<sigh> I would have g&g'd too, Soz.
Was the child, while in the car, out of her mother's eyesight?
Sort of. The child in the car was potentially within her eyesight, but the mom was apparently purposely not looking (focusing on the son). The child was squalling for a lot of it though, and while I'm not sure, I think that could be heard.
Hard to tell.
The possibility exists that the mother knew how long it would take for her child to stop crying, calm down, and be ready to get along. At the age of 3, my son hadn't even stopped his temper tantrums after 3 minutes. Time outs had to be 10 or 15 minutes to be effective.
On the other hand, maybe the mom was about to lose it from all the screaming & chasing and was giving HERSELF a timeout by locking the child in the car.
Stories like this make me grateful I don't have a 3 year old any more. Whew, they are work!!!
history; when I was a child protection social worker I once went into a classroom where the teacher had constructed a "time out room" in the corner of her classroom. I told her that if I ever came into that classroom and found a child in the "closet" I would file criminal charges against her for felony child abuse.
Explain about this "time out room," Dys. Was it a locked closet?
Sozobe, I agree that things like this can be difficult to "call" sometimes.
Several years ago, I was sitting in my apartment one afternoon, and I kept hearing a baby crying. The crying was going on and on.
I went outside and realized it was coming from an adjoining apartment building. I went inside the building and climbed the stairs with my heart thumping.
When I reached the floor where the crying was coming from, a neighbor lady happened to come out of her apartment at the same time.
I told her I'd come there because I was concerned about all the crying.
She told me, "Oh, don't worry. I know the couple who lives there. They're great parents. Their baby's fine. But when he starts crying, it takes him a while to stop. Everything's ok."
If she hadn't come out of her door just then, I know I would've knocked on the parents door and asked them what, if anything, was wrong.
Sometimes, it's difficult to tell. But I'd rather veer on the side of caution rather than not getting involved. You were right to keep your eyes open in that situation. You may not have said anything, but the mother obviously noticed your concern.
Being shy. Being shy sucks.
I was in the coffeeshop with the intention of translating a foreword and preface into Dutch for work (the place has no internet connectivity, so no risk of wandering into my email and doing all kinds of other stuff instead), and there I sat, busily typing (well, frowning), and in she comes, this girl whom I've seen there twice before and who reminds me frighteningly much of Anastasia.
Aaaahh.. <sighs>. Enough to instantly fall in love, or worse: become all fidgety and nervous. Couldnt concentrate at all anymore for as long as she was there. Plus, of course, never said a word, to her anyway (tho I suddenly started to chat with the girl who runs it, twice), except for saying "hi" and smiling when she came in. Well, I smiled a lot, period, but that doesnt cut it here. She smiled back as well, but left without saying bye.
Well, for the better probably. God she reminded me of Anastasia! Beautiful, kind or even sweet when she smiled and talked, but with a confident streak and a personal style (partly braided hair, something that held the middle between overall and catsuit, button-up wrap-around thing over it)..
Bugger, eh. You're all joky and talkative and charming to people whom you're mildly interested in, and when someone comes in who makes your breath stop for a split-second, you're reduced to this nervous, shifty, wordless smiler. Great. Not like that ever caught anyone's attention (in a positive way)...
Having to come into work and actually work. Blah!!
The headache I woke up with that just will not go away.
jpinMilwaukee wrote:The headache I woke up with that just will not go away.
That is such a great straight line...
You OK there, jpinMilwaukee?
(Tell me to mind my own business if you like.)
The house next door to us has been put up for sale. I have posted in various threads about the neighborhood changing from nice but modest homes in the woods to McMansions with one or two trees left behind. The current house on the property is a ranch-style house that will most certainly be torn down to be replaced with a 5 to 10 thousand square foot monster that fills as much of the footprint of the lot as possible and will be as high as zoning allows. Ugh!
The woodland between our houses had become overgrown with garlic mustard and I've spent years getting it under control. For the past two years we've had red and white trillium, may apples, jack-in-the-pulpits and other woodland flowers come back after having been crowded out by the garlic mustard. Now it will all become tennis courts, multicar garages, and turrets.
I think I'm going to be ill.
Oh, man, I sympathize. I think I talked about going back to my old neighborhood in Naperville (near downtown) and being appalled at how my old block has been transformed by the McMansions. Not just the behemoths themselves but how they cause trees and greenery to be torn up to make way...
Who knows, maybe these people will have more modest intentions.... (fingers crossed for ya).
Or you can move to Columbus! I don't know what it is about this place, but the emphasis is overwhelmingly on remodeling/ refinishing within the old footprint rather than teardowns. I'd become positively allergic to Tyvek Homewrap (seen everywhere in Naperville on rising McMansions) and it was such a relief to move here and either not see it or, if I did, see it on a remodel. (Nice low ceilings, plenty of trees...)
You can go down streets in Stoneham past human-scale capes and
colonials surrounded by trees and then, suddenly -- MEGA-HOUSE! -- and
then more small capes and colonials.
Tacky.
One by one the MEGA-HOUSES will become the norm, George. We were an isolated undiscovered jewel until a few years ago. The developers discovered our one and two acre properties that could be clear cut for putting up god-awful monsters. Of all the teardowns/rebuilds in our neighborhood so far, NONE of them house more than two people, but they have up to eight car garages for their motor fleets. I become apoplectic when I see two people and a small dog living in 8,000 sq. ft.
J_B wrote:The house next door to us has been put up for sale. I have posted in various threads about the neighborhood changing from nice but modest homes in the woods to McMansions with one or two trees left behind. The current house on the property is a ranch-style house that will most certainly be torn down to be replaced with a 5 to 10 thousand square foot monster that fills as much of the footprint of the lot as possible and will be as high as zoning allows. Ugh!
The woodland between our houses had become overgrown with garlic mustard and I've spent years getting it under control. For the past two years we've had red and white trillium, may apples, jack-in-the-pulpits and other woodland flowers come back after having been crowded out by the garlic mustard. Now it will all become tennis courts, multicar garages, and turrets.
I think I'm going to be ill.
Oh God, I feel for you.
There should be a law against such things.
(In Holland, there is. You need city government approval for pretty much every thing you change about your house, whether a new floor or a new balcony. And they wont give it if it disturbs the neighbourhood. Some will call it the nanny state. I call it the community refusing the individual to spoil the space everyone has to live in. Enough reason to be pretty combative about it.)
it's the same in slovakia. except you can buy just about anyone with the right bribe...
Michael Chertoff and Condoleeza Rice made me grimace and grit today.
The headache I got from eating an ice cream a little while ago, made me grimace!
