Tiny Town

I visited the tot lot at one of the area malls yesterday. I hadn't been there before and I wanted to check it out. Okay, really I was there to pick up some lipstick at Sephora, but I legitimized my trip by spending some time in Tiny Town. I've never been to one of these mall play areas before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I've heard some not so great stuff, but this one is in a nice mall in a nice area, so I figured what the heck.

What the heck, indeed.

When we walked in, there weren't that many kids, so Sophie was able to cavort without too much trouble. However, I must have landed on exactly the wrong time because within minutes the place totally filled up. There were a few kids the same age as Sophie, but most of them were between 3 and 5. Kids between 3 and 5 are WAY rougher than 16 month olds. Where at first I was able to watch her from the sidelines, after the mass arrival I had to stay right next to her because it was like an NFL game out there. Between the steamrolling and clotheslining, it was pretty rough. Luckily, the whole room was padded, so there was little danger of injury, but for this overprotective mama, it was a tad nerve racking.

There was a little person there with her daughter. She was laughing and chasing after her daughter who was giving her as much a run for her money as Sophie was me. We exchanged smiles a number of times. After a little while she asked me how old Sophie was. I told her she was 16 months old. She said "My daughter is the same age!" To which I replied, "Oh, yeah they're about the same size, I mean, height, I mean, ha...ha." And then I ran off.

Why did I have to bring up size when talking to a little person? I don't think I offended her, but let's just say we didn't make plans to meet there next week.

There was a little girl humping the slide. I'm absolutely not kidding. There was a wide padded rail and the girl was straddling it laying down, grinding up against it. She was 3, maybe 4 years old. I am pretty sure she was old enough to know better than to do this in public. I know that some little girls (and maybe little boys, god knows they do when they get older) enjoy rubbing up against things, but isn't one of our jobs as mothers to help them understand that this is not acceptable outside behavior. I wanted to stop her myself and kept looking around for her mama, but couldn't figure out which one she was among the crowd of kids and parents. Yeah, it was uncomfortable.

So there you go. Makeup, midgets and masturbation*. This is how I spent my birthday afternoon. Does it get any better than that?

*Have I just set myself up for some crazy search results or what?