Out Mothered

Ok, so I'm not so good at blogging. But something happened to me the other day and I just have to write about it.

First of all, let me start of by saying that I'm typically oblivious to everything going on around me. Seriously. If I'm out in public, which these days is hardly ever, I'm usually with my 3.5 year old. And he's a runner, so I'm laser focused on not letting him get out of my sight. I have no clue what is going on around me. But, on the off-chance I am out with girlfriends, it's the same story. One of my more fashionable friends will say "did you see those shoes" or "that hair is awful" and I most likely haven't noticed either.

But on Monday of this week, there was a woman at the kids hair salon who was clearly trying to Out Parent me. And I noticed. And I was annoyed.

Started out simple enough, took Zach to get his hair cut and we went a little early so that he could play with the train set they have in the lobby. All of a sudden a not-so-cute little girl and her frumpy mom (yep - I noticed. She was frumpy. I'm not sure if' I'm the pot or the kettle...but that's neither here nor there) come out of nowhere to play with the train too. There weren't enough trains. (And really, with 3 year olds, are there ever enough trains?) Zach had planned ahead and brought his own train. To no fault of their own, the less than cute girl did not know this, so she proceeds to try and take his train from him saying it was her turn to play with Thomas. Zach looked at me horrifed, so I intevened and said "actually, that's his train from home, he brought it himself, so he's going to play with it today. But there are plently of other trains to share." A few minutes go by and I think we are in the clear. But this little girl WANTS Thomas. I hear her complain to her frumpy mom. I hear frumpy mom talking to her about sharing, and how sharing is important, and maybe he'll share when he's done. It was clearly a "sharing" lesson meant just as much for me as it was for her daughter. WHOA lady. It's his train. He's not sharing. There are plenty of other snot-crusted germ-infested trains your daughter can use. Back off my kids Thomas.

Next up... math lesson. Little girl says "How old are you?" to Zach. "Three" he replies. "I'm 3 and 3/4" is her rubbutal. Zach has no idea what this means. He looks at me confused. Frumpy mom butts in and and tries to explain to him what 3/4 means. She then turns to me and says "She's really into her age, and exactly how old she is." I want to wipe that "my-kid-is-smarter-than-yours" look off her face.

I took part of the 10 minutes that Zach was playing to respond to an email on my phone, not a huge offense right? I'm still a competent mother. Well, she took a call and IMMEDIATELY apologized to her daugher for taking a call, and not paying attention to her. Saying that she was sorry and it was rude to take the call while they were playing.

I may or may not have updated my Facebook status as well. So take that.

The last straw - Zach is getting annoyed with this little math whiz and her desire for his train and he pushes something off of the train table. I simply say "Zachary, please pick that up and put it back on the table." He does. Next, the little girl tosses something off. Only HER mother decides this is a "teaching moment" and pulls her aside and talks about how we don't throw things, and bad behavior, and blah blah blah. Again, I feel as though she is talking to me.

Oh God please call our name before I punch her. I'm sure she was judging the fact that my 7 month old had no socks on and it was raining out too. Little does she know that she had them on in the car but took them both off, chewed on them until they were soaking wet and unwearable.

Like I said, I'm typically clueless to my surroundings. But in this case, I know I was being Out Mothered. I know she was trying to look like the better, more attentive, super mom. I also know that she had bad shoes, frumpy hair, was carrying a horrible BACKPACK, and jeans from circa 1995. Take THAT. :)