And perhaps by tomorrow, I won't feel quite so strongly about the grade-A bee-ah-tch I crossed paths with today.
But I have sortof a philosophy on kids' behavior in public. If I wouldn't allow my child to do it to someone else, then it's unacceptable for someone to do it to my child (hitting, spitting on, throwing things at, etc.). And typically I just move on but today was different. And apparently I don't know the rules . . .
We went to the Dupage County Fair today, because I love it. Actually so does P. Ridiculous amounts of money are spent there (and we don't even ride the rides) but there are so many things we like that I guess it's worth it.
P's favorite place is a Hamman Farms-sponsored 'booth' on grains raised in Illinois. It consists basically of three large tractor tires on their sides, each filled with a grain (corn, soybeans, and wheat). The kids can get in and play with the grains, reminiscent of a sandbox.
On one of our many stops there today (can't just go there once), it was PACKED with little kids from what turned out to be two families there together. They were all barefoot (my kids wear their shoes, I think it's foul to go barefoot in a place where who-knows-who-else has been barefoot and left behind heaven-only-knows-what?) and the girls starting demanding that N take his shoes off. First, I ignored them and when they got really obnoxious, I said, "No, he doesn't have to take his shoes off." Well, then I got, "YES, HE DOES!" and lots of complaining about his feet hitting theirs. So not bothered by that. They want to protect their little piggies, they can wear their shoes. There are no signs saying kids have to take off their shoes and again, it's a FAIR. It's not like someone's *sanitizing* this stuff. Eeeewwww.
Then I realize one of their little boys is throwing handfuls of corn at P, who is asking very politely for the kid to stop. That's not working and none of the three parents (this child actually had both mommy and daddy there, I later learned) with the group are saying squat. So I stepped up and said, "Hey, let's stop throwing corn."
The child climbs out of the corn wheel, into the soybean wheel, and starts picking up handfuls of beans and dropping them on N's head. Who isn't too thrilled. So I step over and say, "Excuse me, does this child belong to you? He's dropping soybeans on my kid . . ." Before I can actually finish saying it, B*tch Mom gives me the biggest, fakest smile, and says (imagine the sarcasm here, she was oozing it), "Oh, yeah, that's really awful!" Huh?
So (Queen of the Comebacks I am not) I went on to tell her that he'd also been throwing corn and I didn't think that was OK, and she continues in her drippy, sweet-as-honey, sarcastic voice, "Well, I'll beat him when I get home!"
The only thing I could come out with (thankfully stammer free) was a sarcastic, "Well, thank you for handling this in such a mature, adult fashion."
There was actually a slightly longer exchange than that because at one point, I said that I don't let my kids do it and I thought perhaps she'd like to know and got a snotty turn in response. She walked off with the parent of the other kids and left her husband behind putting shoes on somebody and D*MN was I tempted to ask, "Is that your wife? You actually put up with her?" but I just couldn't do it.
I did think later that I probably should have responded (when she first said, "Oh, that's just awful!"), "Yeah, I guess you're right; truly awful would be my children growing up to be like you."
Showing posts with label adventures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adventures. Show all posts
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Small town Aurora
I grew up *near* a small town, not even actually *in* the town so I know what a really small town is like. Aurora is decidedly not that. It is the second-largest city in the state of Illinois (which sounds more impressive than it is, I think) and has a definite city personality.
But I have to say that we put on one very small town 4th of July Parade. This is the second year our family has attended - minus the spousal unit this year - and it's just not a big city event. Which makes it more appealing to me for sure.
First of all, the parade is supposed to start at 10 AM. We arrive at 9:15 to secure our spot - which may sound late to folks from say, Arlington Heights, who have been advised to stop reserving their places days in advance and asked to voluntarily wait until 7 PM the night before to stake a curbside claim. In the case of Aurora, we get downtown at 9:15 and I really did think this - "Do we have the right day?" There are huge stretches of street that look like any other normal weekend morning (because everything is closed) and an intersection that I'm pretty sure the parade is supposed to go through isn't even blocked off yet. I am 99.9% sure I have the right day so after verifying the right location via cell with folks we are meeting up with, we put down our blanket and chairs and wait for almost 40 minutes for them to block the intersection for the parade that's allegedly going to start in 5 minutes. Eventually the cars stop flowing so apparently they cut access at the other end. It's just about 10 by this point.
Shortly after 10, a bicycle cop casually rides by. Boys with our group are playing the street, my youngest is trying to join them (and being blocked by me). And here comes a golf cart whizzing around the corner telling the kids to get off the street, here comes the parade.
I suppose most people expect parades to have lots of floats and bands and Shriners in little cars. We get lots of politicians (the mayor went around twice, once as mayor in a carriage and once on foot as candidate for mayor), some church groups, some local businesses (Geek Squad actually had the largest presence in the parade with something like 15 or 16 vehicles - they just kept coming, it was pretty funny), a few Cub Scout packs, and of course, the police and fire trucks. I wish there were more fire trucks.
Some special highlights for us lucky Aurorans -
1. A fire truck from the Aurora Fire Museum. Such a cool place, located about a block from the parade route in the city's first fire station.
2. Some Revolutionary War reenactors who fired their weapons RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. My eldest and my mother were ecstatic. I'm glad I had the presence of mind to cover N's ears.
3. Lots of people handing out all sorts of advertisements - for community theater productions, candidates for office, and churches primarily. The most worthy that we got was for Honor Flight Chicago, an organization that flies veterans, especially WWII veterans, to their memorial in DC, at no cost to the veteran. They've taken two flights from Aurora and have two more scheduled. Very cool stuff. Some of the veterans themselves were in the parade.
There were only two (maybe three?) marching bands and one is a summer band camp. The best was probably West Aurora High School.
One decidedly big city feature of our parade is that the horses (what parade is complete without horses?) are followed by a streetsweeper. Both groups got their own streetsweeper. I'm guessing most small towns have a slightly more manual scooper method for horse-doody clean-up. Us big city folks pull out the big guns.
And the most nagging question for me - who decided that the only way to distribute candy is to fling it on the ground? Everyone who gave out candy did that - threw it, on the ground, at the curb. I guess they don't want to hurt anyone but apparently the streetsweepers are resting before the parade instead of warming up by cleaning the parade route because the street near us was just GROTTY. Yuck, yuck, yuck. My pale green shoes came home black and I had to keep stopping N from picking cigarette butts out of the street. So flinging EDIBLES on the dirty nasty street was, frankly, just gross. I did let my kids eat most of it anyway, though. What kind of mom would I be if I didn't?
But I have to say that we put on one very small town 4th of July Parade. This is the second year our family has attended - minus the spousal unit this year - and it's just not a big city event. Which makes it more appealing to me for sure.
First of all, the parade is supposed to start at 10 AM. We arrive at 9:15 to secure our spot - which may sound late to folks from say, Arlington Heights, who have been advised to stop reserving their places days in advance and asked to voluntarily wait until 7 PM the night before to stake a curbside claim. In the case of Aurora, we get downtown at 9:15 and I really did think this - "Do we have the right day?" There are huge stretches of street that look like any other normal weekend morning (because everything is closed) and an intersection that I'm pretty sure the parade is supposed to go through isn't even blocked off yet. I am 99.9% sure I have the right day so after verifying the right location via cell with folks we are meeting up with, we put down our blanket and chairs and wait for almost 40 minutes for them to block the intersection for the parade that's allegedly going to start in 5 minutes. Eventually the cars stop flowing so apparently they cut access at the other end. It's just about 10 by this point.
Shortly after 10, a bicycle cop casually rides by. Boys with our group are playing the street, my youngest is trying to join them (and being blocked by me). And here comes a golf cart whizzing around the corner telling the kids to get off the street, here comes the parade.
I suppose most people expect parades to have lots of floats and bands and Shriners in little cars. We get lots of politicians (the mayor went around twice, once as mayor in a carriage and once on foot as candidate for mayor), some church groups, some local businesses (Geek Squad actually had the largest presence in the parade with something like 15 or 16 vehicles - they just kept coming, it was pretty funny), a few Cub Scout packs, and of course, the police and fire trucks. I wish there were more fire trucks.
Some special highlights for us lucky Aurorans -
1. A fire truck from the Aurora Fire Museum. Such a cool place, located about a block from the parade route in the city's first fire station.
2. Some Revolutionary War reenactors who fired their weapons RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. My eldest and my mother were ecstatic. I'm glad I had the presence of mind to cover N's ears.
3. Lots of people handing out all sorts of advertisements - for community theater productions, candidates for office, and churches primarily. The most worthy that we got was for Honor Flight Chicago, an organization that flies veterans, especially WWII veterans, to their memorial in DC, at no cost to the veteran. They've taken two flights from Aurora and have two more scheduled. Very cool stuff. Some of the veterans themselves were in the parade.
There were only two (maybe three?) marching bands and one is a summer band camp. The best was probably West Aurora High School.
One decidedly big city feature of our parade is that the horses (what parade is complete without horses?) are followed by a streetsweeper. Both groups got their own streetsweeper. I'm guessing most small towns have a slightly more manual scooper method for horse-doody clean-up. Us big city folks pull out the big guns.
And the most nagging question for me - who decided that the only way to distribute candy is to fling it on the ground? Everyone who gave out candy did that - threw it, on the ground, at the curb. I guess they don't want to hurt anyone but apparently the streetsweepers are resting before the parade instead of warming up by cleaning the parade route because the street near us was just GROTTY. Yuck, yuck, yuck. My pale green shoes came home black and I had to keep stopping N from picking cigarette butts out of the street. So flinging EDIBLES on the dirty nasty street was, frankly, just gross. I did let my kids eat most of it anyway, though. What kind of mom would I be if I didn't?
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Not our best week
The last week has been completely crazy. A week ago this past Thursday, we got a call that the roofing contractor was going to start the job on Monday. P was already scheduled to start science camp at the Morton Arboretum that day - meaning we had to be out of the house by 8:15 or so to get to the Arboretum by 9. If you know my kids, you know that 9 is about breakfast time and sometimes it's wake-up time so expecting me to be 40 minutes *away* from my house at 9 is quite a feat.
The spousal unit was already planning to stay home with N on Monday morning so I could take P by myself without the craziness of the 2yo who wants Big Bro around all the time. It worked out well because he also wanted to be there when the roofers started. So he worked from home on Monday. But the noise level was unbelievable - I wouldn't have thought that removing a roof would be louder than installing a new one but it was! Ridiculously loud - Monday nap, shot by the noise.
Tuesday, the noise level was better and N was just wiped. Spousal unit was already working from home again because the roofers were almost done and he figured they would want to be paid; plus he wanted to make sure everything was finished up correctly. So we actually put N down for a nap on Tuesday and P and I spent an hour or so at the Children's Garden after I picked him up. We also discovered the hedge garden, something we've never wandered over to before - wow, it's beautiful. I imagine I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I was wearing bug spray. Even standing next to P who had redoused himself with spray at least once and therefore REEKED of the stuff wasn't quite enough.
By Wednesday, I'm sort of getting used to the 9AM drop-off. Wednesday then turned into the day where everything that I have to do is just a *little* bit harder or more frustrating; hence, the whole day was a train wreck. For starters, we left right on time but it was raining. Folks here forget how to drive in the rain so any rainy day starts with idiots blundering around and traffic being stinky. I try to bypass the regular route and choose other roads that might be faster - except every time I turn onto a new road, a very large slow truck pulls out in front of me. Not joking - every single turn, a brand new large very slow semi-of-some-sort pulls in front of me. D*mn. And yes, by this time, I'm pretty much saying it out loud and apologizing to my kids.
We're getting close to the Arboretum and I'm watching the clock and thinking, hey, we might actually make it when traffic STOPPED. Completely. It took me ten minutse to go about 1/4 of a mile because a very small construction crew (two guys and a bobcat) had blocked one lane of a major four-lane road and of course, that was one of the two lanes going the direction I needed to go. 9AM came and went while we sat there. I HATE being late and I'm really annoyed by this point.
Alas, we made it, only about 12 minutes late, but still *totally* the last kid to be dropped off. And my attitude apparently rubbed off because when I picked him up that afternoon, the camp leader gave me that dreaded-by-a-parent "Um, could I talk to you for a minute?" OMG. This all came on top of the most frustrating annoying day and I was so not in the mood.
By Wednesday night, I'm thinking, well, it's got to get better, right? Ha, famous last words.
Thursday morning, on my way to drop P off (and we left early enough to make it by 8:45!), the spousal unit calls to tell me that his mom's sister has died. Zia lived in Italy, in the same town they're all from, and was close to my mil. So instead of continuing with my plans after drop-off (which included going to buy new supposedly rabbit-resistant plants for my yard), N and I just changed direction and went to spend the day with Grandma. At this point, the discussion is whether or not Grandma will go to Italy. My sister-in-law is planning to go. I tell my husband it's OK if he goes but he doesn't have a passport. This particular saga is really another story but the bottom-line is that after much convincing and cajoling of Grandma, and a phone call to a Congressman's office to ask about passports, by Thursday at about 2:30, all three of them are going and they're going to be gone for a week. Yes, Thursday was officially worse than Wednesday.
Friday, I rolled out of bed at 5:45 so I can say good-bye to my husband who is leaving for a week. He's not actually leaving until 5PM but he has to go get an emergency passport in downtown Chicago and has been told to get there at least an hour-and-a-half before the office opens at 9. So he's planning to get there at 7. And we're assuming this could be an all-day event so he probably won't be able to come home. So we said good-bye, which was weird, and then I got the kids up and out the door and arrived at science camp at 8:50. I finally got the hang of it.
Both Thursday and Friday, P was ready to come straight home; he was done, cooked, wiped, finito. Of course, being the good mom that I am, on Thursday, I dragged them both to see the big bugs display by the Arboretum Visitor's Center. And on Friday, I insisted we stop and get some movies for all of us at Blockbuster and then buy the plants that I had intended to buy on Thursday but couldn't because we went to Grandma's. Both of them were exhausted (N didn't nap on Wednesday or Thursday and had a one-hour nap on Friday - this for a child who can sleep 3 hours a day - he was JOYFUL) and short-tempered and missing Daddy and I freely admit I did nothing to help that. So Friday evening was full of lots of screaming and fit-throwing (mostly not me).
But I did get to watch Juno last night and I loved it. So it didn't end on the worst possible note. And P really did enjoy science camp (just not one particular game on Wednesday) - and actually learned a lot, too, so I'd sign him up again. And I would say that I'm glad this week is over but the next one doesn't promise to be *that* much better.
The spousal unit was already planning to stay home with N on Monday morning so I could take P by myself without the craziness of the 2yo who wants Big Bro around all the time. It worked out well because he also wanted to be there when the roofers started. So he worked from home on Monday. But the noise level was unbelievable - I wouldn't have thought that removing a roof would be louder than installing a new one but it was! Ridiculously loud - Monday nap, shot by the noise.
Tuesday, the noise level was better and N was just wiped. Spousal unit was already working from home again because the roofers were almost done and he figured they would want to be paid; plus he wanted to make sure everything was finished up correctly. So we actually put N down for a nap on Tuesday and P and I spent an hour or so at the Children's Garden after I picked him up. We also discovered the hedge garden, something we've never wandered over to before - wow, it's beautiful. I imagine I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I was wearing bug spray. Even standing next to P who had redoused himself with spray at least once and therefore REEKED of the stuff wasn't quite enough.
By Wednesday, I'm sort of getting used to the 9AM drop-off. Wednesday then turned into the day where everything that I have to do is just a *little* bit harder or more frustrating; hence, the whole day was a train wreck. For starters, we left right on time but it was raining. Folks here forget how to drive in the rain so any rainy day starts with idiots blundering around and traffic being stinky. I try to bypass the regular route and choose other roads that might be faster - except every time I turn onto a new road, a very large slow truck pulls out in front of me. Not joking - every single turn, a brand new large very slow semi-of-some-sort pulls in front of me. D*mn. And yes, by this time, I'm pretty much saying it out loud and apologizing to my kids.
We're getting close to the Arboretum and I'm watching the clock and thinking, hey, we might actually make it when traffic STOPPED. Completely. It took me ten minutse to go about 1/4 of a mile because a very small construction crew (two guys and a bobcat) had blocked one lane of a major four-lane road and of course, that was one of the two lanes going the direction I needed to go. 9AM came and went while we sat there. I HATE being late and I'm really annoyed by this point.
Alas, we made it, only about 12 minutes late, but still *totally* the last kid to be dropped off. And my attitude apparently rubbed off because when I picked him up that afternoon, the camp leader gave me that dreaded-by-a-parent "Um, could I talk to you for a minute?" OMG. This all came on top of the most frustrating annoying day and I was so not in the mood.
By Wednesday night, I'm thinking, well, it's got to get better, right? Ha, famous last words.
Thursday morning, on my way to drop P off (and we left early enough to make it by 8:45!), the spousal unit calls to tell me that his mom's sister has died. Zia lived in Italy, in the same town they're all from, and was close to my mil. So instead of continuing with my plans after drop-off (which included going to buy new supposedly rabbit-resistant plants for my yard), N and I just changed direction and went to spend the day with Grandma. At this point, the discussion is whether or not Grandma will go to Italy. My sister-in-law is planning to go. I tell my husband it's OK if he goes but he doesn't have a passport. This particular saga is really another story but the bottom-line is that after much convincing and cajoling of Grandma, and a phone call to a Congressman's office to ask about passports, by Thursday at about 2:30, all three of them are going and they're going to be gone for a week. Yes, Thursday was officially worse than Wednesday.
Friday, I rolled out of bed at 5:45 so I can say good-bye to my husband who is leaving for a week. He's not actually leaving until 5PM but he has to go get an emergency passport in downtown Chicago and has been told to get there at least an hour-and-a-half before the office opens at 9. So he's planning to get there at 7. And we're assuming this could be an all-day event so he probably won't be able to come home. So we said good-bye, which was weird, and then I got the kids up and out the door and arrived at science camp at 8:50. I finally got the hang of it.
Both Thursday and Friday, P was ready to come straight home; he was done, cooked, wiped, finito. Of course, being the good mom that I am, on Thursday, I dragged them both to see the big bugs display by the Arboretum Visitor's Center. And on Friday, I insisted we stop and get some movies for all of us at Blockbuster and then buy the plants that I had intended to buy on Thursday but couldn't because we went to Grandma's. Both of them were exhausted (N didn't nap on Wednesday or Thursday and had a one-hour nap on Friday - this for a child who can sleep 3 hours a day - he was JOYFUL) and short-tempered and missing Daddy and I freely admit I did nothing to help that. So Friday evening was full of lots of screaming and fit-throwing (mostly not me).
But I did get to watch Juno last night and I loved it. So it didn't end on the worst possible note. And P really did enjoy science camp (just not one particular game on Wednesday) - and actually learned a lot, too, so I'd sign him up again. And I would say that I'm glad this week is over but the next one doesn't promise to be *that* much better.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
I must be doing something right
We've had beautiful weather this week - just perfect, really - so I decided to take the boys to the Morton Arboretum today. The tadpoles at the toad pond are mid-transformation and we wanted to see them; you can actually get right in the water and catch them in your hands. And there are always small rocks that N can pick up and drop back in the water so everyone's happy.
There is also a stream that runs downhill in the Adventure portion of the Children's Garden and the kids can get in the water and move the rocks around and build and tear down dams to alter the course. Both my boys had their shoes off, splashing around and climbing the rocks surrounding the stream. Knowing their history, I packed an entire extra outfit for both of them and we needed it - N doesn't know how to keep his butt out of the water when he squats down and P just likes to get wet. They were both soaked from about mid-chest down when we got back to the car. N's shirt was soaked, primarily thanks to a teeny little boy who dropped a big rock right by N's head when he was bending down to get more rocks - shirt, hair, face, arms, all soaked. The kid's mom missed it completely and a minute later was praising him for being such a good boy and not throwing rocks. ?!? I'm not a particularly good playground mommy but I'm also completely non-confrontational so we just moved to a different part of the stream. I can't stand parents who threaten to end their child's playtime if they do something "one more time" and then never follow through so the kid continues to throw rocks or splash other kids or hit his sister to the accompaniment of the parent's continued, "if you keep doing that, we're going to leave!" Gah. We left instead.
But anyway, my kids had an awesome time as usual - entirely the reason we have the membership there. It's nice to be able to go for just a couple of hours and not feel like you have to stay longer to get your money's worth.
And the best moment of the day was at the beginning - P likes to go through the hedge maze right by the visitor's center so we started with that. There are 3 possible entrances and I asked him which one he wanted to start with - and he came back with, "Since you're such a generous mom, I'm going to let you pick where we start." Awwwwhhh. Heart melts, puddles on the ground. What a sweetie! So I guess I'm doing something right!
There is also a stream that runs downhill in the Adventure portion of the Children's Garden and the kids can get in the water and move the rocks around and build and tear down dams to alter the course. Both my boys had their shoes off, splashing around and climbing the rocks surrounding the stream. Knowing their history, I packed an entire extra outfit for both of them and we needed it - N doesn't know how to keep his butt out of the water when he squats down and P just likes to get wet. They were both soaked from about mid-chest down when we got back to the car. N's shirt was soaked, primarily thanks to a teeny little boy who dropped a big rock right by N's head when he was bending down to get more rocks - shirt, hair, face, arms, all soaked. The kid's mom missed it completely and a minute later was praising him for being such a good boy and not throwing rocks. ?!? I'm not a particularly good playground mommy but I'm also completely non-confrontational so we just moved to a different part of the stream. I can't stand parents who threaten to end their child's playtime if they do something "one more time" and then never follow through so the kid continues to throw rocks or splash other kids or hit his sister to the accompaniment of the parent's continued, "if you keep doing that, we're going to leave!" Gah. We left instead.
But anyway, my kids had an awesome time as usual - entirely the reason we have the membership there. It's nice to be able to go for just a couple of hours and not feel like you have to stay longer to get your money's worth.
And the best moment of the day was at the beginning - P likes to go through the hedge maze right by the visitor's center so we started with that. There are 3 possible entrances and I asked him which one he wanted to start with - and he came back with, "Since you're such a generous mom, I'm going to let you pick where we start." Awwwwhhh. Heart melts, puddles on the ground. What a sweetie! So I guess I'm doing something right!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)