Trauma on the Playground

Well, it's official. We've had our first run-in with a playground bully. And it started out as such a nice day... sort of.

I'm working this Saturday, so I had yesterday off. I decided to take advantage of the extra time and took Ethan in to get some fall pictures done with the studio's rustic barn backdrop and pumpkin, leaves and hay props. Good idea in theory, but I failed to remember how active and uncooperative 18-month olds tend to be. We got a few good shots in and called it a day. Meanwhile, my friend Heather and her little girl, Kaitlyn, had met us at the portrait studio. We packed up our stuff and headed to the indoor playground for the kids to play. No real problems this time, except Ethan kept crawling up on the bench and trying to drink from some woman's soda cup. After the kids had ran around for a bit, we decided it was time for some lunch and headed to the food court. It was pretty cute to see Ethan and Kaitlyn both interested in what the other was eating for lunch. In the end, they both shared.

Once everyone was good and full, we headed back over to the playground to really tired them out. Well, we were only there a few minutes when the first round of crying started. Some little boy had stopped Kaitlyn and for no apparent reason gave her a smack - I think in the back. It wasn't very hard, but it was still enough to make her cry. So Kaitlyn was already sitting on her mom's lap and it wasn't more than a few minutes later that I hear Ethan start screaming! I jumped up and ran to where he was on the steps leading up to the slide and recognize the same kid that had pushed Kaitlyn. As I get closer I see that he has Ethan's fingers in his mouth and he's ready chomp down!! You've got to be kidding! I yank Ethan out of there and yell at the kid, "NO BITING!" Well, by then I'm pretty sure we had everyone's attention. All of the other parents there had mouths gaping. I sat down with Ethan, trying to comfort him. At this point, I just figured Ethan had been pushed down the slide stairs and I had caught the almost-biting just in the nick of time. No such luck. Ethan's still screaming and it's then that I see it. On the side of his cheek, right up next to his ear is a HUGE bite mark! It was already bruising green and purple and I could see both upper and lower DEEP teeth marks clear back to the first set of molars. Without even thinking I cried out, "Oh my gosh!!" and jumped up again.

I headed over to the mother, who was already busy putting the (ahem... evil) boy's shoes on. She wouldn't even look at me. I was in "mother bear" mode, but I was still so preoccupied with making sure Ethan was OK that I couldn't even think of what to say to her. Of course, I thought of plenty to say once we got home. She's just lucky her kid's biting didn't break the skin on Ethan's cheek. Then I wouldn't have let her off so easy.

So, in the end, we survived. The reality of the whole ordeal hit me again later in the day as I realized that this monster child would have had to hold down Ethan's head in order to clamp down like that. As a mother, that was really hard to picture and the trauma of the event - especially through Ethan's eyes, was more clear. The bruising has gone down quite a bit now, but you can still see two distinct red marks by Ethan's ear.