as much as we’d not like to have odin associate the mall with hanging out and goofing around, since we’ll likely come to regret it when he reaches The Teen Years, it provided the closest and dryest play area after we were suprised to find ourselves running around a local park when black clouds arrived with a 20 degree F temperature drop, thunder claps and a very credible threat of torrential rain.

and the play area in the mall can actually be a fun time, except when it’s not. such as today, when after a few minutes after arriving a rag-tag group of older boys arrived arrived and thought it would be a grand idea to crawl in the tunnel under the tree and scream at the top of their lungs directly in the faces of the unsuspecting kids crawling by. odin happened to be their first victim, but i was just a few feet away and quickly scouped him up, his face ashen and frozen with fear, and managed to avoid A Meltdown. as we sat for a minute to gather our wits, we watched as toddler after toddler ran out of the tunnel screaming, frantically searching for Someone Safe.

i’m not normally one to get all up in another parent’s grill about their parenting skills, but i looked around trying to find someone who might be responsible for them to honestly ask them if they thought the kid’s behavior was something they thought was appropriate. but alas, i couldn’t find them before odin let me know that he’d really rather be somewhere else. we could still hear the hooligans screaming hundreds of feet away as we bought some comfort food in the form of a chocolate chip cookie and chocolate milk.

so i ask teh internets, what’s the appropriate course of action when you encouter a similar situation? just leave? kindly ask the offenders to stop? seek out the other parents/caregivers and ask them as nicely as possible if they could pretty please get their demon spawn to stop tormenting the other children?