Play hard

Some local friends are off nursery school this week so can come and play. We're meeting some of them at the local softplay centre, where there are huge climbing frames and slides and so on. If Emer wakes up in time, of course.

Emer and I had a rough night. I think Rob did too. But she's so lovely! Even when she's deliberately headbutting my eyebrow to see what happens she is lovely!

I've lost some leftover stuffed peppers, but I can use something else instead. Tonight is leftover night. Nomnomnomnom.

Come and see the violence inherent in the system

At softplay today, Linnea and her friend were off in the baby area drinking their cartons of juice inside a playhouse (definitely on dodgy ground according to my own rules but absolutely allowed at the venue), and both mothers and Emer were at a table helping Emer eat her raisins. F came over in tears talking about boys hurting her; she's given to being hypersensitive about normal twixt-children interaction, so we didn't think much of it, but I went off to fetch Linnea anyway, because I figured that if there was any trouble of a physical nature Linnea might be helping it along.

I found her sobbing - howling - in a corner. She had her badly crushed, empty juice carton in her hand. She was inarticulate with distress. A boy had taken her juice and poured it out. She pointed him out to me, and I could see his mother, but she was too upset for me to get involved in a confrontation, so I calmed her and took her back to our seats. There I discovered fingernail marks on her arm, and, once she calmed down a lot more, thanks to jellybeans from a vending machine, a graze and a swelling on her side, under her clothes - she'd been knocked down, held down, dragged, and had her drink stolen.

I took her to staff and explained briefly what had happened; showed the guy her graze, which was really way, way beyond "Oh, these things happen, never mind" levels; pointed out the prime suspect. The staff apologised, agreed it should never happen and was not acceptable, replaced the drink, asked if we wanted anything for her graze, and went to watch the child to see if it had been him. Later, they told us that the child had "done it again, to another child," and they were now trying to find out who his mother was.

I foolishly didn't give them my name. I should have. As it is, I shall have to phone them tomorrow and find out what happened.

Linnea and her friend were very upset by it. Linnea is really, truly not accustomed to being attacked by older children - babies yes, because babies don't know that they're not allowed to hit, but all the older children she knows do know this, and even the ones who fight tend to do it sort of consensually. Her friend was completely bewildered by it all; "Why were the big boys hurting us?" and "Why did the big boys want to hurt us?"

I'm glad I didn't see the graze when I could still see the boy's mother because my reaction might have been very unreasonable indeed. Not to mention unhelpful and unproductive. And loud.