mommy's alright, daddy's alright, they just seem a little wierd

i try not to blog all that much about parenting. i'm a parent, a stay at home parent, it's a big part of my life, but love him as i do, my child does not consume every detail of my being. the thing is, though, every single thing that happens with my child amazes me and astounds me. him, the way he is, the way his little friends are, the way other parents are, the way people without children react to him, the way i react to him, the way he reacts to me, to the world around him...it is all so completely fascinating to me. i'm sure that's why there are so many parenting blogs already. even though it is all nothing new, nothing our parents and their parents and plenty of parents before them haven't felt. yet, we are all so flabbergasted and overwhelmed by the very act of creating a real, live human being, and watching them create themselves.

so, if i may, just an instance from my day to day for your consideration.
we were recently at smolak farms in north andover, ma to visit their pumpkin patch and just do the things that new england families do in the fall (eat cider donuts, leaf peep, pay a stupid amount of money for a ridiculously large pumpkin). they had some things set up to keep the kids entertained, including a large, bouncy slide thing. it had a little bouncy stairway on one side, a bouncy slide on the other. the only way to the top was to climb up this little stairway (very much like this). harlan was super excited about the slide. so like the good parents we are, we paid the 4 dollars for him to climb up and slide down. he's 2 1/2, but he's pretty tough, pretty athletic, tall for his age. he was the youngest on the slide. most kids being 7, 8, 9 years old, well over twice his size. as soon as he got on the stairs, i could sense disaster. he was too slow to climb as fast as the older kids. the older kids (all boys), started climbing over him using his face and shoulders as stairs and knocking him to the bottom in the process. i could not get to him, and he was getting pummeled by these kids. now, here's the interesting part, there were at least 12-15 parents standing at the bottom of this thing watching this happen...watching their own kids use this 2 1/2 year old's face as a stepping stone, and not one of them said one thing to ANY of their kids. anyone reading this who is a mother knows that it doesn't take much for a mother hen to get her feathers ruffled. and my feathers were fucking ruffled. i did everything short of grabbing each and every one of those kids by their hoodies and yanking them over the side of that thing. i yelled, i ROARED at these kids. i put the fear of god into their tiny, greasy faces. and STILL, not ONE parent said one word to anyone. not one word. no one told me to stop yelling at their kid, no one told the kids to stop stepping on faces. i was on my own. standing back, it was an absolutely fascinating social commentary. amazed. and flabbergasted.
boys are aggressive, harlan picks on kids younger than him right now. they NEED guidance, they NEED discipline if they're going to be decent adults. this scenario was such a testament to the massive amount of assholes in this country. (especially the ones running this country) just step on the little guy, get to the top, have your fun, do it again...and no one will say a thing.

the most amazing thing, even with all of the feet in his face, harlan loved that slide with every fiber of his being, you could see it on his face. he couldn't stop smiling. it was heart breaking, it really was.