Once More into the Fray

Toddler World: to those not acquainted with this assault on the senses (primarily hearing and smell), it’s essentially a large room packed full of screaming children playing on padded mats and bouncy shapes.

However, this isn’t just a play centre. Nannies use it as a social networking arena whilst the less hands-on carers see it more as a home office, as they perch on a bench with a coffee and the paper or mobile phone. There they sit for the duration, heads bowed, oblivious or simply unconcerned by their feral children who nudge, shove and swipe equipment from the other kids, safe in the knowledge that they will go unchallenged.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are the neurotic parents and Toddler World provides them with the ideal opportunity to raise their stress levels. They follow their kids around like stubborn shadows, diving headlong between them and any other children. This is in case skin contact is made and life-threatening germs are passed on.

My personal space was firmly encroached upon this morning, as a woman tried to remain within umbilical cord distance to her son, shoving interlopers aside like annoying flies. Had I been less sleep-deprived and my normal confrontational self, I would have shoved her back. However, it probably would have been as effective as trying to topple a bus. She was built like a Ukrainian shot putter and had feet that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a butcher’s window. Instead I simply smiled as someone’s feral child whipped the legs out from under cotton wool son on the bouncy castle and she made valiant but comically unsuccessful attempts to climb on and save him.