Soft play

So my new year resolutions are basically the same as 87 per cent of the population: eat less, exercise more, drink less, blog more. It’s not going too badly so far, I ate one less biscuit than I might have done on Tuesday, and I’ve gone a couple of days without drinking (today isn’t one of them). And here I am blogging. Not quite ‘job done’, but I’m putting my best foot forward.

Today I took O to his first soft play zone, and can confirm that most* other children are evil. I don’t know why they all made a beeline for my PRECIOUS BABY, I guess it was because he was the smallest and cutest. Anyway, none of them seemed happy unless they were treading on him, or pulling him over, or squeezing him just a little too tightly. They made sure to do that sort of half look at me while they were at it, the cautious yet hopeful look that children who are ‘testing their boundaries’ always do, the one that asks ‘am I getting away with this?’. 

As usual, my response was multilayered – laidback and carefree with a subtext of murderous intent.  “Maybe you could stop picking him up by the neck? There’s a good girl!”  Delivered in an easy, breezy, sing-song voice, with a look in my eye that says ‘don’t make me kill you, you little shit’.

O, of course, thought it was all rather marvellous. So many balls! A mirror! How thrilling! He looked a little non-plussed when a pair of three year old twins tried to pick him up and drag him across the room, but otherwise he remained unfazed. 

And where were their parents? In the café of course! Which is exactly where I’ll be once O is old enough to trample the other kids. You’ll find me in the corner I imagine, slipping Bailey’s miniatures into my skinny lattes, as I listen to the sing-song voices of Mums saving their precious first borns from my stampeding toddler. Hurrah!

*excluding yours – obvs.