More Lessons from a Horrible Mother

This seems to be a continuing trend: My inability to NOT laugh at children.

At a birthday party this afternoon, at a nearby park, I watched as Jack and his best friend, Jason, terrorized the airwaves. They are an adorable pair--Jason being a compact, impressively speedy, dark little bullet of a child, and Jack, the complete opposite, tall, gangly, PASTY, toe-running, monkey-like and did I say PASTY?

These two adorable morons are seriously in love, and I couldn't decide whether to tear up or choke back laughter for most of the afternoon. They stood, at the top of separate play structures, on opposite sides of the park having a conversation. Now, in order to have a conversation across a park that is crammed full of approximately 200 other screaming children, you really have to ratchet up the volume. Which these two did.

"JACK TARKENTON! WHERE ARE YOU?" screamed Jason.

"JASON, I'M RIGHT HEEEEERE!" Jack screamed.

"WHY ARE YOU UP THERE?!?" screamed Jason.

"I'M THE KING OF THE MOUNTAIN!" Jack screamed back.

And this went on and on. According to Jason, besides being King of the Mountain, Jack was also a poopy butt.

"WE DON'T SAY BUTT!" screamed Jack.

"I'M GOING TO CRUSH YOU!" Jason screamed back.

Good luck with that one, I thought. Jason's mother, a lovely woman, was soon forced to chase Jason underneath one of the play structures after his language became a little too PG-13 for the playground. Jason, angered by the censure, huddled underneath a platform where she could not possibly reach him and screeched unintelligible, but clearly angry, words at her. And this is the point where I went from being her ally to her enemy. I laughed.

I KNOW. I know that you're not supposed to laugh. But he was so hilarious, squatting and peeking out from his shaded hide-out like a teeny little hobo, clutching his knees and so utterly infuriated that he had to INVENT words to convey the enormity of his feelings. It was adorable. She gave up eventually and came back over to sit with me.

"He does this all of the time," she sighed.
"I know, boys are terrible with all of the...RAGE."
"Yeah," she said. "Girls are way easier at this age."

SCORE! I said to myself.

I regaled her with stories of Jack's latest fits to make her feel better, and then we both indulged ourselves by laughing at the kids who were throwing sand at their mothers in the sandbox in front of us.