Rain, Rain Go Away!

We woke up to another rainy day, which is definitely not the norm here in sunny Baltimore, so after breakfast and playing with our toys (again) A was starting to get restless. No problem! I texted two of my girlfriends about a playdate to Tiny Town, and within minutes we were packed and in the car. If you don't have a Tiny Town in your city, man are you missing out. Imagine a large room (like the size of a mall store) filled with a tiny, squishy "town". There are two slides, various tunnels, a car, and a garden (remember all fake) for the kids to walk, crawl, and hurl themselves down. The material is hard to explain, but picture everything made out of a giant life jacket, with a slippery-ish rubber coating. Germs can't live there and the kids can really pick up some speed on the slides! The perfect place for the crawler-toddler.

So as we fight through the door at Tiny Town, apparently everyone thought it would be a good idea this morning, I spot my girlfriends. We take our usual position in between the two slides as the kids climb up the imaginary castle and throw themselves down the slide, over and over again. Oh, wait...that isn't right, only A was throwing herself with reckless abandonment down the slide...head first. She thought it was so much fun as she zipped down the slide and tumbled onto the carpet. Wow...that makes me sound like world's worst parent...let me explain a bit more. The slides are about two and 1/2 feet long and they end directly on the two inch thick carpet. So really no harm can occur. Or that is what I though...

After A and her two friends had exhausted the one slide they made their way through the tunnels and around to the other more traditional looking slide (still only a few feet long and about three times as wide as a regular slide with a nice big platform on top). So A is leading the pack of three up the four steps to the flat platform before the slide starts when this boy, who has got to be about 6, takes one jump and clears the steps up to the platform, howls something straight from Twighlight, and jumps in the air before landing on the slide and rolling about three feet onto the carpet below. Luckily, A was not caught in his path of destruction, unlike the two little one-year-olds who happened to be walking in his "tumble zone". Of course, the other mom's and I gasp and snap our necks around to see what parent is responsible for this terror in our "town". I kid you not, a hooker would have looked more appropriate than this mother. Tight, paint-on jeans, were accessorized by a toddler's purple tank top, strappy 4 inch heels, and bright red lip liner. Remember it is raining and about 40 degrees outside. Okay, I hear you...that doesn't sounds awful. Oh, just you wait. The jeans zipped up to her knee, the top was showing too much arm and tummy (some rolls were definitely hanging out), and apparently all she had in her make-up bag was lip liner, no lipstick. I can't go into the shoes...it hurts my memory! I also, swear I saw her take an unlit cigarette out of her mouth when she smashed the stroller through the door and parked it in the middle of "town".
As my girlfriends and I pick up our jaws, and try to focus on our own children, we chalk up the little boys crazy entrance as mere excitement of being free from that lady, and able to run around. That was until he continued terrorizing Tiny Town like the play yard bully. Now, I want A to grow up to be a tough kid, but some things do cross the line. It was not the initial shove, as he zoomed by her on his way to dive-bomb the slide again, or even when she got caught in his tumble zone, oh, no...but when he cut in-front of her and shoved her off the stairs (using A's head to propel himself forward) that is when he crossed the line. And trust me, she got away pretty compared to the slower, wimpier kids.

A we packed up our slightly beaten-up kids and glared at the "mom", we made a secret pack to grease the slide and steal their stroller if they ever came back to our Tiny Town again!

Rain, rain GO AWAY!

xoxo
Daily Mom