Some February Fun

In no particular order: Family outing at CW, the jellyfish tank at the Virginia Living Museum, and Vivi with her avowed favorite person in the whole wide world.

Our camera is so full of photos and videos that our computer can't process them all. It's weird and I think it has something to do with the limitations of USB.

But we're still kicking, even though there's no photographic evidence to support my claim. This weekend was warm and lovely, so we had a picnic at the Governor's Palace, played in the woods, played outside at church, and then spent the afternoon at the playground in the course of this one weekend. Everybody was delighted to shed jackets and enjoy the sunshine.

There is an amazing slide at a playground near here. You can really get up some speed, and it's wide enough for all four of us to fit. We were sliding down the slide merrily yesterday when we hit a hitch. Some big kids (with whom I'd already developed a rapport when the 10-1sh boy checked with me to see if an earring he found was "real") came over and started sliding down then turning right back around and climbing up the slide. All the little kids were backed up, not to mention the adults who were sliding down (me and Richie). So I said, "Hey, you're not obeying the slide rule; Up The Ladder/Down The Slide!" They ignored me. So I shouted, "Hey, I'm serious - you're messing up the flow for all the little ones. Slide down now and use the slide like everyone else." They did.

I did this without thinking about it. It seemed simple. They had no mindful adult within hearing range or within sight. If my kids were being creeps, I'd want an adult to step in - politely. Then if my kids continued to be creeps, I'd want the adult to insist.

Looking back, I have always intervened in these instances, even when I was a teenager.

1. When I was about 16, there was a pint-sized bully at the ice skating rink who kept knocking much bigger novice ice skaters (myself included) off-balance. I fussed him out and told him to quit.
2. When I was about 19, there were some kids running wild at Mama Mia's Deli. The adults seemed not to notice that the kids were running and shouting and taking up the whole tiny deli. So I told them to hush and sit in one place. They did.
3. When I was about 20, I was jogging in a public place when a young teenage boy ran up beside me and fell into step with me, his face twisted into some sort of puerile mockery. I told him to get lost and I said some things that may have helped him think twice before interrupting another lady jogger.
4. The instances of my stepping in as an adult are too many to count. I remember the early ones because they didn't fit with my age-role.
   

Also, I have always given cat-callers (who have miraculously left me alone in the past five years or so :) the bird.

Am I overconfident? I think I just want things to go right. I don't respect peoples' anonymity, for good or for ill, and I don't expect people to ignore me. Who are we kidding, anyway? I'm also super-friendly with people in public, to balance out my uninvited policing. But I'll be darned if I'm going to shrink or cower when somebody's clogging up the slide or ruining dinner unnecessarily or overstepping their sexual boundaries at me. So far, it's worked out okay.

Looking back, I think I come by it honestly. Picture: My mom, 33 (I was 13), in line for the Mind Bender at Six Flags. She's wearing: Neon pink athletic shorts, similarly neon tie-dyed tee shirt, and tube socks with high tops. A fanny pack. Come to think of it, I think even her socks are tie-dyed. We're waiting dutifully in line, entertaining ourselves with the same music video played for the nine-thousandth time and by making innocuous observations about passers-by. We are nudged aside by two really big 20-something men who just look rough. My mom puffs up in her outfit, pursues them a few feet and taps one on the shoulder. "Hey, where do you think you're going?" The men glance back for an instant and then continue their forward progress past other dutiful rollercoaster devotees.

After that happened, my mom took a few minutes to puff down (her righteous anger had been activated, and that means some sizzle). I was mortified.

Since I do the exact same thing now even though I hated it when my mom did this sort of thing, I think it's genetic.

Anyway, I just got jostled aside by my girls who are playing "Antarctica." They are a polar bear and a walrus. Vivian just said, "I am a walrus and I have lots of strong blubber and lots of strong bones and lots of strong muscles." Oh, now Mazie's on a cactus. I guess that's the joy of pretend: you can switch biomes instantly.

I'm making a new pinto beans recipe tonight and (incidentally) we did some tie-dying of our own this afternoon. We chose primaries, but neon tie-dye is totally rockin' too.

Here's a photo of Mazie climbing off of the bus. The girl right behind her is Betty. I promised to tell you the story of Mazie and Betty on the bus, so here goes...

One day during the second month of kindergarten, I was just about to scurry out the door to meet Mazie's afternoon bus when the phone rang. It was Mazie's teacher, Ms.V. She was calling to let me know that as the bus was pulling away, but before it had left the bus lot, Mazie had gotten her finger stuck in a pencil sharpener. Ms. V had seen the bus stop in the lot, so she climbed on board to see if she could help. Mazie's finger was cut and bleeding. Mazie was distraught, and the little girl who had been responsible had been reprimanded. The offending child had an appointment with the assistant principal.

Right away, I knew who the little girl was. It had to be Betty, a third grader who has been assigned to sit with Mazie. It was Betty who told Mazie her cousin was Hannah Montana, Betty who takes kids' snacks, Betty who administers time-outs to Mazie if she speaks. When Mazie had worn a sticker on her shirt, Betty told her she'd better take it off because it could burrow through her shirt and skin, into her heart, and kill her. We had warned Mazie that she couldn't trust Betty and that she should not do what Betty tells her to do. Apparently, our warnings didn't stand the test of peer pressure.

After the phone call, I ran out to the bus stop and waited. As the bus swung into view, I could already see Betty standing up, sobbing. Betty's mom never actually comes to the bus stop, but waits outside their apartment building for Betty to run from the bus stop to the apartment. That day, the bus stopped in front of Betty's mom, and Miss Lois leaned out the window, presumably to let Betty's mom know what had happened. The bus rolled up to the bus stop and Betty tore down the steps and fled from the bus, her face clenched and tear-streaked. Mazie came off next, a little puffy-eyed, with a band-aid, but talking immediately about an art project she had brought home. Miss Lois asked if Mazie's teacher had contacted me and I said she had. Miss Lois rolled her eyes in a beleaguered way (this is Miss Lois's favorite form of nonverbal communication) and assured me that Betty would not be sitting with Mazie any more.

First of all, the damage to Mazie's finger was minimal. She had a cut on the tip of her index finger that nicked the nail and was deep enough to bleed a lot. (As an aside, and to calm the nerves of any protective family members, it healed completely within one week.) I gathered from Mazie, who is a very reliable historian for being only five, that Betty had told her to put her finger in the sharpener. Mazie had refused. Betty told her again, and Mazie refused again. Finally, Betty seized Mazie's finger and sharpened it forcefully. Mazie had started bleeding, then crying, and then the grown-ups got involved. Miss Lois had put ice from her soda on the wound, and then Miss V had arrived with reinforcements. The assistant principal had paid a visit to Betty before the bus even left, so Mazie felt that the matter had been dealt with urgently.

I also was satisfied that between the distress I had seen on Betty's face, the visit from the AP, and the fact that Betty was not to sit with Mazie anymore, that Mazie would be safe from further sharpening...

What a lesson! I realized it's important to arm my kids with a healthy enough sense of propriety and disobedience that they can stand up to a bigger kid when they're in danger. That evening, I had to tell Richie. I had been so mad that I was shaking when Ms. V first told me the news. But by the time Mazie told me all about her art project and seemed relatively unruffled by the sharpening incident, I had cooled off a lot. Richie usually takes things like this pretty hard, and this was no exception.

The next day, Betty came to the bus stop with her mom, who forced (with lots of verbal prompting) Betty to apologize and give Mazie an apology note. It seemed appropriate at first. Betty reluctantly said to Mazie, "I'm sorry. I thought your fingernails needed cutting. And that's not my place to decide." The suggestion was that it wasn't malice or even curiosity that caused Betty to sharpen Mazie's fingertip, but intense concern for her grooming habits. Though I am unconvinced that Betty divulged her motives with complete candor, Mazie accepted the apology and seemed very thankful for the three stickers with which Betty had embellished the card.

For those of you still feeling protective of Mazie, I think she survived the sharpening incident a lot more wary of other kids. In all, I am glad to have had an unpleasant experience that we could deal with fairly easily. I think we all learned from it.