Outside Looking In at the Park

I love taking the kids to the park. There is a toddler park nearby that is great. It’s big, shady and fenced in, as a result it is well attended by other toddlers and their parents and grandparents. There are big playground apparatus to play on and swings and picnic tables and benches for the adults.
Tiernan (the 2 year-old) goes wild, Reagan (3.5 months) not so wild - she is still in the bucket. The bucket, for the uninitiated, is the car seat carrier -- another one of man’s greatest inventions.
As everyone knows, car rides put kids to sleep. But taking them out of car seats wakes them up. With the invention of the bucket, you can leave the child in the bucket, disconnect it from the base in the car and carry the sleeping child – carseat and all inside, put the bucket down in a safe spot and the child will remain comfortable, safe and asleep.
Bravo American ingenuity! Thank you for developing the removable carseat.
I digress, back to the park. While Tiernan rides the slides and Reagan sleeps in the bucket. I sit back and watch Tiernan do his thing, ever vigilant to reinforce the rules of the playground to him -- “Share the toy,” “Play nice,” “Don’t Push,” “Don’t throw” and general admonitions of that ilk.
Between gentle and not gentle reminders to be a good boy, I have the opportunity to interact with other Moms, sometimes other Dads, but mostly other Moms. While there are some acquaintances that I talk with, there are other Moms who exclude me from their conversation. Either on purpose or by the nature of the conversation. I often take these little offenses in stride. Not every woman is willing or able to discuss hockey or the NFL draft.
Well, the other day, I was excluded from a conversation and I was happy about it. Two moms had a 45 min. discussion about what terrible lives they had. They kvetched at each other, focusing all their thoughts on themselves, not really listening to the other -- and completely ignoring their children.
The conversation went something like this: (I may have taken some creative license here and there, but I assure you, gentle reader, the spirit of the conversation remains intact.)
Mom one: “I can’t believe my lousy brother-in-law expects me to throw a, ya know, birthday party at my house for his mother. I told my husband,” she stopped to take a bite of bagel, “ I said, (chewing) I only want to have birthday (swallow) parties for me, my husband and my daughter.”
Mom two: “I know, my house is like grand central station on weekends. Friday to Sunday the doorbell never stops ringing.”
Mom one: “Ya know, some people, not us, not people like us, ya know, would just have burgers and hot dogs, ya know, and that would be it. But we can’t do that, ya know, we have to serve five course meals, ya know. We have too, ya know.”
It went on like that for 45 mins, ya know. Non stop, ya know. Non stop.
Please, please stop!!!!
I couldn’t leave because it wasn’t yet time for Tiernan’s scheduled mid-morning meltdown. When you throw off a toddler’s meltdown schedule it really upsets them. And all the other meltdowns for the rest of the day seem . . . contrived and forced. It trivializes the whole reason for the tantrum, which was something very deep and meaningful like demanding for apple juice over and over again when their is none in the house. It is sad to see a toddler who isn’t into his tantrum. It’s like watching an actor just going through the motions, no feeling.
Soo, I had to stay.
Mom one: “Last year for Rita’s birthday party we had a jumpy house, ya know, the inflatable things for the kids, ya know, to jump around in. It costs us a fortune, ya know.
Mom two: “We got a petting zoo once for little Anthony’s 1st birthday. We had like 120 people and a llama, two ponies, a goat, three sheep and bunch a bunnies.”
Mom one: “And my lousy brother-in-law had to go in the jumpy house and jump around with his motorcycle boots on and pop wholes in the floor. It ruined he whole party for everybody. Then their was the fist fight and the cops came -- what a disaster. The food was good though.”
Mom two: “We still have the some of the bunnies, even though the petting zoo people insist they took all theirs. I think they were born at the party. The bunnies sleep in Anthony’s room. He loves them. He feels connect to them because they share a birthday. Oh, yeah, our food was great too.”
At this point, I scooped up Reagan’s bucket and told Tiernan it was time for a tantrum, but he didn’t feel like having a tantrum. Thank God for small blessings.