I swear I am a magnet for horrible children, well perhaps not so much me but my children are (not horrible, magnets I mean!). This morning we visited our local Soft Play centre to meet up with some friends and their children. Our boys are all 18 months old now so we were able to plant ourselves in the toddler area for the morning whilst Little Bean ran around with friends in the main play area. All was going well until a boy who was perhaps 4 or 5 decided to come into the toddler area and get a bit rough with Beanie Boy. First he dragged him off a slide, then he pushed him and then when Beanie Boy was playing with his little mate N in the ball pool the big boy came along and began barging the little ones in the ball pool too. He was less than 2 feet from my face and so I very softly said “sweetheart please be careful, they are only babies”. Then he began to throw the balls straight into the boys faces and then at me. Again I asked him as softly as I could “please don’t do that or I will have to tell your Mummy”. I couldn’t tell you what his response was but he didn’t seem overly bothered. In the end we removed the boys from the ball pool and tried to encourage them to play elsewhere but the big boy still charged around being overly boisterous and just downright mean. As he ran past me, the child within me really wanted to stick my foot out to leg him up BUT I DIDN’T! Do you ever feel like that when horrible children just don’t get the message?
After a little while his Dad finally noticed what a pain in the ass neck his son was being and finally came and had words with him. It didn’t work, his reign of terror continued but after 10 minutes or so his Dad did come over and removed him from the play area, where we all breathed a sigh of relief. No-one likes to be a spoil sport but it was nice to see that his Dad took action when he spotted his actions. I’m just thankful that the adult in me over-ruled the child in me’s decision to be naughty!!
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