Friday, April 14, 2006

A meandering post

Couple of things today:

Honey Mustard asked me a question this morning.

After The Jelly asked me if she could play with my Palm Pilot and then my iPod, my wife asked, “How many 3 ½ year olds know what an iPod and a Palm Pilot are?”

My first thought was… quite a few actually.

But the more I think about it, I’m not so sure. So I decided to ask my blog-friends (or Bloends as I call you… which sounds a little dirty doesn’t it? How about Blogends? Blends? I could combine blog and amigo and I can call all of you blomigos. That’s it, that’s the winning entry right there’ blogmigos)

So I decided to ask my blomigos this question:

How many toddlers do YOU think know about PDA’s, iPods (or other MP3 players) and cell phones?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Secondly; Becky isn’t the only one with a ‘ghetto’ park near her house. We have a few parks near our house and one that The PB and The J really like is located near the river. We went there the other day but were unable to play because there were “big kids” there. And by ‘big kids’ I mean kids who are in high school and should have no use for a playground/park. The little kids, about 20 of them including my two, couldn’t play on the slides because the big kids were on top of the slide (and it was creaking and shaking) and blocking the kids from getting to the slide.

Ditto for the swings. And the jungle gym. And everything else. The other parents were sitting there, their kids whining because they couldn’t slide, and weren’t saying a damn thing.

Now, as most of you could probably guess, I am not one to hold my tongue, even if it’s a group of high school students who obviously have too much time on their hands that they have to hang out at a park.

So I said something.

Something along the lines of, “My daughters and all these other kids want to slide so get your fat ass off of there and out of the way,” (I may be paraphrasing a bit) and followed that up with a classic line from the Cosby Show: “I am probably the only adult who will sue little children.”

Actually it was more like "please move, my kids want to go down the slide." Have to be an example for The PB and The J.

They didn’t move. So all the kids and parent’s left, we left and I’m left wondering: “Was I like that in high school? Was I that much of a jackass?”

I don’t think I was. How about all of you? Would you have been like that or would you have gotten down and allowed the kids to play?

I’m just curious.

No sooner did we start walking away, the kid on top of the slide (it was a big slide about 8 feet off the ground) who I surmise was the leader, promptly fell off the slide and started crying like one of the toddlers they just chased away.

Is it wrong that I enjoyed that immensely?

I am off work this afternoon and will be busy the next few days doing yard work (that lawn isn’t going to mow itself… yet), getting ready for Easter (those Easter Eggs won’t dye themselves… yet) and waiting for the plumber (that leak won’t… well, you know the rest).

So I want to wish all of you and yours a very joyous Passover and a very Happy Easter.

BTW, coming Monday, be on the lookout for Kemp’s patented Holiday-post for Easter and find out all you ever wanted to know about the Easter holiday but were afraid to ask.

7 comments:

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah said...

My kids (who are not even two yet)will bring me my Palm Pilot and say "Mommy Palm".

When Gabe gets home, I'll ask him if they know about his ipod.

Gidge Uriza said...

When we were at the Renaissance Festival last weekend playing in Ye Olde Sandbox, there were big kids (like 12 or 13 yrs old) playing in there smashing each other rather violently with canoodles. As soon as one of them came close to my kids I COMPLETELY became THAT MOM. I gave'm the voice of god "If one of you hits my childrent I'm going to hit you, and not with a canoolde - GOT IT?"
The punk ass leader of the group looks at his friends and goes "you guys are stoopid"....and they buggered off mostly.
Teenagers are twits.
I suspect we were twits as well, but possibly NOT to this extent.

Anonymous said...

my 3 1/2 yr olds definitely know what the cell phone is. we just got our first ipod a couple of months ago, so they're not quite as familiar with that. and my palm pilot hasn't left its cradle behind my monitor since the monkeys were 3 months old, so they definitely don't know what that is. they do, however, know how to work the vcr and the dvd player. they've also broken one of each, but now they know how to work them. which is more than i can say for my mother...

also, although i'm sure none of us were assholes like those you encountered at the ghetto park, those assholes definitely did exist. the difference of course is that we were the same age and would never in a million years have confronted them. instead, we just grew up to be bloggers. (Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Bloggers) perhaps that's why, like for gidge, it feels empowering when we do it now -- on behalf of our offspring?

Becky said...

1) I was kinda thinking I'd like to be your flog. But blogmigo is cool.

2) *I* don't even know what a Palm Pilot and that other thing is. OK. I've seen pictures, but that's it. So I probably have the only 3-1/2-year-old in the world who doesn't know what they are either. But I'm OK with that.

3) Ghetto parks suck.

4) I was not like that. I didn't learn how to be an ass until I was about 25.

Anonymous said...

One of the kids I nanny for knows what his daddy's Blackberry is... the boy was very confused, however, one day when I tried to feed him blackberries for a snack!

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah said...

I just tagged you - you had to know this was coming.

Anonymous said...

Robey knows what a cell phone is but not an ipod or palm pilot.