Had the most horrible day ever. Not a good day anyway as it's 8 years since my brother died today.
Went to toddler group as we normally do on a Wednesday and there were a couple of new faces there which is always nice to see.
Towards the end of the session when we were putting all the toys away I thought to myself "I'm really proud of DS today. He's made it to the end of the session (we only go for the last 45 mins - 1 hour so it doesn't get too much for him) without even attempting to pinch or bite somebody." This is a really good achievement for him as at one point he was attempting to do it to children left, right and centre. Most weeks we managed to escape without him actually doing anything to anybody cos I stuck to him like glue, following him everywhere and never taking my eyes off him, but he was still attempting to do it IYSWIM.
Anyway I thought too soon didn't I. We were all sat in a square getting ready to sing some songs. DS was sat next to me on the bench but he must have slipped off quietly without me realising. The next thing I know one of the new mums is shouting No No so I turn and look and DS is doing what looks like pulling her 7 month old baby's ears. I jump up as quick as I can without knocking over everyone's hot drinks and remove him. I tell him off and do the whole "Why did you do that, you know we don't pull baby's ears. They're much smaller than you and you have to be gentle. Do you want to go and say sorry?" At which point he says no, so I say "Well we will go home then" so then he goes to say sorry.
I felt mortified but I thought all was ok, the baby had stopped crying fairly quickly and I sat back down with DS making him sit on my lap this time.
Anyway a couple of minutes later she comes over to show me a red mark on the back of her baby's head which DS must have done. It's all a bit blurry but she said something about not being happy (fair enough) and that I should have been watching him and some other mum had told her that he'd pinched her DS a few weeks ago. (Was slightly annoyed about this as that particular mum had reassured me not to worry about it and they all do it and you can't watch them 100% of the time and these things happen occasionally) I said "I'm sorry I didn't see him get off the bench. He has said sorry and I've told him off" (I wasn't sure if she thought I'd not done anything about it) To which she said "Well that's not good enough. How old is he? 3? You need to keep him under control."
At which point I was shaking and about to collapse into tears. I know it's pathetic but I just felt like she was saying I was a terrible mum and I've honestly never had a reaction like that before and it's horrible. My mum has once when she picked him up from preschool and he had done something but my mum's a lot tougher than me and just said "Look he's not our responsibility when he's at preschool. If you've got a problem which is fair enough as he's meant to have 1 to 1 care to prevent him from hurting other children there then you need to bring it up with them."
Need a large glass of wine and a big bar of chocolate I think