Playground

Monday morning we made our
early morning playground run.
Naturally.
Luke loves the playground.
I love taking him to the playground.
It’s our Monday morning routine.
We get to the playground early enough
that there are only one or two other kids,
usually around Luke’s age.
Older kids usually start arriving just as we
are taking our leave.
Practically perfect.

This morning two moms arrived with their older kids,
elementary school age kids.
The lone little girl declared Luke her
best friend
and tried to get him to play with her.
She carried around a little basket
with this and that in it.
He sort of followed along behind her,
never doing anything she asked,
just sort of watching.
And naturally, I was hovering
and
kindly but firmly saying things like
“Don’t Touch”
“Don’t Pull”
“Luke is not big enough for that”
“Oh, he doesn’t need his hair combed.”
The little girl crawled into one of the tunnels.
Luke waited a moment and then crawled in.
See the tunnel behind him?
See those windows that allow a mother to sneak a peek?



















I made my way to the windows and
Then this exchange took place:
Me: “Let go of him”
Me: “What is that?”
Girl: “We are going to be blood brother and sister”
Me: “Get Away From Him.”
Me: “Now.”

I gathered up my child
and headed to retrieve our bag.
The mother of the offending child
was sitting right next to our bag
so I mentioned to her that
her little girl had a sharp object
and was going to make my son
her blood brother.
The mother looked at her child
and told her to mind her own business.
Quietly the girl made her way back to the playground.

And at that moment I felt sorry for that little girl.
Her mother didn’t care enough to teach her
that was not an appropriate thing to do.