Nothing more than a vent---grab a drink, it's a long one!

No creativity {unless you count my little speech as creative!} No recipe {I made Sheryl's homemade pizza for supper...if you want the recipe leave a comment and I'll give it to you} No frugal tips {we went to the park - it's free. And that's how this all happened. Sigh}

You try to do something fun with your kids and look what happens. Background info...my homemade pizza sucked serious rocks until Sheryl gave me her recipe. So now when we want to have a fun supper that's what I make. My niece is with us for a couple of days just for fun so a fun supper was in order. The pizza dough had 1 hour to rise so what should we do? PARK!!! There is a small neighbourhood park really close to our house so the kids hopped on their wheels (stroller, scooter and roller blades) and off we rolled to the park. It's a really small play structure with 2 slides and monkey bars and then a seperate structure has 4 swings...2 for babies and 2 for big kids {I can fit now! Weeee!} It was fairly busy today with a couple of sweet little Spanish boys talking to my oldest son who does understand a very limited amount (his Uncle is from Chile) but kept saying "I don't know enough Spanish! Talk to me in English!" Their Mama was very nice and understanding even though I kept telling my son to be more polite. Oh, is that ever ironic...read on.

So Poopsie (my niece) is giving me my regular heart attack on the monkey bars (as you may recall she broke her arm on that exact thing...read about it HERE) along with another little girl about her same age. I notice there are 3 sisters playing at the park sans parents. All the other kids have someone with them...but they are a bit younger. So whatever. Now I am a horrible judge of ages but the Sweet Girl (let's just refer to her as SG from now on) seemed to be about 15 or so but was...forgive me if I am not current in my PC terminology but she seemed to be at about Poopsie's developmental stage {she just turned 9}. Mean Girl (Now known as MG) was about 10 or so and their little sister was around 4. After a few minutes the park pretty much cleared out except for us and the 3 sisters. I heard MG make a couple of pretty questionable statements to Poopsie but I just gave my girl the gimlet eye and she's pretty good at ignoring stuff like that. Until we get out of earshot where she will promptly ask me if I heard what that girl said. LOL But I digress...

The kids were all playing fairly nicely...my boys were throwing sand on the empty slides, MG was on the monkey bars and Poopsie and SG were seeing how high they could go on the swings. Then MG pipes up and says {insert appropriate names here...bear with me} "So-and-so! Go get my shoes!" MG had kicked off her shoes quite a ways away onto the path. SG asks her why should I? MG very sharply orders her again and says it was because she only had her socks on and wasn't supposed to walk on the sand. "And you are my SISTER. DO IT NOW!" Poopsie paused in her swinging and gave me "the look". She's really good at that look and I almost giggled. SG jumped off the swing and ran all the way passed the monkey bars, past the slides and onto the path to get her sister's shoes. As soon as she got close to the shoes, MG jumped off the monkey bars, ran across the sand in her socks and jumped onto the swing singing out "Ha Ha Ha, I got the swing stupid!" Poopsie shot me another look. And even my boys were starting to stare now. Poopsie then offered to push my son on the swing. So she jumped off and started to hold it for him. MG quickly put her feet on the second swing so Poopsie, being the gracious girl she is just flounced off to play elsewhere. At this point, I have set aside my DS. This is far more interesting than Sudoku let me tell ya. SG heads back to the swing and sits on her sister's feet only to be kicked and pummeled and screamed at. And I mean screamed at. It is a full on brawl. SG manages to get MG's feet off the second swing and quickly turns over on her stomach to swing. And I am silently cheering in my head, way to go! Keep in mind that I still have not said one word to this little chickie. I was quite proud of myself actually. I just kept reminding myself that she is not my child. So MG is still yelling at SG to get off her swing, etc. SG is sweetly and quietly holding her ground, still swinging on her stomach when MG winds up and kicks her sister right in the face. Well alright there Nelly...back up that train. SG was absolutely rocked. I was about 10 feet away from them and I heard the smack. MG connected but good. And SG had glasses on. Ouch. People who know me well are waiting for it...yup. I roared. Here we go:

Me: "EXCUSE ME!!! That is NOT acceptable behaviour AT ALL!!! You kicked her right in the face!!! {well duh Kate} I didn't say a word until now but I can NOT let you get away with that. You owe her an apology RIGHT NOW!"

MG: Looking right mad that I actually said something "So what? I do it all the time."

Me: "I should hope NOT. If my children treated each other like that I would have something to say about it! That is the most disgusting behaviour I have ever seen!"

MG: If looks could kill. Holy gravy, I thought she was going to kick me in the face. "I don't care."

So she sat there staring daggers at me while I curtly gathered up my crew with a glance at the kids and a swift "It's not fun here anymore, let's go." My kids were stricken. They had nothing to say. I don't think they've ever obeyed so quickly in their young lives! LOL Poopsie had to get her roller blades back on so she came to sit beside me and while she was changing out of her runners MG stuck her tongue out at me. I was going to come back with my "If you don't put that tongue away I am going to cut it off." But I didn't think bodily threats were appropriate just then. Poopsie was hacked. "Auntie, she just stuck her tongue out at you! AND she said the S-word AND she didn't apologize!!!!" Oh Poopsie, I do love you. Loyal to the end. My girl bats for her team and always hits a home run. I told her I couldn't do anything about MG's behaviour and I just hoped that Poopsie would never, ever treat someone like that. Ever. We rolled our way down the path towards home ducking the virtual knives in our backs. Poopsie of course had to call her Mama the second we got in the door. She loooves the drama. LOL But it was a great lesson for my kids because just that morning they had a little shoving match over who would push the grocery cart and I told them that's what it looked like. They were appalled. So maybe {just maybe} they will think twice about it next time.

I know you don't read this blog MG...but it's my vent so I will finish it. I hope you went home and told your mother that a lady at the park yelled at you. I hope you went home all mad and indignant and embarrassed. I hope you told on me. And I hope your mother asks WHY. The end.