I want to start and finish by emphasizing that Alex had a great time on his birthday tour of Ottawa's elevators. He got to start with some McDonald's ice cream, then we stopped by school for the graduation photo and then we went to Cosmic Adventures.
At Cosmic, we got to deal with a very frustrating reality of being out in public with Alex. Namely, aggressive parents who feel the need to attack him to correct his "poor discipline". We left Cosmic after a parent began shouting at him and then turned on me to say that Alex shouldn't be out with "normal" people.
Not the first time. Probably won't be the last. It's exhausting and frustrating and certainly took most of the enjoyment out of the day for me. I'm not sure what happened as I heard shouting and went to investigate to find Alex at the center of it. We'd gone early so that there would be fewer children, but not early enough, I suppose.
I hate dealing with this type of thing. And I hate the emotional drain of having to be constantly on guard for it, waiting for it to happen.
I refuse to segregate ourselves and keep Alex out of the public, but then things like this happen and I find myself wondering if it's really worth it. I doubt we'll be going back to Cosmic again. This is the third incident we've had there with other parents and I don't think it's worth it. It's too hard to keep track of Alex in the maze.
We finished the day with a visit to the CHEO elevators, A&W and an OC Transpo bus ride (Alex even got a double decker).
Alex was cranky and tired and oppositional by the the end of the day, but after a big day, that's to be expected. He had a good time and, other than a brief period, it was what a birthday should be.
No comments:
Post a Comment