One Hundred Hugs

E LOVES to get dressed up...he said he looked like a "man."

e, showing off her face paint last weekend.

E at Tae-Kwon-Do practice

I measured E again this weekend, and he's grow another almost two inches in the last three months. He is six years old and one month and is four feet two inches tall. e has also grown over the past few months but has not hit her big growth spurts yet. Still, she is tall for her age. I am raising a couple of giants.

Saturday mornings are the one time we can sleep in. The kids often end up in my bed at some point during the night anyway, so we get to do a little cuddling in the morning, instead of me trying to get them out of bed and ready for school. This past Saturday, E came in to snuggle with me and decided to give me a hundred hugs. So sweet. When we got to about 50, I asked if the hugs came with kisses...and, they did! So, fifty more hugs with kisses. I need to figure out how to bottle that sweetness so I can pour it on him when he turns 13.

Saturday afternoon I took E and e along with a couple of the neighborhood girls to a local playground. Usually, this playground gets a pretty good clientele, but there were these two women there with their kids who were clearly from the other side of the tracks. When we got there, I kept hearing one of them yelling at her son, calling him a liar, and just barking orders at him. The two moms just sat on the bench while their kids (I think there were a total of four of them) played.

At one point the two girls (C & M, who are in fourth grade) that I brought were going on one of the slides and one of the woman's daughter, we'll call the daughter PB (because she had a plumber's butt), kept telling the other kids not to follow her. C & M, of course just told her that they just wanted to go on the slide. When I saw that there were some problems brewing, I went over and quietly told C, M and E to go on the bigger slides which were better anyway. I could tell that, as I was going over there to talk to them, the mom gave me a really dirty look. She obviously thought I was going to say something to her kid...and obviously she has to defend her kid often! So, C, M and E went onto the bigger slides. A little while later, PB decided to go on the bigger slides, too. She blocked the entrance to the slide and it was clear from the looks on all the kids faces that something was going on. So, I went over and asked if everything was okay. PB said yes and I told all the kids that the slides were for everyone to use. PB went down the slide and the others followed but didn't want to go on the slide anymore now that PB was there. That's when PB's mom comes over to me and tells me that she would appreciate it if I wouldn't tell her daughter what to do. I was a little confused so I told her that I didn't tell her what to do when the mom says that PB told her that I told her to get off the slide. So I told the mom what really happened, but it was clear there was no trying to rationalize with this woman. So, she said, "well, just don't talk to my daughter again." Okay, I won't talk to your daughter anymore.

WTF? At that point, I told all the kids that it was time to leave because we didn't want to stay where there were mean people. It was clear that PB was telling stories the whole time we were there. At one point, she was pointing to e and saying to her mom that e did something. Come on! What is a three year old going to do? The kids were constantly lying, using bad words, and just not playing well. The moms were encouraging the bad behavior, so it just wasn't worth staying around and watching a bad situation get worse.

THEN, Sunday afternoon I was in a store trying to buy some holiday gifts. I was at the end of an aisle and another woman was going towards me. Both of our carts didn't fit well, so (since were were just about a foot from the end of the aisle) I said that it might be easier if she moved back (into the open area). She said she was going in my direction, so I said okay and we continued to maneuver our carts until we could pass each other. That's when her daughter (probably around 18 years old or so) says "that was totally rude!" Again, WTF? Is it the holidays that bring out these crazies? Am I wearing some kind of label on my forehead that says if you're crazy, come interact with me? I always feel like saying something like "Merry fu*%ing Christmas to you, too" to them.....but I think I might get decked.

I will take one hundred hugs any day.