say my little man for once didn’t make friends.I was glad about the fact he found nothing interesting about these rude little boys and just went about his play as if they weren’t there. I was a little embarrassed for the Moms… how can you be proud to have such rude inconsiderate children? What happened to the day when parents actually participated in their children’s play time as well as take time to relax? I read a few articles out of US, read about the 16 and preggers girls and felt a billion times better about my plight as a wife of a deployed soldier aka “temp. Single mother” but I also played with Tristan in the blowup tent, hid in the fort with him, and pushed his fire engine around making noises for his enjoyment. I was just a little disappointed to look around and see these little boys lashing out, misbehaving through their play looking for some attention in some form from their Mothers and none was to be found. I may decide never to return. I may have walked away feeling like I paid an admittance fee to watch kids pick on my son, but I also walked away proud of my mothering skills no matter how much I question them these days. I walked away filled to the brim with pride that my son said, please, Thank You, waited his turn, kissed kids’ boo-boos, and offered hugs and cheek kisses to console those kids he might have offended. No my son isn’t perfect, he’s a typical terrible two wild and active boy, but he is one amazing little dude and I am now more sure of it than ever after being able to compare him to the masses. Sorry folks my kids are pretty awesome…just sayinJ!
No comments:
Post a Comment