I don’t know where time flies to these days. Anyways, I’m back to write about my lunch today.
It was a lovely salmon wrap that I purchased from a wonderful take-out style eatery at a nearby open air mall. What a lovely setting to sit and have lunch in the beautiful sunshine. After ordering my meal, I took a look around in the courtyard to see where I would like to sit. I wanted to be in the sunshine and saw a lovely spot across the ways. So, I walked over and sat down, but within a few seconds, I realized that at the table, that was 2 feet away from me, were 2 mommies with 4 small children. Darn, I knew I should have taken more time to assess the seeetcheeation before deciding on where to sit. So, rather than be rude and move away, I decided to be mature about it and work through my own issues. Yes, I’m trying to become more aware of my phobias and tendencies to stay away from strangers with small children. (For some reason, I have more tolerance for friends kids and family members. I know some would call that discrimination. I don’t know what to call it.)
Of course, I’m within earshot of their conversation which, not surprisingly, revolved around the children and the subject of children. Another thing that did not surprise me at all was that before I was half way into my salmon wrap, which was delicious by-the-way, I heard the words, “play date”. Oh, if you only knew – well, I’ll tell you – how much those two words may me cringe. Literally, when I hear those words my back and shoulders scrunch upwards. It’s an innate reaction for me. The moms were very excited that they could make their next play date for their kids to play together. I’m thinking, wouldn’t it be a lot more fun to be planning a date with your husband? I wonder how many moms of small children actually even have conversations with their husbands never mind dates.
Another part of the conversation was one of the moms asking her daughter who was about 4 years old this question, “Do you want to come with me to wash your hands?”. The little girl said, “No”. Very politely, which was very nice : ) However, the question I had floating around in my head was, why would you ask your 4-year old that question? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for the parent to say, “let’s go wash your hands”? OK, time for me to shut up. The kids were well-behaved and the mothers seem to be doing a good job with their kids. Even when one of the kids started yelling instead of talking (out of the blue, it just started happening) the mother calmly asked her why she was yelling all of a sudden and she told her that it wasn’t necessary to yell, the child listened and lowered her voice.
So all in all, it was a bearable experience for me and I’m glad that I sat there to help me get over my phobia of being in situations like that. See, I’m growing : ) Just don’t say the words, “play date” around me.
SWaNK Evolution 