Update on Babygate 2009

You all might remember the letter I wrote a while back about having to ask a little boy at Mother's Day Out not to touch my baby, right?

Well, he tried it again!

Let me set the scene for you.

When I go to get my boys from school, I take Ella in with me in her infant carseat. I usually set her just inside the doorway to Jackson's classroom while I gather his things and try (rather unsuccessfully) to pry Cooper away from the toys in there.

During the pickup last Thursday, I put Ella in her usual spot and started up a conversation with Jackson's teacher while trying to round up the boys as they played together and got reacquainted; you'd think they'd been apart for weeks! "Cooper, I MISSED you! Did you miss me?" "Yeah." "Cooper! I love you and I I like you." "Yove you, yike you." And so on.

After a while, I began to move toward the door, saying, "I'm leaving, boys. Are you coming with me?" (from page 2 in the Parenting Playbook.) Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of littleboy in the doorway. THE little boy. And right behind him, his mother--talking rapidly under her breath and frantically grabbing at his hands before he laid them on my unsuspecting child. It was close, very close.

I'm pretty sure TouchyPunchy's Mom didn't see me. If she had, she might have been puzzled by just how amused I was at the situation. For starters, from what I could tell, Touchy couldn't have seen the carseat for more than a millisecond before deciding that (a.) it had a baby in it, and that (b.) the baby? it must be touched. You gotta appreciate the little guy's fervor. And to top it off: that it just happened to be MY baby, again--the lady who apparently takes issue with such a thing--well that's, just, comedy gold!

♦