Park Etiquette 101

Today we met some new friends from our mom's group at the park for a play date. It's a park we especially like -- fully-fenced so Beanie can run and I don't have to worry about her running into the street, sandbox, swings, lots of grass, and play equipment. Awesome park. It's also nice because most of the time the park is fairly quiet. But, with temperatures forecasted in the 90's again for today the park was busier than usual. Not busy per se, just busy for that park.

I was chatting with a couple other moms as Beanie played in the sandbox. All of the sudden my mommy radar went off as I heard Beanie crying. I whipped my head around and saw my very upset girl and a little boy throwing sand all over the place. The same boy who not ten minutes before was throwing wood chips all over the place. Nice.

Another mom said, "She got some sand in her eye."

Wrong.

Your kid built a fricking sand castle in my kid's eye.

I walked towards Beanie and she walked towards me. She had her hands over both eyes and was crying. Her eye was full of sand. Not "some sand" like Oh, my kid accidentally got a little crazy with the sand like her eye was full of sand. Her hair was full of sand. Her ear was full of sand. She had sand stuck to her arms and legs because I had lathered her up with sun lotion.

Okay, I'll give the other mom a pass and think she may not have realized just how much sand her kid had managed to shovel into Beanie's eye. But maybe (just maybe here) when she was laying on the blanket screaming and crying while I was pouring water in her eye for ten minutes you might've gotten a clue that it was a little worse than you previously thought. I mean, I would've come over and made sure your child was okay. I would've made my child come over and apologize, even if it was an accident. But, obviously, I don't parent anything like you.

My poor girl took it like a champ. She was very upset, don't get me wrong. I thought it was surely the end of our play date. She was very upset I was pouring water in her eye. We finally got all of the sand out of her eye and she sat and ate a little snack before playing some more.

My friend said, "Wow, you handled that a lot better than I would've. I would've been so angry. Maybe you were..."

And I was. But by the time I was sure my daughter's eyeball wasn't going to be scratched because of the amount of sand in it the other mom and boy were gone. I don't know that I would've yelled. I'm not really the whole make-a-scene type of person, but holy hell, I was upset. I kept apologizing to Beanie as I was rinsing her eye out and she said, "It wasn't your fault, Mommy. It was my friend's fault." And by friend Beanie means the kid who just happened to be playing at the same park as she was.

It was her "friend's" fault. Accidents happen, but I truly believe that how you react and how you teach your children to react is really important.