Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Playground Politics

Joash and I have been going to the playground in the afternoon to ease the bored/grumpy time between second nap and dinnertime. He loves it. The second he spots the plastic turrets, he kicks around to be let down. Yesterday, a bunch of big kids were running all over the slide structure, but that's where he wants to be, so we walked up the baby slide (he crawls on, then puts his arms up so I'll help him, the assumption of babies is so sweet), and then he crawled to the barred bridge and walked back and forth while the big kids ran to the tunneled slide. At one point, he was about to cross from one side to the other, and a kid found him right in between, right in the way. And the look on his face, like he didn't know what to do, mild panic, broke my heart. He wasn't in danger, and he wasn't even particularly upset, it was just my first realization that he will be stuck somewhere and not know what to do, he will be in the way somewhere, he won't be welcome somewhere. Such an ache to be a mother. But I guess I'm supposed to prepare him to conquer those situations.

Well, anyway, I was trying to get him out of the way, because one girl seemed to be getting annoyed by the baby. It just so happened that right before he finally crawled over to a spot where I could grab him, a little boy, playing a troll, I think, had included him in their game by very lightly tapping him on the back with his stick and growling at him. It was so cute, and I so appreciated this kid's inclusive behavior. But, the way it looked to his mom was that he hit the baby with a stick and I got mad and left. So she ran over to me and apologized in perfect English. I tried to assure her that we weren't leaving because of that and that it was actually quite fun, but I think we got the little boy in trouble. I am new to playground parenting. I guess I'll have to get good at it.

Now I realize I should have begged that lady to be my friend, as I have no mom friends in Anyang. Maybe we'll see them later on in the week. I'm trying to go as much as possible while Dan's gone.


Shrieks of joy.

 
And here he is pondering the hilarity of crackers.

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