On the playground....again.

"Hey Mommy watch this!" I hear my child exclaim these words well over a million times per day, I mostly hear this at the park near our home. I like this particular park, its well maintained, surrounded by trees, plenty of swings and slides so there is little wait time for the kids to take their turn. I have mentioned this park before in my writing and spoken of,,, well more like ranted about the only downside.... cant recall? its the mommy's. One hundred percent of the time at Piney Wood a mother will force her opinion on me, my child's behavior, or the fact that he is "doing the wrong thing" as if there is a code of conduct at the playground. I am sorry but since when do 4 year old little boys "do the right thing"?? Maybe in your world. Usually they are the mothers of a 4 year old girl and I know that this mom has no idea that my little boy could not and will not EVER act like her sweet little princess. OR on a good day its the mother of a 2year old boy and my heart smiles knowing that the cute little guy will be hell on wheels in another 2 years and she will eat those words like a forced spoon of caster oil or some other disgusting food. Find that hard to swallow? Here is an example, yesterday afternoon- the weather is beautiful the boys and I head out for the park, Elijah is excited as always about the prospect of meeting a friend to run, scream, jump and be rowdy with. As we enter the playground he scans the area to spot any kids that look close to his height. Perfect! a boy just his height,, "must be 4" he says and runs along to the huge play place where he makes his way UP the slide. OK its been approximately 5 seconds and I hear it..." Ohhhh NO, we are teaching Trevor to do the RIGHT thing, you are doing the WRONG thing!" Elijah looks at the mommy confused, maybe because I have never corrected this so called wrong behavior,, I figure its a playground,,, its purpose is to suck 20% of the energy out of my kid so that I can survive the next 4 hours until its bedtime. So if he wants to use his energy to go up rather than down that's fine by me. Onward to the monkey bars- my child is sitting perched on top like a little bird looking down and yelling, "hey look I am spider man!" The little boy who looks to be 4 or 5 says "mommy who is spider man?" oooooohhhhh no I thought to myself I hope E man didn't hear that but alas he did. " Uhhh hes a spider thats a man, you know,,,, PETER PARKER!?!?" Elijah exclaims then crawls down the faux rock wall to check this kid AND his mommy out. Elijah runs a full circle around the boy and climbs the rock wall, "come on buddy" he says. The child smiles and starts to climb but is promptly interrupted by his mommy,,"no no Trevor! You will fall." GOOD GRIEF I am thinking this poor child should have stayed in the Volvo wagon and watched Elijah play from a distance! I suppose Elijah and I were thinking the same thing because he jumped down and came over to ask me, " what is wrong with that boy mommy?" " he cant climb?" I just smiled and said maybe not buddy, go play. With that my little guy ran off. I plopped my tubby 10 month old in the baby swing and began to push, wow, what a nice day, wonder what we should do for dinner, wonder what Luis is doing,,, then my dreaming was interrupted by, "HEY mommy watch this!" I turn to watch Eman go head first down the tall twisting slide, his dismount graceful his smile bright- he ran by again like a little spider man swinging from monkey bars to slide. I look to my left and see the mom jaw dropped in pure horror that my child just did a MAJOR wrong thing.
Standing there in mist of the stay at home moms of the triangle club I said to myself, Man that kid is good!