Friday, August 26, 2011

Bully on the playground

I had my first taste of what it is like to fight back the "mama bear" urge. Sure, I have been protective of my daughter but that usually just entails keeping her out of dangerous situations.
Yesterday was a great day to hit the park. It has been crazy hot here, so we haven't been to the park very much lately, but yesterday was nice so we ventured there so Isabelle could play with other kids and get her wiggles out a little bit.
When we first got there I saw another young girl (age 2) and her dad playing in the sprinkler and then running over to the playground part too. The little girl was running around laughing and screaming and so I knew Isabelle would LOVE to watch her.
When we do go to the park, it's natural for little girls to come up to play with Isabelle (I think little girls just naturally love babies) and Isabelle loves to play with them. This situation was no different. Except the girl came over soaking wet and starting to poke and rub Izzy's face. Now, Izzy loves to play but she's not really one that loves to be treated like a little doll. I smiled and laughed it off as Izzy pushed the little girls hand away and just kept playing.
I talked to the little girls dad for a bit about the school the little girl was in and how all the teachers have to have a masters education and blah, blah, blah.  He said she loves school and loves other little kids and then we just chit chatted about random stuff while the girls kind of ran around.
Then the fun started.
Isabelle was playing all by herself when the little girl ran up and pushed her from behind. Isabelle fell on her belly and just kind of looked up at the little girl like, "ugh aren't you going to say excuse me bia"? She didn't say "bia" but I was saying that in my head. I normally don't call little girls that, but I also don't normally have little girls shove my baby.
I stayed back and let Isabelle brush herself off and get back up. The little girls dad calmly said, "haha, honey we don't push babies" without ever really getting his daughters attention or even making eye contact with her.
I started to get a bit on edge at that point.
Isabelle continued to play by herself when the little girl ran up in front of her and got about an inch from Izzy's face and started screaming and lunging at her face to scare her. Izzy immediately got scared and started the sad cry (you know, the one with the big lip and the giant tears...it seriously will move mountains). I quickly went to pick Izzy up this time, because I had enough of this tiny bully picking on my kid! I calmed Izzy down as I watched the dad walk over to his daughter to tell her "no" and pick her up, but then she started flailing her body when he tried to pick her up, making it impossible for him to hold on to her so he just let her down and didn't say anything. Seriously? I'm not for capital punishment, but I am about to start if this little girl doesn't leave Izzy alone!
So this time, I take Isabelle to look at the pretty flowers (about 100 meters from the playground) so she can calm down and hopefully the little Denise the Menace (girls version of Dennis) will leave the playground.
I was wrong again.
The girl came over, and started hitting the flower bushes and throwing flowers at Izzy! SERIOUSLY?! Before I could say anything, the dad came over and picked her up and took her back to the playground. He said, "sorry" to me and I didn't respond. I didn't need a sorry, I needed your daughter to leave us alone! By that time we had left THREE areas to get away from this girl.
Finally, I heard the dad saying, "okay lets go honey" but before they could go she said "I go kiss baby bye bye!" and started running for us. This time I picked up Izzy and we started to walk the opposite way again. When she saw we were getting further away she started yelling, "HEY! HEY! HEY!" so I said, "Excuse me, my name is not Hey!". I completely sounded like my mother at that point, but who cares?
The little girl said "I WANT A KISS!". Ya right crazy kid! No way are you getting those hands near my daughter again, so I just said "wave bye bye Isabelle" and she did.
Finally they left.
I was happy to see them go, but at the same time a little sad. Why is this two year old hitting kids for no reason? Where did she learn that? Clearly, she already had her dad wrapped around her finger, but obviously he knows that's not good behavior. What should I have done differently? I am not one to let someone walk all over ANYONE else, but I also am not one to get yell at someone else's child. Everyone has a story and I'm sure that little girl has one too.

What would you have done?

4 comments:

w.e.schwartz said...

Oh my lordy, you handled that well. I think I would have lost my cool. I'm glad baby Izzy is ok. :( I can't even imagine that poor sad face...

Katie @ minivan diva said...

I can tell you as a mom of 3, that I've been on both sides. I have two peace maker kids and our 3rd is very trying. We have not raised him differently than the other 2. You did the right thing and handled it well.

Laura said...

I had to deal with something like that a couple weeks ago! A big kid was at a play area with my mama group and kept throwing toys at the babies. I finally had to ask him (nicely, of course) to stop throwing things since his mama was nowhere to be found. You handled it well!

I gave you a blog award today! :)

Mackeys Moments said...

aww you're a good mommy!