news of the day

This is long and disjointed. Pretend it is a newspaper and articles have no common thread or over-arching plot.

ASSAULT AT MCDONALD'S PLAYLAND ENDS IN BLOODSHED, SHAME
I took the kids to dinner at McDonald's using the gift cards the Easter Bunny left. Thank you, Easter Bunny. That was about as hellish as you'd imagine, given the fact that I have four kids and we were at a McDonald's.

At some point, I became aware that my [large] boys were being chased by a smaller boy. My boys are 4, so maybe this boy was 3 or just a slightly smaller 4. They seemed to be playing some sort of game, since the little boy kept cackling an evil laugh and informing bystanders that he was the Riddler. My boys ran and laughed for a while, but then they came and cowered behind me and under my table. I was proud.

I ignored this as much as it is possible to ignore three preschool-aged boys chasing each other under your legs, but then finally the Riddler stood on the other side of the mini-chain link fence next to me. P got brave and stood up with his face near the chain link, and the Riddler punched the chain link into P's face, splitting his lip.

P started to cry, and I dug for napkins and tissues to clean up the blood. The Riddler stood by, taunting P. Seriously, he was saying, "Ha ha!" G started to get angry and moved closer to the boy (fence still between them) in defense of his brother.

While blotting P's face, I told the Riddler saying, "Ha ha" wasn't nice or okay, since P had gotten hurt and was bleeding. The Riddler ignored me, running away then back again repeatedly, stopping each time to tell us, "Ha ha!"

I looked for his mother but didn't see anyone acting as though they cared what he was doing. In the meantime, G had begun sticking his tongue out at the boy and spitting (blowing raspberries -- what is the term for that when it isn't some cute thing? Spitting seems like it means large globs of slobber.) through the fence. The boy ran over and punched the fence where G's face was. I instructed G to sit down in a chair, and with his trademark obedience he ignored me. The boy punched the fence again and I bellowed, "NO! DON'T!" the same way I would if he were one of my little mofos.

With that he ran away to his mama and cried. I watched her console him and give me death glares, while I finished cleaning blood off P's face. I wished she would come over and yell at me, but she did not.

Then, the rest of the time we were all there, my boys were terrified of this little pipsqueak! WTF? They are bigger, there are two of them...? I guess I should be glad they haven't discovered how to leverage their size and strength in numbers, but it is a little embarrassing. Man up, boys, you're 4.5 now! Sheesh.


AREA BOY GETS IN A REAL ZINGER, MOM FIGHTS BACK LAUGHTER
On the way home, A was chattering away as she typically does. It makes my brain really tired so sometimes I tune her out. She said something like, "I can't WAIT 'til blah blah blah," and G interrupted, "Yeah, well I can't wait 'til you stop talking and just ride in the car and be quiet."

Then I nearly choked trying not to laugh, and tried to devise a way to call Jason and tell him about it without the kids hearing me.