A vocabulary lesson that will probably offend at least half the people who read it

The last week or so has afforded me many opportunities to be around large quantities of children in a few different situations. The Girl has joined the Girl scouts, her school held a fundraiser, and we attended a housewarming party, in which there were approximately 1.5 million kids under the age of 4; not to mention just your everyday exposure to little ones, like say, at the liquor store (yea, seriously). Anyone who knows me in real life, knows that I don't like kids. Yeah, shocker, I know. I get that a lot. But just because I'm a mom, doesn't mean I like kids. In fact, there are only 4 kids in this world who I honestly like being around; my two children, one of my nieces, and the daughter of an old neighbor of mine. That's it. End of story. I'll be polite, look at photos, ooo & ahh, and pretend I think your child is precious, but seriously? I'm totally making it all up.

Anyway, I bring this up because I made a very important discovery amongst all these kids recently. It's not kids I don't like; It's their parents.

There, I said it. Hi, my name is Fauve and I totally just judged you. But it's my blog and I can do that.

Actually, that's not entirely true. I didn't judge you. Unless you're one of those parents. Then I totally did. I'll own that. Though I do feel a little Jeff Foxworthy-ish....

If you have more kids than you can handle even in the safety and comfort of your own home yet you insist on bringing every single one of them with you every where you go, you're one of those parents.

If you know your toddler aged child has food allergies and you attend a party in which you don't tell anyone of said allergy and give your child free reign to feed herself from the appetizer tray (which is on my list in and of itself, btw) and then let above child have her reaction which involves projectile vomiting at the dinner table without removing her, you're one of those parents.

If your child(ren) run and scream indoors and pound various toys on various surfaces that belong to someone else and you do nothing to stop or prevent it, you are one of those parents.

If your child yells mom/dad enough times to set a world record before you acknowledge their existence, you're one of those parents.

If you have a reoccurring problem with your child that has lasted for more than a year and you've used the phrase(s) that "this is normal behavior for this age" or that "every child is different", then you are one of those parents.

This is a true story. At the Girl scout meetings, there are two different troops that meet in the same large room - one older troop on one side, The Girl's younger troop on the other. At one point during the first meeting, the older girls got noisy & wild playing a game on their side and the younger girls got sucked into the chaos. All of the younger girls, except two, got up from their snack table and ran over to the other side of the room. The Girl was one of the two who stayed put. The mom next to me, who's daughter was a 'runner', informed me that The Girl was weird. "Normal kids" run like hers did.

Normal = commonplace

Commonplace ≠ acceptable

Hence, normal behavior ≠ acceptable behavior

And, for the record, her daughter had a big ole temper tantrum when it was time to leave too, something The Girl hasn't done for more than three years. I hope my kids turn out to be the biggest weirdos in the world.