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North Carolina Babies
MrsHughesNC
member
Do you know what irritates the heck out of me?
MrsHughesNC
member
When we're at the pool, trying to spend some quality time with Holly playing in the toddler pool, we seem to be a magnet for bratty, unsupervised, toy-stealing kids.. LOL.
The rule at our pool is that non-swimmers are supposed to be within arms reach of a parent. But without fail, almost every time we go to play in the toddler pool, there is an attention hungry kid there, whose parent is sitting in a chair on their phone, reading a book or whatever (ignoring them, essentially), and the kid won't leave us alone. We've had several instances of this lately where a kid will swim up and take a toy (that belongs to the pool) from Holly, bug us to let him/her play with us, keep saying "watch this!" "Look what I can do!" or crap like that... Meanwhile, their parent is in la-la land enjoying some alone time and letting the lifeguards and other parents play babysitter. Last week I got smacked in the neck by a hard rubber ball a kid had brought while she was trying to show off and show us how hard she could throw it. The parent sat right there in a chair by the pool, and didn't say a thing to the kid (if she even noticed it).
That probably sounds awful--I love kids and would love to have Holly play with other polite, well behaved kids there, and she gets to do that plenty as well. It's nice to interact with other parents there too. But it makes me SO mad when someone else's bratty kid becomes our problem because they're too much into playing on their phone to play with their kid. It's really not the kid's fault, but I've become very crotchety about the whole thing! Last night we spent the night guarding a butterfuly squirter Holly was super excited to play with from this brat who kept coming up saying "i want the butterfly!... I'm gonna take the butterfly!" while his parent was nowhere to be seen.. He might have been 4, max. WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS, CHILD????
Ok, vent over. sorry. hehe. One of many reasons I'm ready for summer to be over. 
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Do you know what irritates the heck out of me?
That irritates me too. When we're at the beach it always seems to be a problem. Parents just send their kids down to the pool to get a break or whatever, or sit and read and ignore them. Big kids in the baby pool, etc b/c there are no rules there.
However, I will admit one time we were those people.
I was with Eli at the pool by myself, and I just wasn't comfortable getting down in the baby pool with him. There was another family in the pool and he was playing with them. But I was watching him and making sure he was playing nice and all that. So hopefully they didn't talk bad about me afterwards 
I almost typed a similar post about the B&N train table yesterday but decided against it
We are magnets for the brats there and I am getting so sick of it, so much so that I am considering not going back except that it is a nice cool place that he loves so I am torn. The last two times we have been though there have been kids that are not playing nicely or who keep stealing the trains.
The first time, BOTH parents were there. One was sitting there reading his Nook and the other was flipping through a magazine. The two boys were carrying leggos in a Victoria's Secret bag and not even playing with the train table. They had little leggo people and decided to have a leggo people war which included knocking Ben's train off the track numerous times. The first time I just picked it up for him, the second time I walked over and picked it up and looked directly at the parents without them even noticing, the third time I very deliberatly picked the trains up and stared down the dad until he noticed. He said he was sorry, told the kid no and they finally packed up and left, but it should have never gone that far!
The last time the kid kept stealing every single one of the trains. I had to take them apart and tell him that Ben was playing with those first. Kid must have had a chain of 10 and Ben had 3. I did this 3 or 4 times. Grandpa was just sitting at a table reading a book and never even looked up.
UGH! WATCH YOUR KIDS PEOPLE!!!
I wouldn't have a problem with that--I have no problem playing with other (nice!) kids. And you were watching him, not letting the other family babysit him unwillingly while he acted like a complete brat. :-)
Ditto this.
My thing is I want Ben to play with other kids, I encourage it. I just want the parent to know what their kid is up to and not put me in a situation where I have to correct their child. It makes me uncomfortable and you really have to be careful with other people's kids. If your kid is playing nice, great sit back and watch. If your kid is getting out of hand walk over and correct them. That is all I ask. Just know what is going on.
This is me. It's especially hard for me when I keep nursery at church, because right now Wesley's in the class I watch. It tears my nerves up to see my baby (who is the smallest and youngest in the group) so willing to play with others and share have another kid come snatch things from him or push him or something just because they want whatever toy he's playing with. I've expressed my concerns to a few of the parents in particular, just because their kids seem to have absolutely NO discipline, but when they witness their child do it, they just let it go and don't even say anything to them. SO frustrating.
and you just listed why I hate public (or semi-public) pools. Even hotels have a tendency to bug me when they're overrun with rugrats.
pre-kid, my DH & I would go visit a couple-friends at their apartment complex. We'd (the four of us) go hit their pool which had a kid safe area (2-3') and then a pretty steep drop off to 8' where we'd hang out with all our floaty toys and water guns & bombs. Inevitably, we'd attract a herd of kids from the townhouses facing the pool. The pool says, quite specifically, that no children under 13 were allowed in without an adult present. We'd tell them we'd let them play with our toys only if they had an adult. This would usually result in some bored mother (from the entire group - only one!) sitting on the outside of the chain link fence watching. So not cool.
eugh.. what bad parent behavior!
I don't have my own yet, but I kept my niece every day this summer until a few weeks ago- she turned 3 in June. We stayed home most days.. it seemed like any time we went some where around town, kids were just brutal & parents were distracted or too busy, as were their parents. The exception to this was Imaginon! We had a blast there.. the other parents there were attentive & that made us want to stay all day.
It really annoys me at doctor's offices, especially the OBGYN. There's a sign in there that says you can't be on your phone unless you're in labor. So it's really helpful when you're on your phone & already talking loudly & disturbing the rest of us, then you feel the need to elevate your voice more to tell your kindergarten-ish little guy to "SIT DOWN & SHUT UP DA**IT" and have the nerve to ask me if I can watch him while you go pee.
Thank you, oh nurse goddess, for calling my name.