It takes a village and lots of water

As I’ve written about a few times now we have been having a lot of fun with the community center since the pool and splash park opened two weeks ago. I thought I would share some of my observations about this place which is a Jewish community center.

Needless to say, there isn’t a lot of cultural diversity I’ve seen so far. A sprinkling of Asians, Indians and African Americans. Otherwise it’s about as white bread as it gets. Not everyone is Jewish either but I would estimate at least 50% are. That ratio does not represent Charlotte at all so I’m happy that Cameron’s daycare classroom is much more diversified!

People are very nice, especially the moms and dads with little ones. The thing that bothers DH and I are when parents blatantly don’t pay attention while their kids run wild. DH took Cameron by himself last week and there was an older kid pushing her (literally) around. No parent on hand to curb his behavior. And frankly that’s unacceptable from my perspective. There is no reason a older kid should be aggressive with a toddler. The three of us were in the pool the next day and this red haired kid (probably 6 or 7) took his weighted ring and threw it directly at Cameron, hitting her on the back while I was holding her. And it wasn’t even like I was in a deep part of the pool. We were sitting on the steps! I immediately called out to him, “You should apologize for throwing that.” His mother was standing right next to him chatting away with a friend. The kid ducked behind his mom and just looked at me. I spoke again, “You can’t be doing things like that. It’s not nice.” DH hates confrontation so he kept telling me to drop it. I’m still annoyed at myself for not going up to the mother and saying something. Sure Cameron was fine but the brat should be disciplined. It takes a village, and all that. I realize that a lot of people don’t like confrontation or saying something when a situation arises but I go all momma bear-like when it involves Cameron. Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did you handle it? What if it was your kid who acted poorly? Would you want to know?

I much prefer the splash area to the pool area because it is gated and I can let Cameron wander around rather than having to track her and keep her from falling into the pool. Of course DH is so protective he follows Cameron around in the splash area too but I think that’s sweet. I usually pull out a book and let her wander as long as she is in sight. I don’t like when she spends all her time on the hot patio area especially because there are chairs she likes to climb up on and can get her feet and arms stuck easily in the plastic slats. We usually bring toys with us (permanent marker isn’t actually permanent for labeling plastic!) but of course our toys aren’t as much fun as other kids’ toys. Most parents and kids are cool with a toddler picking up a discarded toys but sometimes fights break out. Cameron of course doesn’t fight but other kids will come and snatch their toys out of her hands. I wish that Cameron would interact more with the water itself but I also understand it can be a little scary given the force of it. There are sections where the water has less pressure but Cameron either hasn’t figured out or doesn’t want to play with filling up and emptying out buckets like all the other kids. As I’ve said before, she is one of the youngest I’ve seen so I’m not too worried about it. It would just be nice to be able to read more than a page at a time before she comes over and bugs me! Assuming good weather this weekend I’ll try to capture more cute pictures of Cameron. I have a new bathing suit I’m dying to try out on her.