Professional Parents

Turns out that the professional parents do not like me. For the most part it is mutal.

Please, let me explain. On Friday here in Columbus, Ohio it rained pretty hard for a bit. The Rain did a myriad of things. It awakened my tiny amount of grass so that it could grow some more and make me mow (we all know how I feel about that). It also fed the desperately dry flowers in our flower beds. Most importantly to this story, it caused the local über playground to have quite a few puddles. Some more background information for you. Our local über playground happens to be associated with a neighborhood rec center where all sorts of organizations and clubs conduct their meetings. It is also in the same area as a local library. Let me paint a picture of the playgrounds wonderful facilities. There is a 2-story spiral slide, 2 large “play places” (those units with multiple slides and monkey bars and platforms etc…), and a sandbox with a bigger footprint than my house. Since the playground is at the confluence of tons of extra-curricular activities, there are still an alarming amount of kids there who would have loved to use the afore mentioned playground facilities. However, none of those kids were allowed to use said playground facilities. All of these facilities were empty on Friday afternoon/early evening except for one toddler, one intrepid 2-yr old, one little boy on a mission to splash every puddle and slide down every slide… Little Man.

Little Man and I decided to go to the playground even though it was a big old wet mess. Heck since I had a towel in my car and a change of clothes for our insane 2-yr old, we went because it was a big old wet mess. I got sooooo many nasty looks from the professional parents (the ones who never have a hair out of place and dress immaculately) due to the fact that they had to explain to their respective little ones that they were not allowed to play in the wet and muddy dreamland. Truly nasty looks too. I mean there was such venom in one woman’s eyes. I am absolutely sure that if she could have gotten to me, without getting her khaki capris dirty, should would have attempted to throttle my neck. I am sure that if her kids were not in earshot she would have lashed into me with curses from at least 2 different languages. Her little cub scout was pleading with her to splash in the puddles and wallow in the mud that had been a sandbox. She was dragging/half carrying him to her car. Conversely, Little Man was squealing with delight as he ran from one piece of equipment to the next. Good Lord, that boy was dirty, and by the time we were done, his diaper was as big as a moose. Those diapers are “super” absorbent.

I caught a full 10 parents looking at me as if I were the prince of darkness himself trying to coax their angelic children into the back of a van with candy. A kid should be able to frolic in the wet and mire. They are kids after all, and getting really really dirty is part of the requirements for being a kid.

To recap:
Boy, did that kid get dirty
Diaper as big as a moose, I tells ya
Good Lord I need a haircut
Wifey, your hair looks great, by the way
Still cannot get that .gif image off the e-mail… “Saving as” only saves the first frame of the .gif as a bit map
Z Corporation has some cool shit
I think I might be the anti-professional parent