Zoo Trauma

Today we went to the Natl Zoo to see the baby lions before they aren't babies anymore. It was sunny, warm and slightly windy. Our party consisted of me, the kid, and the man's parents. We packed our lunch in coolers and parked in the lot near the biggest set of picnic tables (the last lot near the "Barn" or petting zoo, in case you need to know. The man's dad is a FONZ member, so parking is free, and as with all Smithsonian locals, entrance is free.

Ater lunch, the day was going well. Area schools have Spring break in a few weeks yet, so all the other visitors consisted of stay-at-home moms with hers of young children, college students, and tourists from all over the planet. Did i mention it was a nice day? We went to the zoo in April 2010 and it was 95 and gross out, so it was great to have an actual spring this year.

All of a sudden the kid had an accident in her pants and we had to visit the bathroom located near the "mane cafe." There was poop everywhere, it was like she'd rolled in mud. Potty training is hard stuff and as previously mentioned, my kid's got a few extra issues on top of regular potty training issues, so if we only have one pee accident a day, we count it as a success. I take what I can get,or I'd be insane. It doesn't help that all the other women with kids the age of mine or slightly younger brag that theirs are already night trained and day training "only took a day." Lying bitches.

Anyway, so there I am, wrist deep nasty runny in poopy at the zoo when a herd of VERY, VERY LARGE DOUGHY PALE people (picture small cow sized dumplings) rush in. It was a grand mom, daughter, and 4 youngins'. I had nothing against the people at first, UNTIL youngin' #2 started the laughing, pointing, staring, questioning and harassing of me and my kid. "Why doesn't your kid go in the toilet like everyone else?" and "doesn't she know you're not supposed to go in your pants?" with the ever helpful "that's just disgusting. she's disgusting. Do NOT put those pants in your bag!" On and on it wwent. MissM was in tears sobbing "I'm sorry Mommy. I tried" among other things. I'm going to point out here, I was minding my own trying to do damage control and had been awesomely putting up with the mentally ill/dementia suffering MIL with a 3yo and agoraphobic FIL all over the zoo. I am a trooper but I was about to snap here. I looked up at the kid, noticed her twin sibling, other siblings, mother and g-mom just standing there egging the kid on into new heights of rudeness. These people were from Germany or somewhere where German is the native tongue BTW. People say we Americans are rude assholes, but we've got nothing on these jackoffs.

I'm going to note something else here. I support a charity for families of people with Autism and I was wearing my Autism hat at the zoo. It's my fav hat b/c it's comfy but not heavy or hot, and it's cute. I often forget I'm wearing it when I have it on or what it says until someone does something to remind me. When I wear this hat, people assume my kid has Autism and often follow me around trying to figure out if my kid's defective. When my kid has a temper tantrum, people point at my hat, then the kid and shrug to say "Oh, that explains it!" People even strike up convos with me to share battle stories about our Autistic kids etc.

Generally, I don't care if people assume my kid has Autism or not, nor do I care if they play the "let's see if she behaves funny" game with my kid either, b/c it makes me laugh. People are that messed up. It is ironic to note that my kid does have a disability, not Autism though, that few people would know about unless they've taken classes in developmental issues and then spent time watching my kid with her peers. My kid can "pass," well, until you ask her to do things she should be doing specific to her age, like pooping on a toilet more often than not or self feeding. So, in a small way, people who do look at my hat and then watch my kid to play the "wtf is wrong with her?" game, are actually right, my kid isn't exactly like most of the kids her age and if there were a hat in support of kids with her issue, I'd probably wear it proudly.

So back to the bathroom. After a few previous offers of assistance/nosy questions had been fronted, everyone in that bathroom was operating under the assumption that my kid had Autism and several people looked sick that these fat German bastards were picking on my developmentally disabled kid for being developmentally disabled. Since my kid is developmentally disabled (again not Autism, but still DD), I was horrified that these assholes thought it was appropriate to attack my 3yo.

I didn't result to violence, and I sort-of blacked out about that time, but it wasn't pretty.

After I got the kid cleaned and out of the bathrrom and calmed down, we found the in-laws, explained the situation and the MIL was lucid enough to calm ME down while the FIL took MissM to look at panda bears. It's been at least 9 hours and I am SILL PISSED. Every time we saw those mofos around the zoo, I wanted to make a scene, but I didn't, b/c MissM had been traumatized enough.

this was he first time someone has picked on her b/c she's different and I'm not sure who it hurt the most, me or her.