My scary kid...

Every night after dinner we have this routine, while I am cleaning up the dinner Shane plays with the kids. On weekdays its the only time they get to play together and I love listening to them. I also love being able to get something done without "helpers." Its always some sort of wrestling match where there is much crawling on the floor, and steamrolling, and dog piling. It must be a male thing because Shane is so much better at this kind of rough house play than I am. Although the activity is always much the same it always has a different theme. Some days Mason and Dad are polar bears, and Max is a penguin; some days they are horses and cowboys, lately Mason always wants to be a lion and Max sometimes gets to be a lion, but sometimes an antelope. I know it sounds like Max gets a bad deal, but the kid is just so squishy he tastes good.

Anyway...On Tuesday we went to the mall. The mall has a play area, we love the play area. Winter is loooong in Idaho, and I mean long, so anytime we can get out we do. This day we had almost the whole place to ourselves, which isn't saying alot, its not a very big space, but it was nice not to worry about Mason getting pushed around by some ten year old who is way over the height restriction, because apparently it really upsets the big ten year old's mom when I yell at her mean kid. Anyway...the only kid there looked like he was about five and was only there for a few minutes when his mom said that it was time for him to leave. On the way out he looked over to me and said, "Is that baby with the red hair your's?" I smiled, and said yes preparing to graciously take the inevitable he's so cute compliment. The kid looked at me and said quite seriously, "he's scary."

I laughed out loud, but this poor boy's mother was mortified, she immediately apologized and demanded that her son recant his statement and say my baby was cute instead, the boy looked bewildered, apparently he thought he was doing the playground a public service by getting this "scary" one year old under wraps. The mom continued to look increasingly embarassed, so I said in my most sympathetic voice, "did he roar* at you?"
"Yeah," said the kid.
"Sorry, he does that sometimes." I replied.
And with that the other mom's face softened, she could see that we both understood the joy of raising boys.

And I'll have to remember to tell Shane that thanks to his nightly tutelage our Max is the scariest kid on the playground.



*in our house its pronounced rawr