Scene from a neighborhood coffee shop

[Lydia Leftcoast]

I'm at my late afternoon office, aka my local neighborhood coffee shop and hangout, and about 30 minutes ago, a young mother walked in with two little boys, ages about 5 and 7.

This is not unusual in itself. There are a lot of young families around here. Most of the parents feed the kids some juice or cocoa and send them off to play in the toy corner while they do grown-up stuff like drinking coffee and reading the paper.

However, this woman decided that she was going to read "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" aloud to the kids--not only at fairly high volume and overly dramatically, but also way too fast. The kids were clearly not listening. First one wondered off, then the other. The mother looked miffed and went and got them back.

Now she's at it again. The older boy has wandered off again, and the younger one is studiously scraping at the dregs of his cocoa. Every once in a while, the woman stops and tries to engage the him. "Do YOU think they should cancel the Christmas pageant?" He looks up, like a student caught sleeping in class.

Thank goodness for earphones and tunes on the hard drive. The mother's voice is getting really irritating.

[SOteric]

1. I'm so thankful to have had the parents I had.

:7

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. I bet this mother is going to be complaining a few years from now:

"My kids never listen to me."

Well, yeah, if you keep up a constant soundtrack in their ears, they learn to tune you out.

My mother used to read to us, too, but not entire books at once and not in coffee shops. As a trained teacher, she had some respect for young children's attention spans and abilities to absorb information.

[Little Wing]

3. I suspect it was a baby sitter

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Unless the babysitter's name is "Mommy," no

:-)

[Little Wing]

5. ah, that wasn't specific in the OP

shame for the kids, what a weirdo