Sugar and Spice and Really Not That Nice

Recently I have had an important realization about Mountain Child. She just isn’t very nice. I have suspected this for a while. I think that I got tipped off when a typical social scenario goes like this:

Innocent Victim: My what a cute little girl you are!

Mountain Child: NOOOOOO!!!!

Innocent Victim: Oh, what is on your shirt? Is that a flower? Look at your little bow and your curls!

Mountain Child: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mountain Mamma: I am really sorry. I am trying to teach her to be nice. It's just not working at the moment.

Innocent Victim: Oh, it's okay (looking rather offended), she's just two.

Mountain Child: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! GO AWAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!

This has happened to everyone, from strangers to my husband's boss at the company picnic to family members. People have told me that she will grow out of it once she gets a little older. People just think that she is just so cute that she couldn’t possibly be that mean. I guess it may be true, perhaps she will grow out of it, but our most recent experience just proves that, for the moment, Mountain Child has one long, black mean streak in her and there is nothing Sugar and Spice about this girl at all.

I was visiting Florida for about the hundredth time since we have moved to West Virginia. We were meeting up at the St. John’s Town Center with a dear friend of mine and her son that is almost exactly Mountain Child’s age. They always played so well together from the time they were able to walk, and I just adore his mom. We have been friends for over ten years.

The day promised to be just perfect. The weather wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t raining, and there was a children’s concert at the Town Center. Plus I just love that place. It is my version of commerce heaven. It has everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in one place: high end designers, great restaurants, a Target, and resort-like grounds complete with a koi fish and turtle pond right in the middle of everything. The concert was right by the pond area which I thought would be nice since Mountain Child loved the fish and turtles, although the utter lack of safety railing around the area always freaked me out. I guess aesthetics wins over safety.

Anyhow, we all meet and settle into our spots for the children’s concert. My friend is very pregnant, and we luckily scored a place to sit. I was wearing a very cute dress and shoes outfit and was quite proud of my self of how cute yet casual I was looking rather than my usual yoga pant getup that I have been wearing these days. The kids were watching the concert and playing with each other by one the smaller ponds. It was almost relaxing.

In hindsight, I realize now that that moment that I relax with Mountain Child is the precise moment when catastrophe will backhand me in a really, really ugly way.

So we are chatting and decide to get up and let the kids get a better look at the turtles and then get some lunch. Friend of Mountain Child is a sweet, energetic little boy, and, in typical little boy fashion, found it amusing to run up to Mountain Child and stand right on top of wherever she was standing. Mountain Child did not find it fun at all. She likes a very large circumference of space for herself, preferably an entire zip code. Every once in a while, Mountain Child would scream, NOOOOOOOO! And then my friend would say, “Give her some space!” Friend of Mountain Child would then run off smiling, do a lap around the little pond and do it again. I figured that this was a good exercise for Mountain Child to build a little character and tolerance.

This is part that gets a little fuzzy. We are standing by the larger pond and talking. We are watching the kids but we honestly aren’t completely in tune with what they were doing. And this is the moment where Friend of Mountain Child falls into the koi and turtle pond.

The water wasn’t deep but the edges around the pond were quite tall, and there really wasn’t any way for anyone to just reach over and help him out. Couple this with the fact that my friend is eight months pregnant or so, and guess who ends up getting him out—ME. In my cute dress and shoes. With the turtles and fish and all the pond scum and poop that was in there. But at that moment I supposed I went into Lifeguard Mode, remembering some of my long-gone YMCA lifeguarding days. I yelled, “I have him!” and jumped into that nasty pond and fished Friend of Mountain Child out of the pond. As all of the St. John Town Center shoppers looked on, horrified and whispering.

He was crying, soaked from head to toe, and screaming, “SHE PUSH ME!!!!”

Oh, crap. Did he just say that my kid pushed him in?????

I look over to Mountain Child. She is standing with a surprised yet sheepish look on her face, the exact same look she gets when she gets into something she shouldn’t and ends up dropping or breaking something. After we calm down Friend of Mountain child, change his clothes (yes, my friend is way more prepared for disasters than I ever would have thought to be), and attempted to disinfect him of the pond bacteria, my daughter says, “HE ALL WET! HE CRY. HE SAD.” She seemed very amused by the whole display.

“Did you push him into the pond?”

Mountain Child gives me a blank stare.

“Did he fall in the pond or did you push him?”

“NOOOO…..”

But Friend of Mountain Child was already convinced as to what happened. As soon as he could wiggle free from his mother, he ran over to Mountain Child and pushed her. I am pretty sure that he was warming up for a good, old-fashioned beat down until his mom grabbed him and scolded him. She then apologizes to me, embarrassed that her son got so angry and violent about the whole thing.

But I am thinking that Mountain Child had it coming to her since she more than likely was the one to push him in. And I tell my friend so. Then she jokingly says, “Well, there were no witnesses and it probably wouldn’t hold up in a court of law anyway.”

Oh, that’s right. I forgot to mention that my friend AND her husband are both attorneys. Way to pick your victims, Mountain Child.

In the end, my friend wasn’t upset with Mountain Child but very frazzled, so we did what anyone would do in that situation. We went to Panera to get some lunch. As we were walking, me sloshing along with my half-soaked dress and shoes, Mountain Child calmly riding in her stroller, and Friend of Mountain Child keeping his distance from her with his bare feet since his shoes were soaked, I decided that she definitely pushed him in. The diabolically calm look on her face right now absolutely proves it.

Mountain Child is cute and sometimes sweet but be warned: watch your back around her and open water.