About to go down on the playground

The infamous Slide

WARNING: Red-neck post!
It was about to go down today in the neighborhood playground! It all started when we went to our park in the 'hood to play after school and Baby's Daddy's sister (my sister-in-law) and her son came with us too.

We were sitting there watching the kids play together on the Jungle Jim and actually having an adult conversation. The kids were climbing up and down the slide attached to the Jungle Jim, acting out one of their imaginary scenes, probably playing pirates.

In the meantime came along Psycho Mom and her little 3 year-oldish daughter. First of all, she was following behind her daughter like a body-guard, even climbing up the rope ladder behind her on the Jungle Jim. Then she followed her across the bridge to the slide where our kids were minding their own business playing. Her daughter wanted to slide, so our kids moved over politely (I was actually surprised) and let the little girl and Psycho Mom slide.

At first, I didn't judge Psycho Mom, I just thought in the back of my head, OK this was strange, but every parent was different. Then Psycho Mom abruptly scooped-up her daughter from the slide and that's when the psycho alarm went off.

Her little girl wanted to play with our kids and climb on the slide. But Psycho Mom immediately said "No" pulling her little girl just in ear-shot of where we were sitting on the bench. She began to lecture her poor child on how she couldn't help what other mother's let their children do, but she was not allowed to climb on the slide. She went on talking about how kids shouldn't climb up slides, blah, blah and other mothers should know this and other mothers shouldn't let it happen. Very loud!

What? Was she talking about moi? No she didn't!  I couldn't believe it. I looked at my sister-in-law and she had the exact same look of disbelief. Ok, so this wasn't a culture thing, this lady was insulting our parenting skills out loud and too chicken poo-poo to say it to our faces. I could feel my blood boil and the redneck beast raging inside. I felt my heart beat faster and my head started the "I'm-gettin'-ready-to-go-off-on-her" bobble.

I imagined myself stomping over to Psycho Mom, grabbing her by her already spiked hair telling her to "say it to my face." I imagined swinging her around-and-around like a lasso with my Super Human Redneck Mama powers until she apologized for questioning our parenting skills. She would beg me for mercy and say we were the best mommies in the world...Ahhhh the satisfaction...No, I told the beast, I couldn't set such an example for my kids, two wrongs didn't make a right.

I was able to ward off the Redneck-ness and I guess, out of defense, my sister-in-law and I just began to laugh, and laugh loudly, watching our kids Rule the slide. Even though we were both shocked at what had just went down, we kept it cool.


And we didn't give Psycho Mom the courtesy "look-away-because I sympathize-with you-and don't-want-you-to-feel bad" when her daughter began the tantrum of all tantrums. We glared at Psycho Mom's every move as she then struggled to strap-down her little girl twisting and turning into the buggy. We watched until she and her hysterically screaming child faded into the neighborhood sunset.

We turned our attention back to our dumplings, so sweet...giggling, enjoying life and throwing wood chips all over the slide, just being normal healthy kids. Revenge was sweet!