My daughter learned to climb chain-link fences today. Ugh!
It started at Grampa’s house, where she was trying to get the attention of the neighbour’s dog and was repeatedly ignored. Not one to let things slide, Maya stuck her feet in the holes of the fence and worked her way to the top and was about to swing a leg over when I bellowed at full volume to GET DOWN RIGHT NOW! She got down and tried to explain that the doggie not talking a her ‘n’ she only wanna give da doggie a stick but doggie no answer her. I reiterated that she is to never climb up a fence again, and thought that was the end of that.
Then after school the kids and I went to the neighbourhood park which is boardered by a Catholic school, which also has a chain link fence. I thought nothing of it, fully confident in my parenting abilities and the rules I had set out earlier in the day regarding fences. I saw her playing near the fence with a bunch of kids and everything seemed good, so I continued to talk with some of the other Moms at the park. Mid-conversation I glance across the park to see this little blonde haired, blue t-shirted, orange Croc’d Spiderman-impersonating menace scaling the bloody fence to get to the schoolyard. Seeing as how I’m stiff and sore from back troubles, dog-tired and not moving very fast, and wearing Crocs myself which prevent me from chasing even a turtle, I shouted out loud enough so EVERYONE in the park heard “MAYA GET OFF THAT FENCE NOW!” as I’m speed-walking as fast as my tree-trunk legs and feet in Crocs would allow me to go without falling (fat) ass-over-apple-cart in front of everyone and embarrassing myself. She got off the fence and I thought I made my point, so I headed back to the Moms section. For whatever reason halfway back I turned my head to look at Maya, who had decided that she’ll do what she’s told and not climb the fence but cleverly came up with another tactic I hadn’t thought of: crawling UNDER the fence. I called out to her to get out of there but by the time I got to her she had already crawled beneath the fence like a damn puppy and was on the other side so I couldn’t get to her. I was so pissed I growled “you get back over to this side of the fence right now or so-help-me-God…”. “But I can’t Mommy. I can’t get under der again”. I said “You managed to get yourself over there and you get your butt back over here right now even if it means you have to tear your shirt and scrape your back in the process”. Umm, yeah I was pretty pissed by now. That seemed to inspire her to find the will and the way and she quite easily snuck back under the fence and back to me, where I asked her “What on Earth would make you think it was a good idea to leave the park and go into a schoolyard that’s fenced off so I can’t get to you?”. Her answer? “I yooking for cadderpiyyers Mommy. Der’s no more at da park an I yooking over der for dem and dat girl over der did it an she ahready gotted some cadderpiyyers and dey’re gonna be all gone Mommy an I just wanna pay wiff dem too Mommy.”. She had a very good point there. So after I did the whole “just because someone does something doesn’t mean you get to do it because you already knew it was wrong” speech (I’m saving the if-your-friend-jumped-off-a-bridge-would-you-think-it’s-a-good-idea-and-jump-off-too speech for later), took her by the hand and made the Walk-of-Shame back to the other mothers, who watched me every step of the way and didn’t say a word.
The whole time, Matthew and his (girl) friends were playing near the sewer grate.
Spider-Maya, Spider-Maya, does whatever a Spider-Maya does. Can she swing, from a web? Probably but hasn’t thought of it yet. Look out, cuz here comes Spider-Maya!
