Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Why I don't stay home.

Dr. Phil. I have wrote my first letter to Dr. Phil.

Dr. Phil would probably have me on his "blocked senders" list within two weeks.

If anyone watched Dr. Phil today, it started out because somebody videotaped a woman dragging her kid around a store by a monkey leash. Okay, smartest thing in the world to do? Probably not. Was it punishment? No, the kid wanted his mommy to drag him around. Point Dr. Phil made: Does anybody want their parenting skills to be judged entirely on a 13 second video? Uh, no.

Andrew and I had a run in with a lady at a Chinese Restaurant when Robert was three. It was so totally unfounded and we were dumbfounded by it. A neighbor and I had taken Robert and her daughter to the pool one Sunday afternoon, the kids played all afternoon, when Andrew got home from work, I didn't want to cook so we loaded up and went to the local Chinese restaurant. This was in Pontiac and the restaurant was a nice quiet place. When we got sat down, it was very evident that Robert was tired, cranky and in no mood to sit. We decided to get our food to go and Andrew went ahead and took Robert to the car, not before Robert ran under a couple of tables, giggling that he was keeping away from Daddy. Andrew finally got a hold of him, not rough or anything and took him to the car. There were two ladies in the restaurant and I didn't realized they were waiting on me to get our food. When our food was ready, they followed me out the door. Robert was standing in the back seat of the car, I opened the door and told him to get in his car seat, he told me he didn't want to. The women had pulled up behind me and was watching. I turned to them and said, "He's tired and cranky, do you have any ideas?" The driver said "Just don't beat him." I said, "I have no intention of beating him, he hasn't done anything wrong, we should have not got him out tonight because he has had a big day." The lady says, "He's afraid of his dad." I said, "Lady, if he was afraid of his dad, I don't think he would have been playing the game he was inside, he would have been to afraid of what would happen." (and why didn't they follow ANDREW out, to see if he beat him?) Anyway, the lady informed me she had my license plate and was prepared to call the cops if I laid a hand on him. I told her I did have to get him in his carseat but that he would not be beaten. I was so shook up, Andrew drove me to Robert's preschool teacher's house, who eased my mind that nobody would take Robert away on one person's claim. It was still scary and totally, totally off the wall.

Then later on in the show, Dr. Phil shows this one girl whose mother made her hold a sign up at an intersection that basically said, "I don't do my homework and I slack off in school, my mother is preparing me for my future--will work for food." I had to laugh. Anyone who knows Olney very well, knows the area known as "goosenibble". Goosenibble is home to a really rough trailer park. When Robert was in 1st and 2nd grade, and would act up, or lie, or not want to do his homework, etc. I would put his little rear in the car and take him and drive him around goosenibble. I tell people that and some people thinks I am terrible. I say so far, it has been a good thing.

As I said, Dr. Phil would be sick of me, good thing I am only off until next Tuesday!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

WOW!!!Some people are way too quick to judge. I am a proud owner of a monkey leash and have used it many many times and yes it is a life saver while at Disney World or the ZOO. We purchased it a few years ago for Makenna as she likes to wonder off and not realize it and she and Makai LOVE to play game with it as in take off running and wait for me to pull on it so they stop and just try to run fast to get out of it. And Im sure Im on some video to with my kids doing that also. What I find amusing is that usually the people judging have more skeletons in the closet than they care to share so they focus on ruinng everyone elses lives. Oh and I will be using the leash this Feb when we go also.

Nanny Fulton said...

Jon and Meredith used a leash that looked like a little dog backpack and the leash was the tail. It is really cute and we used it when we toured the Aquarium this summer in Gatlinburg. Two year olds are very quick and have a way of running off. We also used it in the airport once when M and I and her Granma and Grant flew to FL. M was busy with Grma and I took care of Grant. We had quite a wait for our flight so he and I took a walk. Most people thought it was cute and smiled at us but I suppose there might have been some that thought it was cruel. Grant was having a blast!