Uh oh

We had a small incident today. It involved the police (sort of).

Stowa and I went shopping today. We needed a few things from Target so we headed south to the closest one. Nothing exciting there. Well, I did find Stowa a pair of cute shoes for $4.

After Target I took Stowa to the mall. They have a cool little play area and I needed to look for something to wear to a wedding. We shopped first and then went to play.

The play area is usually stressful. My kid is tiny. There are usually big kids there with no one watching them. Guess who gets knocked over? Today though, was different. When we got there it was like some magical toddler land. I think the oldest kid was only 2. Still quite a few kids but it was all toddlers and babies. Well behaved ones too. There was no fighting, biting, running, pushing, etc. The kids all played nicely together. I got to sit down. Usually I have to hover over my kid to make sure she isn't pushed around too much. Stowa really clicked with one little girl in particular. They walked around holding hands and sharing their toys (Stowa's baby and P's kitty). It was cute. P and her mom left. Stowa was still happy and busy playing. This is when it started to go downhill. Fast.

A mom and her 4 brats showed up. The youngest boy was probably 2. Then there was a 6 year old boy, a 7ish year old girl, and a 10ish year old boy. The little girl was not allowed to play. She was repeatedly told to sit down on the bench and be quiet. The 2 year old sat under the little bridge thing and did not interact at all with anyone. The other two? Yeah. They were jerks. Running all over the place, knocking the little kids over, hitting each other, etc. Rotten.

Stowa was staying pretty close to me. I was watching her like a hawk. She and another little girl (only about 13 months old) walked over to the slide. They went up the stairs together. No one else was anywhere near the slide. The girls were sitting at the top of the slide. All of a sudden the bratty 6 year old ran up the slide part and pushed the girls off the top of the slide, down the stairs. Asshole.

Stowa rolled down the stairs and face planted into the carpet. The baby flew from the top of the slide to the ground without hitting a single step.

I ran over to Stowa and made sure she was ok. Just a little carpet burn on her face. Not the end of the world. The other little girl (A) was SCREAMING. Not a big surprise. I turned to say something to the little asshole that had just shoved my kid (open palm to the chest) but instead I turned only to see A's mom with Jerkface in a death grip, yelling at him about never ever doing anything like that again and then screaming for security and an ambulance. Jerkface's mom then came running over yelling at A's mom for grabbing her kid's arm.

It didn't take long before security showed up. Three of them. They had to take our statements. When they asked Jerkface why he did it, he said it was because he didn't want them to use the slide. Jerkface's mom wanted A's mom arrested because she left marks on his arm. A's mom wanted to sue Jerkface for hurting her kid. It was all very dramatic. There was a lot of yelling. By the way, A seemed to be fine. Once her mom finally picked her up she stopped crying. There didn't appear to be any injuries. Stowa didn't even cry. She has a tiny red mark on her face. She was off playing before security even got there.

But holy crap. The whole thing was just a mess. It went from being fun to awful in no time. I get where A's mom was coming from. I too wanted to kill the little bastard. Our reactions were just very different.