Officially freaked out

i am officially freaked out by children. not my own. other kids...out there...in the world. the ones that aren’t my kids.

i had been all excited about the new third floor kids’ play area at bellevue square mall. that was not the disappointment of the day, by the way. that part was actually a perfect discovery and costs nothing and i will be there all the time. mom and i brought the girls there in the late afternoon and jason met us on his way from work. we rounded the corner to a large, circular play area with benches for the parents around the perimeter. the play area had about six or eight little thingamajiggers for the kids to crawl on and slide on and crawl through, etc. (i just stared at the screen for like thirty seconds searching for what to say besides thingamajiggers, but that’s all i’ve got). the only examples i can remember were a ferry boat and an iceberg. go wild with imagination. anyhow it was definitely worth more than a free pass. i would have paid for a season’s pass if it required one. seattle parents have got to stay on top of what’s out there, well “in” there, because of the rain.

so i’m getting to the freaked out part.

we kicked off our shoes and i’m sweating before i’ve taken three steps. the girls got quickly obsessed with this iceberg thing that had steps and a slide. it was swarming with kids. jason and i assigned ourselves to one of the girls. my initial euphoria began to wear off a little when i started swirling in the insanity of kids running and flying and tumbling over each other. the height limit was 42 inches and clearly there was no security enforcing any rules. i’m only 62 inches so i was easily gaging the rule breaking. we just had to stick close and make ourselves the girls’ little body guards.

when grace plays she is really focused on one of two things. she either is focused on her task of conquering a challenge. or else she is staring at someone. she isn’t super friendly, which is fine with me at these places. her stares aren’t admiration. she’s sizing them up to see if she should run to us or if she can keep exploring in peace.

kanah, on the other hand, is only about 10% explorer and 90% friend maker. she spends a lot of time sitting in this awkward position with her knees bent under her and feet angled out in a way that my legs would have to be broken to imitate. she stares too but then smiles and laughs and really wants to interact.

so eventually of course our little “most likely to have 1000 friends by second grade” made a friend. i have been calling her miranda ever since. just worked for me. she had to be like seven or eight. i literally don’t even know how she found us. in all the chaos who knows. but she kind of cozied up to kanah and smiled a lot and then would dart away, kind of skipping off to another thingamajigger. kanah would laugh and reach out her arms and then get distracted and go about her way. and then miranda would come back and cozy up close to kanah’s face and laugh with her and maybe follow her up the stairs. eventually they were both crawling around the floor, kind of chasing each other through this tunnel.

it wouldn’t have been so weird if miranda was near kanah’s age. but it kind of felt like kanah had a stalker. i’m serious, it felt weird and you’ll just have to believe me. at this point jason and i have gone from smiling and playing around to giving each other a look like, “who is this little girl and what do we do?” playtime at bellsquare for us went from playful time with our kids to full on kick some booty bodyguarding of our precious little daughters.

her behavior was just strange. she had some little charm in her hand and she’d show it to kanah, kind of prompting her to want to take it and then as kanah would finally reach for it, she’d laugh and snatch it away and crawl off for a minute before coming back. at this point i’m thinking, um, did someone drop off a demon...or is there actually a parent wanting to claim this little chump. jason and i actually did spot the mama at one point. she had a baby in a carriage and had her head buried in a book. i stared at her a long time as miranda ran all around, getting into all kinds of things, and getting mixed up in all the crowds of people. the mama didn’t look up once the whole time i stared at her. i started to understand miranda a little better but that didn’t make it easy for her to be around kanah.

miranda was very unusual. she didn’t like me. at first i tried to be nice but then got all bodyguard on her when she’d come up too close to kanah’s face. at one point she actually kissed kanah on the cheek after i’d already told her that she could play with kanah but would have to give her some space. after the kiss i gave her a direct order to not touch my daughter and that i knew who her mama was if i needed to speak with her. she scowled at me and crawled away kind of crazily.

she came back up to me, mom and kanah when we found a toy on one of the perimeter walls. she came running up and got about one foot away from my mom and shouted “no!” with an ugly look on her face. it was actually a slightly insane moment. my mom had just been sitting there. i thought maybe she was jealous about kanah but then realized my mom wasn’t even playing with kanah, i was. miranda shouted it twice and ran off again and at this point i was convinced she had similar issues as some of the foster children i’ve worked with: likes to play with children in a much younger age bracket, has wild eyes, doesn’t like discipline, has experienced much neglect, cannot focus on a task, is seemingly attached one minute and devisive the next, has wild abusive type behaviors towards children and adults alike, doesn't know how to give or receive love, etc.

so you can kind of see why i officially got freaked out by other kids that day. miranda made me look around at all the kids. some of them seemed like my girls, normal and playful, and didn’t have any of those odd behaviors listed above. but you never know who the mirandas are. there are many kids who behave oddly. and there are also many weird adults. i mean, if i had decided to read a book like miranda’s mom, there could be any number of kidnappers just walk into that insane play area and scoop one of my daughters up and walk off and no one would have any idea.

i think i’m freaked out in a good way. but i hate it. when i am at home with my girls they are so peaceful, so wonderful. i'm not saying they are perfect or not naughty or selfish, but their spirits are sweet. i know they have a sin nature, but there is a purity and goodness in them that has not been fully tainted by life yet. and i guess i just felt a little weirded out that day because it felt like one of the first times i felt the need to shelter them from the world or something. so we’ve decided to stay away from classes and pre-school and playgrounds and homeschool the girls when they’re ready. just kidding, that’s not where i am headed here. but let me just say for a moment...i hate the world and i am ready for what heaven will be like for all of us. i hate feeling freaked out for good reason. i want a good life for my girls but i know the world is gross and run by sick motives all around them. and i know that they need jesus too, so that they don’t pollute the world as well. i guess i just felt the icky-ness of humanity that day and how a seemingly carefree environment could feel like a place to be on guard. i’m just glad, i guess i’m saying, that we’ll eventually live in a place that won’t feel like that. and i can read a book on the sidelines without watching the doors or putting a sign in the street saying “slow down, children playing” or setting our alarm at night. and the mirandas out there need jesus. and it’s quite tricky as a parent to know how to love them and also be wise about our children. i love my daughters. i want to be a good mama. i want to see them as they really are too, including all of their sins and tendencies too. and that’s why i’ll be praying much more now. because i got a little more feel for the world the other day. and i'm freaked out.