Passive Aggressive Parenting

I've sort of stumbled upon a parenting technique. In a playground situation, parents around here talk loudly and pointedly to their children in a passive way of communicating with other parents. I wonder how this sort of communication evolved.

Perhaps something for David Attenborough to study. I can hear him narrating now... "Parents have long desired to communicate effectively with others without offending in tense situations of... forced community. Some may resort to idle chatter about the weather or the children's developmental stages. Others, to ward off an uncomfortable confrontation may choose to passively inform their children of certain things which are none of the children's concern and, in fact, the communication is not targeted at them, but at other parents. For exahmple, when a child's sand pail is in the hands of another adult, she may say 'Cade, where is your bucket?' to draw attention to the fact that she sees the bucket in question and she knows... whose... it is. Another parent may sense a potential opportunity to steer his child off the swings and employ the technique to encourage the child to move along by saying, 'Hon, I think that little boy is waiting for a swing.' When, in fact, no one is waiting and the parent of the child in question doesn't even know the other parent is talking to them at all."

Or maybe it's just me...

On a completely different subject, Reid got his first tooth today! It's the bottom left incisor. (Well, technically, it's just the corner...) He is really struggling to get the other one out. Both of my forefingers have bruises from him having chewed on them so hard. Poor kid. He's been chomping on his own fingers like the Abominable Snowman in Rudolph after they take his teeth out. He's about as big as the Abominable Snowman, too. He's wearing Noah's hand-me-down jammies in size 12 month!

Cade has a nice bruise on his face from said park excursion. Apparently, I was so busy talking to other parents though Cade, I forgot to actually speak directly to him to warn him not to walk close behind the swings. I was tending to Reid, when I heard crying and looked up to see Cade on the ground already getting a shiner. Poor kid. That's one way to learn, I guess. That was Friday, it's in the yellow stage now, so hopefully it will be gone by the end of the week. Poor ol' kid. Not to mention that he is also teething. Still trying to get that last molar in.

Brandon took Cade to the pool for the first swim of the year. It's been in the 90's here for pete's sake! We'll have to get Reid out there soon.

In the mean time, I think I'd better enroll in Attenborough detox.