After the fact, I was shaking. I had yelled back at her as I left; “Fuck you, my kid’s bleeding!”
I didn’t realize how shocked and upset I was until after I did that.
We were having an uneventful afternoon in the apartment when the buzzer rang and it was My Kid’s friend. She and her brothers were riding their scooters and soon My Kid was with them in the park, all 4 of them flying down the walkway in the park looking like a commercial for some kind of organic yet commercially available snack food. Then they went into the playground.
In the playground a couple of toddlers were walking around with their anxious mothers following close behind them–just like we used to do, back when we were shocked that there were dangerous older kids wildly hurtling their tough bruiser bodies around with abandon. That was until the first physically gifted 3-year-old in our set learned to ride a bike without training wheels. Are you nuts! You can’t let that baby out anywhere near the street!!!!
Our kids today were 5, 6 and just barely 8. Big compared to a toddlers but still babies in the real world. Our parent talk was about schools and neighborhoods and Freakonomics. We were aware enough of the larger playground environment to yell at our kids to get off the baby swings because real babies needed to use them (this particular playground only has baby swings). We were discussing the next playground to visit (Parents and caregivers make the rounds of playgrounds on a daily basis, like a bunch of frat boys on a Friday night pub crawl.)
One of the toddler mothers called out from about 15 feet away; “Could you watch the Razors there are babies.” Playground etiquette requires saying “hello” to other parents, or at least going up to them and making eye-contact before you tell them that you think their kid is doing something wrong.
I’m just sayin…
Anyway, our kids got off their scooters, and were playing around, and then we hear a scream. A loud and sustained scream from the cast iron gate by the swings where My Kid and Her Friend were both standing frozen and screaming. We looked up, my parent friend and I. We stood up, my parent friend and I. Then I ran over when we realized it was MY KID who was screaming. She had (or her friend had) smashed her finger in the cast iron gate.
Oh My God!!
Run to the kids. Look at the finger. Screams in the air. Fear. (back ground mind emergency protocol kicks in; going through the mental rolodex…–“Where is the insurance card?.. Which emergency room do we use?.. Car service phone number?…) Take the kid with the finger to the cold water of the drinking fountain. Examine the wound. It hurts. There’s blood. Bruising and swelling. But she can move the finger and ice and a bandage will be the treatment.
And yet, it is still traumatic.
The plans to move to another playground have been abandoned. I will take My Kid home and Her Friend and her brothers will be taken to their home. Outside activities suddenly curtailed. A bummer end to an impromptu playdate that was going so well.
As I was struggling out the playground gate guiding my sobbing bleeding child with one hand and juggling her sports equipment with the other, while simultaneously saying a forced cheerful goodbye to Her Friend (who is either guilt-ridden or afraid of being punished) and her brothers (who don’t know why their outside time has been suddenly cut short) and their parent (who must be thinking “Damn!”) I hear the breathy passive-aggressive voice of the mother of one of the toddlers right beside me, “Could you shut the gate.”
After we finally get through the opening, I reach back and push at the gate with my arm without even looking behind me (most parents and caregivers, myself included, turn back and face the gate checking for little escapees while pulling it closed and working the latch)
I walk with my sobbing child for about 10 feet.
Then it hits me.
I suddenly yell without thinking…
“Fuck you, my kid’s bleeding!”