Do you know what irritates the heck out of me?

MrsHughesNC

When we're at the pool, trying to spend some quality time with Holly playing in the toddler pool, we seem to be a magnet for bratty, unsupervised, toy-stealing kids.. LOL.

The rule at our pool is that non-swimmers are supposed to be within arms reach of a parent. But without fail, almost every time we go to play in the toddler pool, there is an attention hungry kid there, whose parent is sitting in a chair on their phone, reading a book or whatever (ignoring them, essentially), and the kid won't leave us alone. We've had several instances of this lately where a kid will swim up and take a toy (that belongs to the pool) from Holly, bug us to let him/her play with us, keep saying "watch this!" "Look what I can do!" or crap like that... Meanwhile, their parent is in la-la land enjoying some alone time and letting the lifeguards and other parents play babysitter. Last week I got smacked in the neck by a hard rubber ball a kid had brought while she was trying to show off and show us how hard she could throw it. The parent sat right there in a chair by the pool, and didn't say a thing to the kid (if she even noticed it).

That probably sounds awful--I love kids and would love to have Holly play with other polite, well behaved kids there, and she gets to do that plenty as well. It's nice to interact with other parents there too. But it makes me SO mad when someone else's bratty kid becomes our problem because they're too much into playing on their phone to play with their kid. It's really not the kid's fault, but I've become very crotchety about the whole thing! Last night we spent the night guarding a butterfuly squirter Holly was super excited to play with from this brat who kept coming up saying "i want the butterfly!... I'm gonna take the butterfly!" while his parent was nowhere to be seen.. He might have been 4, max. WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS, CHILD????

Ok, vent over. sorry. hehe. One of many reasons I'm ready for summer to be over.