Parents Should Watch Their Own Children In Parks

Aaron and Adrian had a wonderful time at the park today. On the other hand, I had one of the worst days in recent history! It was meant to be a playdate between Aaron and one other little boy from school. We had this arranged from a week before the end of term but by the last day of school, everybody else knew about it and since it was at a park, everybody else was invited to come along if they were available. It turns out that not only did most people from Aaron's class come along but there were plenty of representatives from the other two classes as well. It was a fantastic day for the kids.

So what was wrong with my day? Well, another mother, one I barely know, asked if I would keep an eye on her two children because she forgot to pack their swimming things and wanted to go home to get them. The three bits of information she stressed on were 1) she would be 20 minutes, 2) the son sticks around Aaron anyway and 3) the daughter was 'good'. I didn't like the idea but I (wrongly) felt it wouldn't be nice if I said 'no'.  So I said "OK".

And, she left. The son constantly went in different directions from Aaron. The daughter was 'good' but she would not stop walking everywhere around the park. She did not stand still for one minute of the time her mother was away. Thankfully Aaron is the awesome five year old that he is. I eventually got him to continuously follow the other boy and bring him back to wherever I was. Adrian just followed Aaron wherever he went. I was on a constant lookout for a girl that looked like every other little girl there except for black leather shoes. It was STRESSFUL! What if they fell over? What if they got kidnapped? What if they wandered onto the road? OMG! Never again.

The 20 minutes that the lady said she would take turned into 90 minutes! There was no apology or anything for being so late. I think she might have made a detour elsewhere!

No matter how rude it sounds, I'm never going to agree to that again. I don't want to be responsible for somebody else's children. And, I want to enjoy my own. I want to be able to mingle with the other mothers without seeming distracted and constantly looking elsewhere.

These three photos were taken from where I was initially relaxing. It doesn't show up well in the photos but there were a million children running about.

View to my right. Climbing pyramid where I could easily watch Aaron and Adrian was happy to run underneath:

View to my left, its a flying fox:

View in front of me. Doesn't look like much but there is a water play area behind the slight slope you can see in the middle of the photo. 

So, do you get the picture of how big an area this was? Never again......