Posts Filed Under Kids

Calling All Rude Children

posted by Momo Fali on July 16, 2007
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Last week, I took the kids to a huge science museum, which we visit a couple of times a year. They were having a Big Machines exhibit…bulldozers, forklifts, cranes, and other things we often see tearing up our yard unexpectedly. Basically, a five year old boy’s utopia.

As it turned out, we just happened to visit at the same time as every day camp, day care, and preschool in the central Ohio area. Why didn’t I turn around and come home when I saw that ALL the parking lots were full, AND that there was another lot completely packed with school buses? Because I am a glutton for punishment, that’s why. I spent fifteen minutes trying to find a parking spot, for crying out loud. That may be nothing to someone in (insert Pace Picante accent) New York City! But folks, this is uh-HI-uh.

So, there I was, already irritated and we hadn’t even gone through the entrance. However, all that was about to change, because as I struggled to hold open the monolithic, steel and glass door AND push the stroller through at the same time, I saw a teenage girl approaching. “Oh good,” I thought, because she was obviously coming to assist me. But, instead of helping me unwedge myself from somewhere between inside and outside, she actually stepped OVER my son’s stroller and walked through the door. Really. AND, she didn’t even say excuse me. Really.

I spent a lot of the day correcting children like her, children of COMPLETE STRANGERS, on their horrible manners. Not correcting them as much as flat out telling them they needed to wait their turn, or let an old lady have a seat. “Yes guys, that one there with the walker.”

We had kids ditching us everywhere we went, boys tumbling into our stroller without saying a word, girls repeatedly banging on the door of the family bathroom, when they weren’t even a family with the right to do so. Though, I am not going to stand too high on my soapbox, because by no means do my kids have perfect manners. My son is blatantly honest (see previous post), and has no problem telling you he “likes your flab” or that a lady at the store “looks like a fish”. And, I still have to remind my eight year old daughter, EVERY DAY, not to chew with her mouth open. But, I would say it’s fair to assume that my kids would not LITERALLY walk over someone to get through a door. It was so bad, that at one point a teacher with one of the larger school groups actually gave me a pitiful look and said, “Please, pray for me”.

Maybe, instead of learning about science and industry, those kids should be taught some manners. I used the day as an opportunity to teach my children how NOT to treat people. It’s just too bad it cost me the price of admission

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Changing Times

posted by Momo Fali on July 6, 2007
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Some friends of ours are getting ready to have their second child. My husband and I saw them recently at a party, and shame on us for doing so, but we went on and on about how much harder life is with two kids versus one. We had no right in saying a word, especially considering my husband is one of ELEVEN children, and his parents were only a few feet away. How in the world they raised that many kids, all running about in (GASP!) cloth diapers, is beyond comprehension. As if couples don’t have enough to bicker about, without having to figure out which one of you is going to scrub the poop out of everyone’s pants.

But, there were a lot of things our parents didn’t have to do. I don’t remember my Mom driving me much of anywhere past the age of eight. If I wanted to go somewhere I either walked or pedaled there. I barely got a, “See ya”, along with my swift kick out the door as I was sent to, “Go play somewhere”. Our parents weren’t bad parents, they were normal parents. It was great to live that way as a kid. We got to BE kids. It was not a problem for us to leave the house after breakfast, go to the pool all day, come home for dinner, then leave immediately after for a game of Kick the Can or baseball. Things didn’t change as I got older either. Even at the awkward age of 15, I rode my bike to work at an old folks restaurant…hairnet, apron, and all. Oh, that’s not embarrassing.

Now, things are different. If my daughter wants to go to the pool or the park, I have to drive her there, because it’s just not safe for her to ride her bike (though if we did ride our bikes, we’d be sure to wear our helmets, which either no one cared about or didn’t exist when I was young). But, I can’t just throw her into the back of a pick-up truck, which is how we often got from place to place. I have to put her and her brother in car seats, with SEAT BELTS. Here’s the kicker…I have to actually STAY with her and supervise her. Oh, and don’t forget the sunscreen! You know what kind of sunscreen I wore when I was a kid? It was called a t-shirt.

For better or worse, parents must be involved with their kids in ways they didn’t have to when we were growing up. In today’s modern world, we have to micro-manage their lives. So, to our friends I’ll say this…it’s not that you won’t have enough love to give, it’ll just be hard finding time to give it.

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Stranger Danger

posted by Momo Fali on July 5, 2007

We have recently started having conversations with our five year old son about strangers. We waited so long to start these conversations because he’s had numerous health problems and for a really long time, he didn’t want anyone to touch him. Not Mom, not Dad, not sister, nor grandparent. It is my belief that he thought if anyone was going to touch him, it would result in a needle being stuck into his body, or his liver being manipulated and moved about by some doctor’s large, cold, rubbing-alcohol scented hands. After 18 months of occupational therapy to help him with these issues, we now have a kid who is the extreme opposite of the one we used to know. Now we can’t stop him from rubbing people, or going up to random folks at the ballpark and telling them, “Hold me”.

My friend, Bean, let us borrow a great DVD called Stranger Safety. The host, who calls herself Safe Side Super Chick, is a combination of Robin Williams, in his Mork days, with a little bit of Pippi Longstocking. Though incredibly odd in so many ways, it was informative and fun for all of us to watch. But, since then my son is obsessed with knowing who is a stranger and who isn’t. He points at everyone we see and says, “He’s a stranger”…”She’s a stranger”. The cashier at Target, the mailman, the trash guys, pictures of people in all his books, dogs, cats…turns out, just about everyone is a stranger. And, after all these discussions about who it’s okay to talk to, and when, we found it had all paid off in a very backward sort of way. Because as I picked up my son at the grocery store the other day, he started yelling, “NO!! Help! You’re a stranger! You’re a stranger!!” Looks like we have more work to do.

Igpay Atinlay

posted by Momo Fali on July 2, 2007

My eight year old daughter, who prides herself on listening to every word we say even though she’s pretending to watch The Disney Channel, has recently become extremely frustrated to hear her father and I speak in Pig Latin. We went through the spelling-words-out-phase, and when she caught on, we had to move to spelling them backward. When she figured that out, we were in a quandry. What to do when you need to yell to your spouse in the kitchen to hide the last ice cream bar so the kids won’t find it? So, somewhere from back in my husband’s middle school brain file, he pulled out Pig Latin. Of course, we’re getting older and our Pig Latin comes out very slowly as we try to figure out what letter comes second, which now needs to be the first letter of the word. Yesterday, we sounded like a couple of sick cows. “Ooooooday oooooouyay aHntway oootay AAAAAktay UHthay idskay otay UHthay oooooolpay?” That’s, “Do you want to take the kids to the pool?” Of course, we really feel like idiots, when “the” is the hardest word to figure out how to say.

Never mind, that we could’ve walked down the street, talked to each other about going to the pool, then come home, in the time it took to utter that one sentence. The fun of it, is that our daughter can’t figure it out. After we finished our pool discussion, which literally made her stomp her feet in frustration, she turned to me and said, “I’m going to start my own language too! Sand sou sill sever sigure sit sout!”