Strange Man At The Indoor Playpark Story

Before I start this story, I will give you a little background on Lucas, his personality/demeanor. Lucas has always been known as the shy, quiet, sweet little boy. He most often plays nicely with others, and when confronted with a child who pushes, hits, plays rough, ususally begins crying and immediately runs to me or his Dad all worked up into a frenzy. On many occasions Brian has told me that we need to "toughen him up". After saying all of this, I must add that he is NOT a perfect little specimen, he has his tantrums, he knows how to use his words, and he has the ability to fight back when people bully him, although as I said earlier, it is rare that he does. So I am not one of those "Oh my little Lucas is so sweet and could do no wrong" type of Moms. He has his moments.

Now that I have given some background, onto the story...

I took Lucas to his friend's birthday party at the Giggle Factory yesterday. The boys were busy playing while Amy and I were chatting, when I noticed Lucas running toward me and a strange looking man following behind him. I call him "strange" as he seemed to have this pervo window peeper look to him. I know, it is mean to say, but haven't you ever noticed someone at a playground, kids play park, Mall - wherever that just looked "off" or "creepy" to you? I know I can't be the only one....

Anyway, Lucas came and hid behind my leg as the man approached me.

Strange Man: pointing at Lucas "excuse me, do you know who this little boy belongs to?"

Me: "I am his Mom, what is wrong?"

Strange Man: " Your little boy just ran up to my little boy, grabbed him by the neck, choked him AND drew blood."

I was shocked. For a moment I just sat there and did not say a thing. I asked what had happened, and this is when he proceeded to give Amy and I what had transpired.

Strange Man: (with an eyes popping out of his head look.) " Our boys were not even playing together and all of a sudden your little boy walked up to my son and attacked him. My son did absolutely nothing to him."

Yep, attacked. Good Lord, I have to say that is a bit of a strong word. He is a few months shy of his 5th birthday - I don't see him "attacking" another little boy.

Me: "Wow, I am sorry, that does not sound like something Lucas would do unprovoked."

Strange Man: "Well, he did. I told him he needed to apologize, and then get off of the play structure."

Excuse me?? You tell my son to apologize and that he needs to get down from the play structure and not play anymore? Who the heck do you think you are? This frankly pissed me off. I understand that Lucas needed to apologize as it is wrong to hit, push, choke (I still find this this choking thing hard to believe) another person no matter what. And he did need to take a little time out to think about what he had done. But it is NOT Strange Man's place to parent my Son. Hmph. I held it together though and did not tell him how I felt about his inappropriateness. (Is that a word??)

Me: "Lucas, come here, you need to apologize."

Strange Man: "I will go get my Son."

Me: taking Lucas by the hand leaning down to his level "what happened Lucas? Why did you hurt that little boy?" He gave me a grunt, and then I saw it coming, the flood of tears. "It is alright honey, you just can't hurt people, we need to apologize."

Strange Man: (still with eyes popping out of his head look)"Here is my son. See, look at his neck, look what your son did. Son, you need to tell us what happened, what did this boy (Lucas) do to you?" No response from the little boy.

I looked, and saw a few red marks on his neck. No blood, no serious injuries, nothing that looked to me like the result of being chocked. But that does not matter, Lucas hurt the little boy and he needed to apologize.

Me: "Lucas, can you please say your sorry, you hurt this little boy."

Lucas looked over at the little boy and quietly said "Sorry." The little boy said it was alright, and that Lucas let him play with his Bakugan and it was really fun. Strange Man then said that Yes, Lucas would not listen to him and aplogize and that was not alright, but did let his son play with his toy which was very nice. Weird. Still, I felt the need to also apologize, so I also said sorry to the little boy and the Dad.

Strange Man: "That is alright. I just really felt that he needed to apologize to my son for what he did. He really did nothing to deserve being choked." Again, weird..... Do we really need to say that Lucas choked his son? I know I was not there, but from the sounds of it Strange Man was not either so need we come to our own conclusions without having the real facts? We are listening to what happened from the mouths of a 3 and 4 year old, and we are not getting much as far as details. I am sure there was a little scuffle of sorts, (I am guessing over the Bakugan) which they both had a hand in.

In any case, it was over. Strange Man FINALLY walked away. That took 30 minutes to resolve. Really. No jokes. I walked away from that feeling like he made a mountain out of a mole hill. Whatever the case, I am glad it is over with.

Oh, and I felt the need to add that about an hour after this episode, I was watching Anthony as he was playing when Strange Man's little boy walked up to him and pushed him over. No reason what so ever. Hmmmm.... Makes you wonder, doesn't it?