In the interests of not letting this blog die of neglect...

...I'm just going to mention how much I hate school holidays! I always thought that school holidays only affected parents of school aged children (except for the decrease in traffic and lack of obnoxious high schoolers on public transport int he afternoons) but the affects seem to be much more far reaching than that. Most of the playgroups seem to shut down during school holidays, so the normal pattern of our week is interrupted. The zoo, the indoor playcentres and other fun places to take little kids are really busy and unpleasant because Asher and his little friends practically get trampled by the 'big kids' who are on holidays from their preschools and kindergartens.

We still go to the park or for a coffee in the early mornings (we often leave home at the same time as Sanjay to minimise the opportunity for tantrums) and we still meet up with the baby club gang on Thursdays but we miss our favourite Tuesday afternoon TAFE playgroup.

At least this holiday is only two weeks, and hopefully Clare will come and hang out with us a bit while she doesn't have classes. I wonder what other parents of toddlers think of school holidays? What are the favourite distractions for really little kids that don't involve extra crowds?

Playgroup punchup

Well, not really, but a kid at playgroup yesterday really pressed my buttons and I didn't handle it at all well. Asher was playing on a gym mat outside with a little tunnel thing for kids to crawl through. There was a little girl of maybe three sitting in the tunnel and when Asher crawled over she pushed his hand away. I don't really know playgroup etiquette for dealing with these situations so I was really friendly, saying something like 'hey, he's just a baby and he doesn't want to come in there with you, so it's not nice to push him' but she reached further out of the tunnel and pushed his face away. He wasn't at all hurt or even made uncomfortable by this but I was starting to get pissed off with this kids so I said, in a more serious, less friendly tone 'hey, if there is a problem talk to me, don't push him' while very gently taking her hand away from my kid. She of course stared at me and pushed Asher again so I very gently took her hand, moved a little closer to her, looked into her eyes and said in a really slow quiet threatening tone 'don't push him' and at that moment her mother appeared and hassled her about playing with the baby toys and took her away. I felt bad about it because I feel like I handled the situation really badly - I (kinda) disciplined another person's kid, I told her 'don't' rather than give her an alternative and the worst part was that I basically got into a power struggle with a toddler, and I know from bitter experience that those power struggles are pretty much unwinnable. I guess I should have just picked Asher up and taken him to play with something else, but I hadn't had my coffee and I got all mother-bear protective of my kid.

Unfortunately (heh, it gets worse) this all happened just minutes after I had been (mentally) criticising another mother for the way she was disciplining her child (who was also pushing Asher - does my kid wear a 'push me!' sign that I can't see?). She had been telling her just barely two year old to 'stop' (not being specific) and vaguely threatening him with going home. We had been half chatting and she had been bitching to me about the fact her son has started pushing other kids (yep, loud enough for him to hear) while I, sitting atop my very high horse, had been thinking of Moxie's advice and that she should try diversion or gently getting between her kid and my kid if she was upset about it rather than vague whiny threats about going home. Everybody has bad days and when they are tired and harrased and the best way of dealing with toddler stroppiness isn't always obvious so I would like to unreservedly retract my judgemental and narky thoughts.