Here's A Little Murmmering..... (by the way...this paticuar blog is wicked long)

Ahh, one of the last pictures of summer. Now that the rains have hit (And we are soooooo grateful for, of course! Even if they should prevent us from enjoying the sweet, cool, waters that still beckon to us, frigid though they are), it's too cold to get the kids in the water.

So, here I go again. With the complaining, and the trash talking, and the mummuring. I just looked over what I've written and it looks freaking long. It shouldn't be that bad to read - it might even be a little bit funny. Try it...

I love a lot of things in life, and since I've been working on what it is to "be" me, things have been going a WHOLE lot better. But once in awhile, there just seems to be something that happens - not always directly, mind you - but something that just happens and I'm like, "Geeeeez, that was awful!" or, "Wow, that just made me want to knock her big, ugly, poofy, dumb, frizzy block off!".

Obviously, one of those things happened today. I had to run to SV to get new frames for Mr. B since he ran the old ones over with his tricycle. Yep. He only had them for one week. Serious. Anyways...went to SV, got the new frames, went to Ross, then to Arby's, then to the park before the afternoon storm hit.

And Mr. B and Mikey are all, "Come play with us! Climb up here! You can't catch me! I slide first!". And I'm all, "I am so gonna catch you and tickle the snot outa you and ya'll are gonna LOSE!" Well, I didn't actually say it, but I was totally thinking it, c'mon. What I said was more like, "Oh, I don't know! You might be tooooo fast for me! I don't think I can catch you!".

There were a couple of kids there when we got there and the moms were sitting on a bench in the shade, gossiping about the moms they both knew and discussing the inferior parenting styles of those said women. I could tell that it was a deep and emotional conversation as they continued to "pick a little, talk a little" in comfort.

I, on the otherhand, was running up and down teeny stairs, sliding down slides as long as my legs, and grasping onto burning hot fireman poles while chasing after little monkeys. After one little boy threw sand on my son for the third time, his mom looked over and sweetly said, "Bradley, honey, don't do that! The sand is dirty." and quickly resumed her conversation.
When the other womans little girl shoved Mikey down the slide, her mom said, "Sweetheart, play nice!" By that time, I was starting to get a little aggrivated with these street urchins and their perfect mommies who are sitting in the shade, because they are totally missing the first 12 times that the kids do something wrong, and then they yell accross the playground for them to stop!! Sheeeeesh!! How effective is that? How about NOT AT ALL!!!!!!!!!

So my solutions could be one of 4 things:

I could go up to the little boy and tell him that if he gets near my son again with any sand, I will pry open his little mouth and fill it with the dirty grit.

I could tell my boys to shove or throw sand back.

I could ask the moms to take a more active role in their kids playtime (what I was really thinking was; ask the moms to get offa their sour, bulging, gossiping booties and take care of these rotton, ratty, monsters! ahem...I meant children...obviously not an option).

I could have some group playtime - you know, an organized game.

I decide that we are going to play a game. I like games, and I want the boys to learn to play with others (the other two needed a lesson also). "How about playing tag?" I ask the kids. "Yeah!!" they say. (You know, hindsight being what it is, I probably should have chosen another game. Hemmm, I'll jot this one down as a "Shining Mommy Moment"...or not) So we get a little more organized and we start playing tag. This works well, but we still have a little directing to do with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum (real names: Bradley and Bailey). "Oh, let's not be tooooo rough with the little ones." I calmly ask Dee. "Um, you don't need to tag him that hard, Dum." and "Hey! One a time on the slide." or "Do not touch his glasses again!" then "I think I heard your mommy calling you" and finally "Is that your ball rolling into the street?". By this time, the moms are getting aggrivated that someone else is dictating to their children and begrudgingly leave the comfort of the shade and start walking over to the playground.

"Stay away from those boys, Dee and Dum!" mom #1 shouts. "Don't play with them, they look like they are playing their own game" says mom #2. "Come here Dee!" says #1, "Come here right now! No! We are leaving, you can't stay any more. Don't go under that - I said DON'T! Get over here right now young lady. No, you cannot go down the slide one more time. I said - stop tha - don't go - can you hear me? Ok, 1......2....if you don't get over here by the count of three, you're gonna be in BIG trouble! 1.......2......2 1/2.......2 3/4.....I'm almost to 3! Stop that! It's time to go! Do you want something to eat? Are you hungry? Let go get some ice cream! 1.......2....... 2 1/2......Bailey Nicole, get over here right now. Am I going to have to come over there and get you? I really don't want to do that! I'll get sand in my sandles. GET OVER HERE! 1.........2.......2 1/2.......Ok, here I come and I'm not happy!! I mean it! Get your butt over here!" Mom #1 then proceeds to precariously pick her way throught the nasty field of sand to try to get Dee. Then, seeing that the sand is much "ickier" than she anticipates, she turns back and starts yelling from the sidelines again.

Mom of Dum, on the other hand, yells and says, "Get you butt over here right now or I'm gonna spank you!" to which Dum yells back, "No!!! I'm still playing!". Dum is rather angry so I should have known better than to think that mom could take care of everything, but right then, Mr. B came toddling by on the bridge. "I'm a troll and you can't pass!" (well, at least he got the troll part right), and Mr. B, not yet instructed in the ways of the 4 year old temper tantrum, innocently says, "No, thank you." and trys to push his way (rather roughly, I will admit) between the troll and the bridge. The troll leans back, pulls his hand back, and gets ready to whollip my almost 2 year old son.

This is it...the last straw. I take two steps and am on the kid in a minute. I grab his wrists (firmly but not hurting him) and tell him that he cannot hit little babies, it's not nice. Dum screams like mad when I catch him in the act "I didn't hit him! Let me go! I'm telling! He pushed me first! He started it! Owwwwwww!"

Dee is watching this scene and must have realized that nobody was watching her, so she tried, once again, to push little Mikey down the slide. In his attempt to not go down the slide sideways, he grasped empty air until he felt something solid and he held onto it. Except that solid thing happens to be the little girl's skirt. And he pulls it down. And she falls down the slide along with Mikey. Oh, brother....it looks bad for us.

Seeing the small scene of chaos before them, the mothers finally concede and quickly make their way through the "icky" sand towards the screaming children.

They are mad at me and ask me how I could let my children cause so much trouble.

I ask them how they enjoyed their chat in the shade.

They glare at me.

I let the screaming troll go. I get down and pick Mikey up out of the sand. They say, "She can't be their mother, look at her playing around, look at her hair. Look! She's dirty!" As if I wasn't there to hear them. Making sure the boys are ok, I look at these mothers and say, "As a Mom, I would rather get dirty, sweaty, and grimy while playing with my kids than get dirty, sweaty, and grimy while yelling at my kids and picking their spoiled bodies up outa the sand."

As they walked away muttering the words, "Irresponsible! Do you want ice cream? Disrespectful! I'm gonna count to three! Rude! Do you want something to cry about? Immature! Because I said so!" over the wailing of their kids they were dragging, I smiled as I climbed back up the steps to catch two little monkeys. I am one of the luckiest women alive to know what I know and to enjoy what I do. But I still wanted to knock #1's big, ugly, poofy, dumb, frizzy block off.