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That being said, a few days after that post, I caught myself being that mom. You know, the one who disciplines other peoples' kids in public.

We were making our usual Saturday outing to the Tower Grove Farmer's Market. I'd finished my shopping, and we were in the playground, having fun. Now, this is one of those cool parks that not only has two seperate play structures - one for kids under five, the other for bigger kids - but even has them in seperate playgrounds. The big hooligans should never come into contact with the sweet babes.

As it was getting late in the morning, my little family had the entire toddler area to ourselves. That is, until a pack of wild dingos a group of young people came trampling in. There were six of them. Or 23. It was hard to tell with all the pre-adolescent arms and legs flailing akimbo and the screaming and yelling and oh my God, don't these kids have parents, for God's sake? All 47 of them climbed onto the one-person merry-go-round and began spinning round and round and round and screaming and sweet Jesus can you imagine how much puke this is going to create we need to leave NOW.

Oh, I wanted to tell them to pipe down and go play in the big kid's playground. Even though they weren't bothering us. Even though they were just being kids. Even though they didn't seem to have any parents around, and one girl who couldn't have been more than 13 years old appeared to be in charge of the whole group. So, I bit my tongue.

That is, until the punches started flying. Once these 253 unsupervised brats started physically fighting, I put on my Mom Shoes (they're made by Easy Spirit***) and kicked some ass by annoucning, "Hey! You kids! Stop fighting right now!" even though I feel like I'm a nerdy 11-year-old narking on the big kids when I say shit like that.

(***Good lord, no, I don't own those shoes. I'm not that far-gone. Not yet.)

But apparently, I don't look or sound like a dorky 11-year-old, because those kids stopped dead, shut up, and stopped fighting.

I have the parental power supreme.

And then there's today. If you read regularly, you've probably figured out that Clara Jane and I don't spend a lot of time at home. We like to get out and go. I've had a lot of people inform me that we go more than is typical. We just don't like to be cooped up. When we're cooped up, it's far too easy to sit around in our jammies, doing nothing but watching TV all day. I don't want Clara Jane to grow up like that. So, the two of us go to the library. We go to museums. We take classes. We hang out at coffeehouses. We go out for lunch several times a week, just the two of us. Yes, it's fun. And yes, it's hard. Crazy hard.

I used to be friends with someone for many, many years. From second grade until about three years ago, we were friends. She suffered from severe, often mistreated or undertreated bipolar disorder. It was a horrible experience in a lot of ways. But let me tell you, being in public with someone in the midst of a manic breakdown is good preparation for being in public with an outspoken two and a half-year-old. And bonus - it's much easier to wrestle a two and a half-year-old to the ground.

My frustration currently is that every fun thing with daughter is marred by The Mania.

On Sunday we finally took her on her first proper outing to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. She'd been twice before, but was too tiny to actually eat anything. I'd looked forward to this day for so long.

Doesn't that look awesome? A child, her first proper trip to a landmark, a cup full of frozen custard deliciousness, held on her father's lap. Does life get much better?

No, because in about thirty seconds, that child is going to dart into the heavily-trafficked parking lot, throwing herself to the pavement, completely deaf to the screams of her parents.

Yesterday, I had grand plans of us making apple cupcakes. What really happened? She threw a fit because I had the audacity to use my Kitchenaid mixer. First she climbed my body like a lemur, howling and screaming at the unfairness of it all, then she asked to go play with her toys as if nothing had happened. Not that it matters, since I underbaked the cupcakes. I ate one this afternoon anyway, and it had a mysterious crunchy substance on its top.

And today. I took her to the zoo. We're fortunate in that we live in a city that has one of the best zoos in the country, and it's free. There's not the huge pressure to go once a year and see everything because dammit, we're gonna get our money's worth. If we want to go for an hour or two and see one area, we can. And we do. But we haven't in a long time, not since the days when she was pretty content to stat put in her stroller.

Today's stroller-free freedom allowed her to interact with fake sea lions:

and a real hippo:

It allowed her to wander around and find the bookie to place our bets when the rhino rumble broke out:

For the record, if you happen across a rhino and she's giving you the stink eye like this:

do yourself a favor and get the hell away from her. Of course, that advice is probably good anytime you happen across a rhino. stink eye or no.

Being stroller-free also provide Clara Jane to walk up to an eldery zoo volunteer and explain that the elephant has "a great big trunk, two big white tusks, and makes a big poop."

It also allowed her the opportunity to go running through the makeshift cave, screaming her head off, where she was able to throw herself onto the concrete ground and throw a first-rate tantrum, all in the presence of tsk-tsking people who were apparently smart enough to leave their toddlers at home. I couldn't tell if they were tsk-tsking because I was a lazy, lenient parent whose child was running around like she needed some lithium, or because I was a child-abusing disciplinarian.

The whole experience, even though it had precious moments like Clara Jane telling me the mother elephant is beautiful, made me break out in what I can only assume is a bad case of rhino pox: