Every so often, I attempt to pretend that I am a fun mom. It’s a nice feeling, walking among other ACTUALLY fun moms and acting the part. But last week, I witnessed the most incredible thing, which made me realize that maybe I should stick with being boring.
B and I decided to go to a sprinkler park. For those of you unfamiliar with what this is, it’s essentially a paved parking lot that the town decided to put sprinklers underneath. It’s not particularly attractive, nor is it all that safe because the ground gets slippery, but there’s also a playground and a nice set of walking trails with a river running nearby that make it worth the trip.
After running AROUND the sprinklers (the idea of actually getting WET appeals to my daughter about as much as cleaning the house appeals to me), we decided to break for lunch. Again, playing the part of the “fun” mom, I had brought a beach towel and set up a picnic underneath a tree at the top of a hill that was literally in the middle of nowhere. The only view we had was of a circular path about a quarter mile below us that crossed over a babbling brook, which was dried up from the lack of rain we’ve been having. This all sounds very picturesque, right?
We had been sitting there for about ten minutes when we saw a woman down below walking down the path. It was then that she yelled up at us, “Excuse me! Have you seen my little friend?”
Absolutely convinced that she must have lost her dog, B and I shouted back that we had not, but that we’d keep an eye out. We continued eating our lunch.
All of a sudden, at least five minutes later, something caught my eye way down at the bottom of the path. Something was moving under the bushes underneath the bridge that extended over the babbling brook I mentioned earlier (what is it with me and finding weird things next to the water?). We both stared, mesmerized by the fact that the tree was moving but nothing was coming out of it.
Sure enough, the trees finally parted and out stepped… a CHILD. Yes, A CHILD!!! The kid couldn’t have been more than five years old, and yet there he was, playing around by himself on the rocks overlooking what SHOULD have been a filled stream.
Just as I was getting up to go retrieve the child, that woman reappeared around the corner of the path. I shouted to her, “was your ‘little friend’ a CHILD?”
“Oh yeah!” she responded nonchalantly. “Did you find him?”
Yes, lady, I found him. He’s right here. Playing by himself in the middle of a river. And would you like to join Mindless Mom? Because maybe we all need a new fearless leader, and you sound like you’d fit the bill real well.