(Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things but have been raging since it happened and just need to vent .
Took DD (almost 2) to Gymboree this afternoon. Usually have a quick coffee afterwards with a couple of the Mums there from my NCT group. The girls run around like lunatics in the class and then quite enjoy sitting in the high chairs in the coffee shop with a drink and a snack. As soon as they start to get restless we tend to take them home.
So there we all are, sitting nicely round a table. I was feeding DS (5 months), my friend holding her 6 week old baby and my other friend's Mum (who was there today while friend worked)and the 3 little girls sitting happily, giggling at each other, sharing snacks etc and generally enjoying themselves. We were in fact commenting that it was nice how they are all starting to interract with each other and that they were all being remarkably well behaved...
One of the girls then lets out a bit of a shriek (happy shriek) and 2 women who have been sitting a few tables away pointedly pick up their coffees and march past us pausing only to say VERY loudly, "children need to be stimulated, not just left and ignored". (or something like that). We all just sat there trying to think of a good reply but were too shocked.
What's just as annoying is I felt like I was about 12 (despite being almost 40) and being told off by the headmistress for doing something stupid (in fact they had that real teacher look about them).
I can't work out if they were annoyed at being disturbed (in which case a coffee shop in a bookshop in a shopping centre with every conceivable children's shop and gymboree and about 100,000 bugaboo and phil and ted's pushing parents was probably not the best place to go) or that they thought it was boarding on neglectful to allow our DDs, after an hour of running around, to sit in a high chair and have fun with each other whilst we also talked to them and, shock, horror to each other and looked after the babies, rather than be teaching them the finer points of mandarin or opera.
Sorry- rather a long post! As I said, not big in the grand scheme of things but felt so angry! (Feel better now though).