Remember That I Told You So...

The scene of my crime

It all started when I heard S. admonishing a little caped terror on the play structure.  "What's going on?" I asked.

"That kid scared Cody, and now he just scared Liv."  Then S. swept his arm out to indicate a gold-toothed, Jheri-curled Central American woman, cackling into her cell phone at the periphery of the sandbox.  "I told him I needed to talk his mom, and he said 'She's not my mom.'"  Then he called to the woman, "You need to watch this kid.  He can't scare the little guys."  The woman registered nothing.  "No bueno," S. added helpfully.

When she hung up the phone, I called out to her in Spanish: "Your kid's scaring my little guys."

"He's not pushing them, is he?" She shrugged. "So he's scaring them. Sorry. He's not hurting anybody."

"Isn't it your job to watch him."

"I'm watching him."

"You were talking on the phone."

"I had a very important family phone call."

"Just leave it," S. hollered from the top of the structure.  "We'll let the kid's parents know next time we see them here." The woman had sprung to her feet by now and without my realizing it, I had placed my hand on my hip.  I also realized that I had been raising my voice to conduct this conversation, since she was about fifteen feet away from me.  Hand on hip + Spanish shouting match with gold-grilled, badly permed babysitter =  maybe not such a great impression on the nice blonde lawyer mom from the kids' class and her friend, pleasantly feeding their children dehydrated apples at the edge of the playground.

A confused dad bobbed between the woman and I, trying to keep up with a little boy who monkeyed around the structure and stay out of the middle of us.

I was an idiot.  "We'll take it up with the parents," I translated dutifully.  On and on she blathered, making less and less sense as I tried to move out of sight of the other moms.  "Look," I finally said, "not interested in your story.  We'll let the kid's parents know next time we see them here."

"We all make mistakes in this life," she spat then.  "You remember that I told you so."

I knew already what my mistake had been.  I shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place -- or I could have done as it says in Matthew 18:15 and spoken to the woman privately.  But I didn't do that, and now I'm the mom who gets in heated public Spanish yelling exchanges with gesticulating babysitters.

At least I'm starting the first Sunday of Advent with a humbled heart.