Wait! I Forgot to Tell You!

Wait!  I totally forgot to tell you the funniest thing that happened at Chick-fil-A last night.  I know it's a topic I can't let go of and I know I should just stop going because obviously the play area sends my sensory processing problems into over-drive.  And yet, I cannot resist the siren call of delicious chicken and super-polite staff.

The play room was extra-screamy because of our school fundraiser night.  Four big boys were playing tag in the play area, and it was getting dangerous for the little ones.  When I say big boys, I'm talking about one of them was my height.  And I am 5' 9".  There was also the usual mess of little kids hyped up on milkshakes with no parents in sight.

Also?  If you need  a bra, chances are you're too old to be in the tunnel.

More also?  It's possible that preteens should actually be supervised more closely than preschoolers.  Preteens are all big and strong and yet lacking the wisdom and self-restraint of actual teenagers.  And when teenagers seem full of wisdom and restraint, that's saying something.  Eleven-year-olds are basically seven-year-olds on steroids.

So yeah, there's a point where I'm going to tell all these kids to slow down and stop plowing over preschoolers.  After we'd been playing for quite a while, and I'd scared the chicken nuggets out of every kid in the place, finally another mom came in with her little boy.  I was all, yay!  Reinforcements!

We watched our kids play for a while, and then I saw two other little boys going bonkers again, pushing each other and trying to climb up the slide just as some bigger kids are coming down.

I went over to the boys and knelt down so I was eye-to-eye with them.

"Look, dudes, I don't want you to get smushed by big kids," I said in my Stern Mommy voice. "If I have to tell you one more time not to climb up the slide, we're going to go find. your. mother."

"I'm right here," said the mom I had been chatting with.  "They're mine, too."

Errr ... busted.  It was such a weird moment, because I felt busted for disciplining another woman's children, and she felt busted for not supervising her own kids.  All I could do was laugh, and thank God the other mom, who looked absolutely exhausted, laughed too.  She actually thanked me.

And so, once again, I survived a visit to Chick-fil-A without getting beaten up by another parent.  Yay!