Who would have guessed that a trip to the zoo would leave me feeling like a strange human anomyly, a shadow of a woman. This is more the product of visiting the zoo with three boys, than of any innate psychological paranoia (well at least I hope so).
As my oldest son grows up I seem to be having more and more experience at being shadow-mom. We've all seen her, she's the woman relegated to the periphery, obviously somewhat irritating, called upon for food, money or potential safety concerns, but otherwise unnecessary. This has become my lot whenever Owen has a play-date with a friend and the adolescent conversation takes a downward turn toward destruction, battles and pokemon fed frenzies.
Meanwhile Bodhi, who regularly resembles a hybridization of Yosemite Sam and the Tasmanian Devil, attempted to climb every barrier designed for human safety whenever he wasn't running hell-mell throughout the park terrorizing animals and mother alike. The only thing the three boys seemed to unanimously agree on was to disregard and ignore the irrational reproaches of a shadow-mother's voice, softly reminding them to RESPECT, to THINK, to OBSERVE. After several hours of enduring my irritating presence the boys were liberated from my company when I simply stood up, looked at them all and said, "I DON'T WANT TO PLAY ANYMORE".--- (Well I didn't actually say it, but I did stand up and say OKAY time to go. One of the perks to being the shadow mom is that I hold the keys... for now.)
Otherwise, we had a marvelous time.
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