"That" kid . . .

You know who I am talking about, that kid on the playground who always seems to have come by herself, that boy at the mall's play area who latches on to you and your child for dear life, the girl at the children's museum who insists on sitting next to your infant and attempting to play with her even though they are obviously a mismatched pair in every sense of the word.  The latch-on stranger child phenomenon has bothered me since I was a kid (and I did not want to share my little sister/ barbie/ soccer ball with some girl I hardly knew and who seemed to lack the common courtesy to ask before grabbing) but now that I am the mama, it bothers me a million times more.  

I should add a little disclaimer here; I actually feel sorry for these kids that their parents or grandparents or babysitters don't guide them a bit socially or at least help them engage in an activity or give them some attention.  Something!  It is not the fault of the seven-the-year old in question that she is completely bored and ignored.  BUT, as the parent of an infant (even if she looks like is 1 1/2 or 2 years old), I resent being deputized as playground magnet just because I am paying attention.  

Here is a recent example:  I took E to a coffee shop and then to a playground with a couple of other mamas and tots.  The playground was the place to be this afternoon because it was a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky and about 65 degrees (so, too chilly for the beach parks but still great for running around outside).  E is not quite walking yet so I spread out a blanket on the grass and she proceeded to crawl at least twenty feet away from said blanket immediately and so we explored the grass together ( I was always within two feet of her).  She adores putting random objects into her mouth so we played a rousing game of "Mama, just you try to stop me from eating this clump of grass/dandelion/piece of bark/stone/discarded popcorn kernel."  I won.  The next thing I know, there is a little girl coughing in E's face and holding onto her hand.  E, a very easy-going and social child who usually doesn't think twice about playing with other babies and even other grown-ups, looked distressed and really didn't like that she could not access her own hand.  I quickly removed the little girl's hand and smiled at her, hoping that she would return to the playground and rejoin her own mama/friend/etc.  No such luck, she followed us back to our blanket so that she could cough on E's little baby friend and then pull out a teething toy and ask if she could play with it.  Really?  Germs and grossness aside, what on earth would she even do with this object?  It was annoying.  She eventually got bored and left us alone and we wiped down the babies and made a mental note to run the teether through the dishwasher.  I know that it the scheme of things it's no big deal, but it was annoying.

The only thing I can really do is vow to supervise my own child when she is interacting with others (and make an interception if I notice that she is smothering someone less than half her age).  And I can vent.  Whew.