I was just forced to move over because the father watching gymnastics next to me was chewing his gum so loudly that I thought I might abruptly jump up and smack him. And now I’ve moved next to children who are clicking their tongues with wild abandon.
Also, I was thinking about this on the car ride here, and I am a car-ist. I try not to make snap judgements about people, but the truth is, if you’re driving a Hummer or a Cadillac pick up truck, I think that I don’t like you. Intellectually, I’m sure that there are really wonderful people driving these cars, but every time I see them, I find myself involuntarily harumphing and rolling my eyes. I realize that I’ve just lost this segment of the blog-reading population. But such is life.
My children have dipped into the spring and summer hand-me-downs, and there is simply no going back. Chilly and wet it may be today, but J adorned herself in a fabulous sundress and, without my noticing, the sparkly shoes that must have an extra half-inch of shoe beyond her foot. Which reminds me: part of the reason why we dipped into these cardboard boxes o’ treasure was that M’s teacher sent home a note on Thursday about how every child in her grade was assigned a specific color of the rainbow to wear for their special assembly the following morning. I mean, really. Are we truly expected to have red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple shirts available and clean? What about the homes where both parents are working? Assuming they open up the special homework folder as soon as they get home, that gives them about 12 hours. Jeez louise. Actually, it worked quite well for me, because M’s best yellow option was one of several t-shirts that my sister-in-law had found on sale for $2 each. When M first saw the shirts she’d rejected them entirely, unwilling, even, to besmirch her head by pulling it through the neck hole for a quick look. But with no other yellow options, she pulled one on and pronounced it, “pretty cute, actually”, thus opening herself up to a vast array of clearance-rack combos that she’d previously pooh-poohed.
I’ll have a first-draft playground list soon, although, as long as I’m kvetching, only a few people have filled out a survey so far. That’s okay. I’ll get you. Next time you’re at a really fun playground, you’ll be thinking to yourself that if you were a really nice person, you’d tell other people about this lovely place. And then the next time you pop over here to read a post, you’ll see the link and the guilt will suck you right in. Parents are really good at guilt.
