Seats at soft play

[isitginoclock]

I'm at soft play with the children this morning. Sat at a nice table under a heat lamp (it's one of those warehouse-y places.) On my own, having a coffee, catching up on emails, life admin etc etc. kids are of an age where they can take care of themselves, but the tables well located to keep an eye. It's got busy as the mornings gone on and I've just had a group of mums approach me and ask if they can have the table because there's four of them. I said no - but welcome to perch with me or take the chairs elsewhere. I got a really huffy response that they want to have lunch and so do their DCs and there are no other tables. There are comfy chairs over the other side but I don't want to move there - my laptop is out, I'm settled and I've got a good view of the kids. So it was a no.
AIBU not to move? They are currently glaring at me from afar.

I've offered to share before and usually it's just shared. I've asked and I've offered. Same as others.

If op is in the uk and she posted at one in the afternoon saying softplay has got busy as the mornings gone on....how long have her children been at soft play and how long does she plan to stay there? Some of the really busy ones had a time limit I thought.

Mine are a bit old for soft play now but I seem to remember that bringing your own food was not allowed, maybe her dc needed the space to have a bit of scoff themselves.

Maybe the other group of mums should play the long game, buy the op an extra large coffee as a peace offering and stage an invasion when she has to nip to the loo, (assuming she doesn't have a bladder of steel/has been doing her pelvic floor exercises).

I think they were being unreasonable to ask and should have just taken your offer to share, but have to admit I do always find it annoying when individual people hog whole tables when there isn't enough space. But more annoyed that the venue lets enough people in where there isn't room for them all to sit. They obviously don't have the space.

The thing about bring nice is - people will sadly take advantage. A similar scenario happened to me once as I nabbed the last table in a busy soft play when it was just me and the kids. They ran off to ay and shortly after a group of several women and their kids came in, looking for somewhere to sit. Me being a total pushover offered them to sit in the spare seats at my table. They accepted and before long as was totally surrounded! Their kids were bumping the table, spilling drinks around etc and before I knew it I was getting looks off the lot of them as If I was the intruder!! I ended up gradually cramped into a corner and gave up in the end, slinking off without so much as a thank you from the group I'd been kind to! No good deed goes unpunished and I try to give a bit less of myself these days because sadly It seems to be a constant case of people being either givers,.or takers. And I'm fed up always being the one to give, to the point it's making me Ill.

Sorry I turned that into a mini rant but to summarise - YANBU 😅

Eh? Some of us have to multitask.

Guess you're not a single parent