Tag: annoying children

Categories
Dad Blogs Family

I wish "shut up" didn’t sound so rude

chick fil a halo With CareerMom out of town visiting her sick brother, the boys and I were left alone last night (and tonight) to fend for ourselves. Of course, I’m completely capable of doing this, but I’ll admit that it’s much more difficult to cook a meal when you are also breaking up fights, getting various beverages, cleaning up emergency spills, mediating over toy usage and other sundry parental duties.

So I did that most venerable of single-parent traditions–we went to Chick-Fil-A. The one near us has a fairly small indoor playground, so that even if it’s raining like it was last night, the kids can still get their play on.

But even Chick-Fil-A isn’t without its problems. For one, the boys know the playground is there, so while I’m trying to order dinner and get it all to the table without dropping it, they’re doing their darndest to get to the playground. If it were just MLI, I’d be like, “See ya! Have fun! Don’t fall outta the tunnel or anything!” But since MLE is still really little, I don’t want them in there without me.

But dinner was quasi-finished within minutes, and of course, I finished whatever they didn’t (final tally: 1 grilled chicken sandwich, 1 bowl of fruit, 1 large sweet tea, 2/3 of a small order of waffle fries and about 3 nuggets). Coulda been worse I suppose. And…I wonder why I can’t drop those last five lbs…hmm.

Anyway, while we were playing, another little boy comes running in there, full of energy. He looked pretty young too, so I looked back out to see where his parent(s) were and spied his dad sitting there at a table talking on the phone.

So my boys are up tunneling around and this boy looks up at me and says, “HI!” I replied back and, trying to be polite, asked how old he was. He said he was 3 1/2, and I realized, looking at him, that he had some kind of growth issue. He was very skinny, and short for a 3 1/2 year old and his eyes weren’t quite right. But hey, I look weird in the morning before my coffee, so who am I to judge.

Well, over the course of the next fifteen minutes, this other child proceeded to drive me nuts! Have you ever been around a child who won’t stop talking to you? And they will keep asking you something over and over until you acknowledge their question? Well…this kid…times three! And add to that a strange voice that sounded something like a ventriloquist trying to do ELMO.

I kept looking out at the dad hoping he would see me talking to his kid and maybe wonder what this strange guy is talking about and come see. But nope. This is apparently one of those dads who is perfectly happy not being involved.

I finally got so annoyed, that I grabbed the boys and left.

I just don’t understand parents like this. If you’re not going to be involved with your kids; don’t have ’em! And if you do take them places, take ownership and don’t leave it up to other parents, who have their own raggamuffins to watch, to do your job for you.

The me of 10 years ago, probably would have walked over to the guy and said something, but the me of today is too afraid of losing his cool in front of his kids and getting in a fight. I can just hear the phone call now, “Hey honey…um…don’t worry, the kids are with your mother. And um, I’m in jail.”

Yeah, that wouldn’t be pretty.

Categories
Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Befriend a child; adopt a family

friends We all have them I expect. Some perhaps more than others, but they’re there. Lurking…waiting for the perfect opportunity to spring up on you when you least expect it. They’re resourceful, they’re sneaky, they’re…parents of annoying children who want to do things with you ALL THE TIME!

Ours is a divorcee’ with a daughter who, for one reason or another, has glommed onto my family as if we were a rich uncle come to take her away from the orphanage. She’s loved MLI since he first started going to his daycare. When MLE was born, she always asked, “Can I touch him?” as we’d bring him around while picking up MLI.

We also included her and her mother in some fun outings with our kids and others. And now, she’s driving us nuts. Both the daughter and the mother.

If it’s not the daughter begging either myself or CareerMom to go do something after daycare, her mom is calling up acting as if we had made previous plans to do something, when we know good and well we had not.

We watched her daughter overnight a while back when they moved and it’s only gotten worse since then. The daughter didn’t even want to leave, and keeps asking if she can come live with us.

The mom called CareerMom over the weekend and the conversation went something like this:
CareerMom: Hello?
Her: “Hi, this is “L”, I was just wondering if you wanted to come over on Saturday for swimming?”
CareerMom: “We have a big work picnic this Saturday, so that won’t work for us.”
Her: “Well, how about Sunday?”
CareerMom: “Sunday isn’t good or us either. Maybe we can do something sometime next week.”

Her: “How does Monday look for you?”

Let me just stop here and point out that there’s a fine line between being insistent and being rude, and CareerMom, who does not subscribe to my particular brand of “persistence” finally caved rather than making it (any more) obvious that she didn’t want to do anything.

So finally, CareerMom just said, “OK.”

Over the weekend, CareerMom got buyer’s remorse and decided that the last thing either of us wanted to do was go over there after work, spend a hour swimming, and then eating her idea of dinner (usually McDonalds) while watching both hers and our kids. So she’s going to call her today and cancel.

Or so she says.

But, people like this just don’t get it. If we are going to spend so much time with another parent(s), I’d like it to be with A) another little boy who shares my kids’ interests, B) with another couple so that if I come (and I usually do), I actually have someone to talk to who’s not bitter about life and men in general.

Now OK, I should just keep my mouth shut and do the Christian thing and help out this poor lady and her daughter who are in need (I’m also sure Jews would do the right thing here too, but since I’m a Christian, I’m using that analogy).

But they aren’t really. She’s not poor. She has a good job. She has a 4-year old daughter; only one. The only thing she doesn’t have, is other friends. So really, how much should we be going out of our way here?