If I hadn't seen it w/my own eyes...

If I hadn't seen it w/my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. Listen to this story...

So it's another cold, wet "spring" day and we are again trapped inside w/not much to do. After spending most of the morning breaking up fights between two bored toddlers, I decided the best thing to do was head out to our local mall and let the kids run around in the indoor play area for a little while.

I must pause here for a moment and tell you that I have a very hard time letting the kids play in these types of places. In addition to trying to keep an eye on both of them, all I can think about the entire time is how long its been since someone cleaned everything and how many germs are getting all over the kids. Don't get me wrong, my house is not one of those perfect, spotless germ-free houses where the energetic mom washes the floor after every meal and vaccuums once a day (if I did that, when would I write this blog???). But in our house, those are our germs and our germs are fine. Its the germs of strangers I find completely disgusting.

Anyway, so there we are playing in the children's area, when a mom walks in w/2 little girls, one who looks to be about Aidan's age and the other who is probably 3. She struggles to get them out of the stroller, takes off their shoes and pulls off their coats before sighing "okay, go play" and I'm thinking how tired she looks and saying to myself "oh, I know just how she feels". Just as I'm giving her a sympathetic smile, I hear this lady's 3 year old daughter say "Mama, I have to go to the potty real bad!!!". The mother replies "Too bad, I told you to go before we got here. I'm not packing you both up again to go to the bathroom. You're going to have to hold it until we are ready to go". With this comment, my sympathy for the mom completely vanishes and just as I'm thinking that I'd never tell my preschooler "too bad, hold it", I see poor little Heather relieving herself all over the jungle gym. Her mother sees it too and here's where the story gets really unbelievable...

This woman runs over to her daughter, grabs her by the arm, scoops up the baby and drags them both out of the play area...and just leaves. Did she take out a package of wipes and clean up? Nope. Did she ask another mom to borrow some wipes to clean up ? Nope. She simply left the play area, leaving the rest of us moms open-mouthed in shock, wondering if we really just saw another mom leave her daughter's pee on the floor where our children are still playing. After a moment of silence, 3 of us pulled out our own wipes and cleaned it up the best we could, but naturally this pushed me over the edge of my germ tolerance for the day and we left soon after. Needless to say it will be awhile before I will be able to handle letting the kids play there again.

Seriously, the rudeness of some people is just shocking, isn't it?