Lone Daddy Revisited

Adventures of Darth Daddy shared about a common experience for Stay at Home Dads: being the only male over 6 at the playscape. This morning we experienced the same situation, but with a little different result.

The Princess and The Talker wanted to go to the indoor playground at the mall this morning. So we headed over there right at 10. I was hoping that the kids would play hard for an hour and wear themselves out. Usually we are one of only a few families there that early. But this morning a mom's group had a playdate scheduled there.

When we walked in the gruesome twosome headed out to play. And everything was fine, until a mom arrived with a twerpy 5 year old. I don't know what he said to the Talker, but as soon as he walked in he told the boy something. The Talker looked really sad and came to tell me. He never would repeat what the kid said, but by the other boy's body language and his laughing when The Talker walked away, I knew it wasn't nice.

Every time the son would get within a few feet of the brat, he was told "Go away. You're Stupid." I quickly told The Talker to tell him "Quit being rude to me. I can play here, too." And The Talker did just that, loud and right in front of the twerp's mom. But she did not even bat an eyelash. Guess she is used to people calling her kid a brat.

When the twerp came running around a corner and slipped on a book that he had thrown on the ground, it took all I had not to laugh at him.

OK that is a lie, I was bad. I laughed. Out loud. It felt good. But my kids did not hear me, so it is OK.

He cried and pouted to his mom. She never batted an eyelash, then, either. I guess she is used to the little brat whining and pouting. I knew this was going no where good, and fast. And sure enough twerpy shoved The Talker off of a toy. I was standing right there. And I jumped on the brat.

"You will stop pushing him, NOW! You don't have to play with my son, but you have to stop calling him names and being rude to him."

Everything calmed down after that. The brat pouted, The Talker played with the other kids, and everyone had a great time. Except maybe the twerp, but I don't care. And it felt good. Still does, too.

We left pretty quickly after that. We headed out to cruise down to the Mickey Mouse store. And a different boy, maybe 15 months old, walked out right behind us.

We were almost round a corner, at least 50 feet from the playscape, so we just stopped. It took one of the play group moms two full minutes to notice that her son was missing. But of course she ran out and was really grateful that we had waited with her son.

Oh wait, that is what I would expect. She walked over, griped at the kid and ignored the three of us. At least until I glared at her and grunted "Your Welcome."

"Excuse Me?"

"I waited for several minutes, with your son here, because no one was paying any attention when he walked out with us. So you are welcome."

Then we turned and headed for Mickey's house. I felt no need to wait for her to show any appreciation.