defending the girl

I encountered a first at the playground yesterday - the obnoxious bully kid who won't leave your kid alone. It all started out innocently enough. Britton wanted to climb up inside the tube slide, and the girl wouldn't get out of it. Annoying, yes, but kids this age can be annoying so I told Britton to just find another slide. When she went to the twisty slide, the girl ran to the twisty slide, climbed up it, and sat in the way so that once Britton got up there she couldn't get down the slide. I was starting to get mad now, and the girl's father was no help since he was sitting on the tables, face not two inches from his cell phone. He never looked up. Ever.

I figured, as most parents do, that Britton would need to learn to handle conflict. Yes, it's unfair that this girl is blocking the slide, but it's a public playground and there's not much I can do (apart from screaming at her father to handle his daughter, which wasn't going to happen anytime soon). But then I overhear the girl say, "If you give me one of your rings (reference: Princess rings from the Dollar Store), then I'll let you go down the slide." And that's when I've done had enough.

Because, no. I'm not having this. I went up to the slide and told the girl, "That's not going to happen. Move so others can use the slide." And she was at first surprised, then devious, and I've seen that look before - the kid who never gets attention at home unless it's negative and she now no longer cares if it's negative or not, so long as someone will acknowledge she exists. But I don't have to make it up to her that her dad is lost in YouTube videos; I'm there to play with my kid.

She finally slides down the slide, and then as Britton is getting ready to go down the slide, she runs back up it and says, "I will move if you say pretty please. You have to say please. You can't say move or else I won't listen to you. Say it. Say pretty please. Say it nice." Ok, at this point, things are just getting weird. I don't think that a six-year-old should have those-phrased demands in her playbook, so to speak. And frankly, I'm just done with the whole thing because if I wanted to expose Britton to the negative sides of life I'd just let her wander around the downtown Greyhound station. So I very loudly told Britton, "This girl obviously doesn't want to share the slide. Why don't we play somewhere else? When she leaves, you can use the slide. And we will stay longer than she does."

And Britton has this Fisher-Price bus with her (because we were going through her old toys for the baby and everything old is new and desirable again) and the girl starts following Britton asking to play with her bus. And Britton doesn't want to share it because this girl hasn't exactly screamed "nice friend material" and Britton says, "I will share it if you promise to give it back." And the girl says, "Pinky swear." And Britton goes, "I can't do that. Because I don't know what it is."

Long story short, they played until Britton wanted to push the bus up the slide and the girl kept throwing her hand out and stopping it. And Britton told her she wanted to play by herself because the girl wasn't listening to her. And, honestly, I wasn't all that upset to see her go. And as she's climbing into her car, I yell for Britton to meet me at the twisty slide. Sure, I was now acting like the six-year-old, but dang it all. I'm just not ready for obnoxious bully kids to be at the playground, around my kid, reminding me how awful that felt when I was the kid.