today's happenings

One of BD's favorite parts of going to the zoo is watching the Amtrak and Septa trains go by on the nearby tracks. Tonight at dinner we were taking turns saying what animals we saw at the zoo. When it was BD's turn he said, "we saw Amtrak passenger trains and Septa passenger trains."

BD has been sick these past few days (a fever, cough and now a runny nose) and when he woke up from his nap he was more groggy than usual. I had just gotten Pancake to fall asleep in the carrier while making dinner when BD asked if I could hold him. I said, well, I just got Pancake to sleep but I can hug you and hold you like this, and I squatted down and hugged him for a few seconds. Then I did it again. Then he said, "no I want you to hold me." So I put Pancake down in the bouncy chair and picked up BD just as Mr. D started doing the dishes. BD promptly said that he wanted to help Daddy do the dishes. I held BD for a total of five seconds and woke Pancake up in the meantime. Mr. D, and then I, had to hold our screaming baby while we ate our dinner. I was pissed at BD for discovering and wielding his guilt-power over me.

The Philadelphia Zoo has three large screens that show tigers in their natural habitat. We have never stopped to watch it but BD looked intrigued and it was just starting a new loop so we sat down. I thought that it might not be the best thing for him to watch (tonight he was afraid of the ice cream truck) and sure enough the violent killing of the tigers' prey was imminent so I said, "this might be a little scary; we should go." As I'm escorting my three-year old out the woman sitting next to us snarkily says, "it's a natural part of life." If I had more balls I would have turned around and said, "do you want to wake up with him at 3:00 in the morning when he's crying from a bad dream?" Lots of things are natural parts of life, it doesn't mean they're appropriate for a toddler!

This reminds me of the woman who blurted out, "who would bring their newborn to a baseball game?!" as Pancake and I walked past her at the Phillies game last week. Why do people think it's okay to vocalize their mean-spirited opinions about how others raise their kids?