people are for the birds

i wasn't going to blog about this but annie sorta left some readers hanging on some details as to what happened on our last outing with the kids so i'll share what happened. personally, it had me so worked up and so pissed off about our society that i really just wanted to forget all about it. but the more i thought about it, i think i really did need to actually talk about it here because well, damnit not everything is peaches and cream and not all parenting situations are perfect either and well, frankly not all parents are perfect either and especially myself but after thinking about it some more i realized that one doesn't have to be perfect, who the heck should really be all that perfect except for the one and only perfect one Himself, ya know? but instead of being perfect we should all strive to be just good, decent, loving people who pay attention to what we're doing in the world and not act like animals in public and not act like our poo isn't smelly and not cause caustic situations for others who are just trying to get their kids out of the house as to not have a tantruming toddler on their hands at 10 am in the morning due to boredom (ok, that got a little deep for my normally very light blog) so onto the story....

as annie mentioned we took the kiddos to the national aviary on monday. it was a fun outing except for the other PEOPLE. have i ever mentioned my dislike for most other humans? well, here's how it went down...

annie and i had our double strollers in a narrow hallway looking at some birds with our little guys. when around the corner we heard quite a ruckus. not sure if it was sparked by a bird attack or what... but shortly there after a heard of wild buffalo, err about 5 or 6 7 year olds acting very unruly came racing past us (all still screaming at full volume) while one child tripped on my stroller, knocked max's cup out of his hands and pretty much landed right in the middle of my double stroller and on top of andy. she quickly got up and kept. on . going. i about lost it. i yelled at her (there was no adult insight right away) told her to NEVER run in a public space and basically said it was very rude and totally uncalled for to be acting like that! then when an adult appeared i yelled at her to control her kids and how rude she was too! the adult was a counselor of sorts, the kids were with a YMCA summer camp group that was also touring the aviary. she pretty much looked at me like i had four heads and kept on going. max was crying because he was stunned that he had been run into and because his sippy cup was knocked out of his hands.... andy didn't really know what just happened and my blood pressure was probably 170 over 100. i got everyone back together and calmed down and we left the hall. annie was all like "whoa...." then i told her that she didn't need to be worrying about getting into a fight at dave matthews a few weeks ago but instead she should have been concerned with ME getting into a fight at the aviary...

i saw this counselor a few more times throughout our visit and she did give me the stink eye a few times... i just couldn't believe that she didn't have those kids under some sort of control. i realize that taking kids out in public is always an adventure but why didn't these kids know that they shouldn't run in public places like this? why haven't their parents taught them this? i knew not to run in places like that when i was that age. i knew to apologize if i did something wrong.... why has this country turned into a large breading ground for ill behaved people, children and adults alike? is it due to drugs? is it due to single parent homes? is it because our society has lost all ability to act like reasonable humans? is it because our society has turned into a cushy place where we all just turn our heads and ignore issues that should be addressed? is it because we, as a society, believe that in t-ball everyone should get a trophy and that there aren't any losers? and that everyone gets a pat on the back and told they did a great job even when they did a terrible job... thus just making their mediocre work seem stellar in their minds?

i'm glad that i yelled at that little girl and the adult minder. i'm glad that the whole thing didn't render me speechless like it normally would have. i think becoming a parent has loosened my usually tight lipped nature to just let things go. i think the mother instinct kicked in and i needed to protect my kids and that included reprimanding the others involved. maybe that little girl took a minute to realize what she did. maybe my yelling at her made her stop and think for a split second that maybe she should not run and act like an animal in public places. i hope to think it might have. but i fear that it just went right on past her and she'll just end up doing something just as hideous in the future because she just hasn't been taught the right way to be a good citizen by her parents.

ok, rant over. this blog will be back to it's usual lightheartedness by the next post.