Drama at the Tot Lot
Since nearly every afternoon of the last month has been ridiculously beautiful, I've gotten into the habit of taking Milo to the Tot Lot, a playground for toddlers that is a few blocks away. Over the weeks I've come to not only recognize some of the babies and their parents, but I've begun to understand the politics of the playground. And as with any playground, there has been drama.
A few weeks ago a cute little Asian girl arrived with a new push toy - the sort of thing that looks like a baby lawnmower. The baby pushes it and it makes noise and helps said baby to walk faster and steadier and, most importantly, noisier, than the baby would without the push toy. Apparently there is a rule on the playground that if you bring something you must share it (stupid Park Slope hippy parents), and this rule has not been good to the little Asian girl. Unfortunately for her, there is an older, bigger Italian boy (for some reason half the people at the playground are European) who likes to grab her push toy and run off with it. So every few minutes screaming will come from one end of the playground, and everyone knows that yet again the Italian boy has stolen the little girl's toy.
The best part is that you can tell that the Asian girl's mother has grown to loathe the Italian boy's mother, probably because she does nothing to stop him from running away with her daughter's toy. There are actually two Italian mothers at the Tot Lot, and I'm not quite sure which mother belongs to the pushy toy-stealer, but one of them also has a smaller baby, and the other one is very pregnant, so both of them usually stand around ignoring the toy-stealer until long after he has absconded with the Asian girl's toy.
So this afternoon the Italian boy arrived with his own push toy, which looked exactly like the Asian girl's toy. And a few moments later the Asian girl arrived, without her push toy, probably because her mother had simply given up and didn't want to subject her daughter to any further torture at the hands of the Italian boy. And although I really wanted her to, the little Asian girl made no attempt to steal the Italian boy's push toy. She just sat quietly and played by herself.
A few weeks ago a cute little Asian girl arrived with a new push toy - the sort of thing that looks like a baby lawnmower. The baby pushes it and it makes noise and helps said baby to walk faster and steadier and, most importantly, noisier, than the baby would without the push toy. Apparently there is a rule on the playground that if you bring something you must share it (stupid Park Slope hippy parents), and this rule has not been good to the little Asian girl. Unfortunately for her, there is an older, bigger Italian boy (for some reason half the people at the playground are European) who likes to grab her push toy and run off with it. So every few minutes screaming will come from one end of the playground, and everyone knows that yet again the Italian boy has stolen the little girl's toy.
The best part is that you can tell that the Asian girl's mother has grown to loathe the Italian boy's mother, probably because she does nothing to stop him from running away with her daughter's toy. There are actually two Italian mothers at the Tot Lot, and I'm not quite sure which mother belongs to the pushy toy-stealer, but one of them also has a smaller baby, and the other one is very pregnant, so both of them usually stand around ignoring the toy-stealer until long after he has absconded with the Asian girl's toy.
So this afternoon the Italian boy arrived with his own push toy, which looked exactly like the Asian girl's toy. And a few moments later the Asian girl arrived, without her push toy, probably because her mother had simply given up and didn't want to subject her daughter to any further torture at the hands of the Italian boy. And although I really wanted her to, the little Asian girl made no attempt to steal the Italian boy's push toy. She just sat quietly and played by herself.
posted by Hana @ 6:29 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home