Not to say that my kid is perfect. She can tantrum, yell, scream and stamp her foot with the best of them. But that's only to us. When in public, she is polite to others and is careful not to step on or hurt other kids when playing.
On Monday, SB was a perfect angel. Well, as close to an angel as we could hope these days. She dressed herself in the morning, went to school without a fuss, and was just a happy, whine-free, obedient child for the remainder of the day. So I decided to reward her with some positive reinforcement and bring her to an Ultimate Playzone in nearby Timonium.
This place was crowded, but big, so she had plenty of room to run around and burn off some energy (yes, I also wanted to ensure a good night's sleep, so there might have been an ulterior motive in bringing her there). Of course, she went into the one moon bounce where she tends to get stuck and make her pregnantly fat mom squeeze in through the birth canal that is the entrance to the bounce, climb up a ladder, slide down a slide, and lift SB up over the wall that she was unable to scale. Luckily it only happened once. Unluckily, I was now in a moon bounce, feeling like a sea cow out of water. Can't wait to figure out how I'm going to squeeze out of that place.
I also re-injured my injured toe. I guess I bounced funny, because the purple swollen toe that had just recently returned to normal color and size was now throbbing, and upon inspection later at home, appeared to be purple and swollen again. The things we do for our kids.
Anyway, we moved on to a moon bounce with a more adult-friendly opening. This one had a sort of ladder to climb in order to reach a slide. This "ladder" was composed of raised blocks about the size of bricks on an otherwise smooth incline. One was supposed to use the raised blocks to support their feet, and had the option of hanging on to ropes on each side of the "ladder". The blocks were a little too far apart for SB at first, so I followed her up and down about 10 times until she got the hang of it. She was still slow, but was able to climb on her own. Satisfied that she was safe and able, I gave my body and toe a break by resting on a bench about 4 feet in front of her moon bounce.
At some point during her gallivants, SB had befriended a little girl who appeared to be around her age, maybe a little older. So this girl was about 3-4 years old. She had originally begged me to let her go down a slide while sitting on my lap, but I politely declined. She said it was "ok with her mom," but since I didn't see said "mom" anywhere around, and wasn't really interested in some weirdo pressing charges against me for touching her kid, plus I didn't really want to have to lift up some 35 lb kid that wasn't my own, seeing as how I'm on a 20 lb lifting restriction, I told her to go down the slide and hold hands with SB. Which they did, and promptly became BFFs.
So now BFF and SB wanted to go up this rock climbing ladder that I described above. No problem there, but BFF decided she wanted to take along this little wooden lady bug thing that was there for kids to ride around the floor. It looked kind of like this:
Actually, it looked exactly like that. Only older and rattier.
So BFF holds it in her hand while climbing this rock ladder. SB follows. BFF is a little quicker climbing the ladder and ends up slightly ahead of SB. I am not comfortable with BFF bringing the ladybug onto the moon bounce, and her parents are still nonexistent. I stand up and approach the moon bounce to take the bug away from BFF. Just before I get there, she loses her grip on the ladybug and......you guessed it.
It falls and hits SB right on the head. SB starts BAWLING. This thing is not small or light, and the wooden part at the bottom is what hits her. I felt horrible. I tell SB to make her way down the ladder and come to me, since there are kids in the entrance and I can't make it to her. As she makes her way down, crying HARD, I reach in and take the ladybug out. BFF holds her hand out to me like she wants me to give it to her. I tell her she's not getting it, and place it on the floor where it belongs. As I do, BFF screams at me "It's ok, I'm allowed to have it!" Like HELL you are!
I STILL don't see any parents. I'm not one to go around reprimanding other people's kids, but there was no way this girl was getting that ladybug back to drop on another kid's head. I told her that those toys were meant to be on the ground, she's not supposed to have it on the moon bounce because it could hurt other kids. By this time, SB was in my arms, and I pointed out to the girl, in case she missed it, that she had just dropped it on SB's head and it hurt her.
BFF was not happy but I didn't care. I brought SB to the bench and comforted her, but she wouldn't stop crying. I felt bad that she was being so loud, and worried that she was bothering the fat little old lady parked next to me at the bench. Not that I really blamed her. I'd be crying too if that happened to me. But I offered to bring her to the water fountain as a distraction.
We walked out to the hallway, and as I helped SB up onto the stool in front of the fountain, I realized that BFF was right behind us, with the little old fat granny from the bench. Which I assumed was her grandmother. Who had witnessed the WHOLE THING yet never reprimanded the child or apologized to SB. OMG.
As this is sinking in (I'm kind of slow sometimes), another lady brushed past me with her son on their way into the restroom. She seemed concerned about SB, who was still crying pretty hard, and asked what had happened. I was touched that she cared, and eager to call out BFF in front of her grandmother. Just in case the GM was blind and didn't really see what happened. So I told the lady that someone had climbed onto a moon bounce with one of the roller ladybugs and dropped it on SB's head.
I hadn't even gotten through the entire sentence when this lady interrupted me to say "Oh, good, I was worried that this one had done something to her", and rushed into the restroom. WTF?? So she wasn't concerned at all about a hurt child, she just wanted to make sure her devil son wasn't responsible? And I couldn't even finish my sentence that was in response to HER question? I hated her almost as much as I now hated the GM and BFF.
As they passed behind me, GM said that was a shame, and she hopes SB feels better. WTF??? Am I in the Twilight Zone? Doesn't she realize that her own freaking grandchild, or at least the child she was supposed to be SUPERVISING had INJURED another child because she did something incredibly stupid and against the rules by bringing heavy piece of wood with wheels onto a freaking MOON BOUNCE and DROPPED IT ON SOMEONE'S HEAD???? Shouldn't she at least be scolded for this?
Poor SB. Luckily the injury wasn't too bad, I think it was more the shock of it than anything else. It hit her right behind her ear, pretty much just at her hair line, so you can't really see the bruise.
I'm not too mad at BFF. She didn't know any better. What upsets me is that she still doesn't know any better, because her GM is completely oblivious. Not only to the fact that she did something stupid, but to everything. I kept a close eye on SB the entire time she was on a moon bounce. I was only a foot away by the time the accident happened- trying to get there to take the ladybug away and avoid the accident altogether, and saw the whole thing. Obviously this GM did not keep an eye on her charge. It saddens me because without a grownup telling her what's appropriate and what's not, BFF is going to go through life not considering the consequences of her actions.
It also makes me mad that I spent $7 and got very little besides a bruised daughter and a re-injured toe.
1 comment:
I'm not afraid to discipline another child when there's no parental supervision. If the parent shows up all you have to say is, "Oh, this unsupervised child is yours?" and they ALWAYS back down.
Post a Comment