Cole and I went to the park yesterday to enjoy one of the first warm days of the season. Here's why I'm psyched I have a son (and no offense to you with daughters, of course). . .
I'll set the scene: Cole is running all over the place and I'm 6 inches behind him, trying to pull the mulch out of his mouth. He runs over to a little bandstand where there are about 12 young girls. . . of course he does. . .right?
I'm not sure how old the girls are. . .but it's about 1:30 p.m. on a weekday so my best estimate is kindergarten or younger. This is actually important to the story. . .
The girls are having a dance show. . .meaning they are running in a circle on the bandstand. Every now and then other girls playing at the park come over and ask if they, too, can join the dance party. Two girls who seem to be in charge step forward and with hands on hips look at the requesting girl and say one of two things. . .
. . . "sure, your clothes are nice. . .you can join our dance show. . ." or
. . . "your clothes are kinda yucky. . .you can be in the audience. . ."
I'm dumbfounded.
So back to Cole and I. We're sort of under the bandstand putting mulch in our mouths and out of sight to the kids. And I'm not really sure the rules about talking to other people's kids. . .so I don't say anything. . .at this point.
A few minutes later a little boy (roughly same age) cautiously approaches the bandstand. Behind him. . . a gaggle of little boys watching the one, sacrificial boy approach the dance party. The boy has his hands in fists, and is kicking the ground with his blue Croc and says to the girls. . .
". . .our moms say we need to go home soon so we'd like you to stop chasing us so we can finish our soccer game before it's time to go home."
And the leader of the pack. . .steps forward and again with hands on little size 6 Limited Too miniskirt says "well we like to chase you and so we'll keep doing that in between our dances."
And the boy looks back at his team and says again that his "team is losing really bad and they can't come back to the park until next week so please let us finish the game so we can win."
Again, little Miss Mean Girl In-Training says, "we are going to keep chasing you cause it's fun."
At this point I see the boy's hands turn into white fists and he gets on his tippy toes and yells, "well then you should just shut up!" and runs away back toward the boys. . .who, incidentally, heard their friend and all took off running.
All these little girls start clucking and clucking to each other. . ."He said a bad word!" "Oh my goodness, he said shut up." "I'm going to tell my mom." "Yeah, I'm going to tell my mom!". . .and about 8 of them disperse over the park yelling for their moms.
This is when I look back to see these moms. . .because really. . .Cole's already put so much mulch in his mouth already what's the big deal with a bit more? And don't you know? The Ralph Lauren moms as I'll call them are in a gaggle together. . .and the not-dressed-so-nicely-moms are in another circle together. What's that they say about apples and tress?
A few moms come running over to the bandstand, make the girls sit down and say "now what did that boy do to you?" I'll cut to the chase on this one. . .the girls tell mom that they didn't do a thing to instigate and the boy just came over and said 'shut up' and left!
This is where I finally stand up from under the bandstand and say "well, that's not really how it all happened." And the moms looks at me and asked if one of these girls is mine and I embarrassingly gesture to the toddler trying to put dirt down his pants. . .
The mom says "well then I'm sure we'll handle it, thank you." And in the same breath tells the girls to point out this boy so we can find his mother. WHAT? Are you serious? What a terrible women with terrible little girls?!?! And so what my kid is eating dirt? Didn't yours? Before they wore tank tops worth more than my outfit (sunglasses and sneaks included)?
That's the end of the story. I wish it had a better ending. The boys had already run half way across town by this time so I'm pretty sure the pack of Ralph Lauren mothers came up short in finding the nasty boy that said "shut up".
Phew. Close call, kid. He was just trying to play soccer. . . not degrade preschoolers based of their social status. And that's why I love my boy. Just trying to win the game before mom says it's time to go home.
We did befriend a little dance party castaway that ended up following Cole the entire time, holding his sippy cup and snack trap for him. Looks like my boy has the magnetism already.
Here he is admiring the ball field from afar:
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