this afternoon, ava had a birthday party. she went ALL BY HERSELF. so amazing. while she was there, i took carter to the beach--which was nice, because we had some good 1 on 1 time. we got there, set up our little space and i put his basket/bin of sand toys close to the water for him. like nearly every other kid there. now, there were a million kids there, and as usual, there were a lot of sand toys floating around. generally, as is the custom seemingly everywhere, kids happily shared these toys. some kids are without toys, some kids just like the other kid's toys better, whatever. it is not a big deal. and it encourages sharing, socialization, blah blah blah. everyone can figure that out.

except.

except the absolutely neurotic, panicked, and just plain mean lady next to me. her kid had a bunch of toys down by the water, and carter cruised down to the water with his very own alligator shovel, and proceeded to put it in the water off the dock, per his usual custom (he is taking it for a swim...). well, Neurotic Lady screamed "TYLER! Did that little boy just put YOUR shovel in the WATER? IS THAT YOUR BLUE SHOVEL?? TYLER! TYLER DID YOU HEAR ME???" (tyler might have, but pretended he did not...). I almost said something along the lines of "relax lady, it is not TYLER'S!" but she realized pretty quickly. She then went on a rant to the woman with her about how she has lost so many sand toys...presumably to those rugrats running around, threatening HER THINGS. Anyway, Carter thankfully left Tyler alone, but poor Alex did not. Alex was probably the happiest kid out there, running around stark naked (frowned upon by the Mirror Lake Beach Rulemakers, but since it is not officially summer, they were not there to notice), gleefully playing with All the Wonderful Toys! Then, he found Tyler's stash. "TYLER! DO YOU WANT HIM TO DO THAT??? TYLER! HE IS PLAYING WITH YOUR TOYS? DO YOU WANT HIM TO LEAVE THEM ALONE? YOU TELL HIM TO LEAVE THEM ALONE!!!" Tyler halfheartedly asked little Alex to leave his toys alone, but it sort of looked like Tyler might actually want a friend, so he did not put much ooomph into it. Alex managed to ignore Neurotic Lady for a while, and played a bit with Carter, moved some more of Tyler's stuff to the tune of the above chorus, and then made the mistake of bringing Tyler's white truck looking thing into the water. "THAT's IT! LOOK. THIS IS TYLER'S. YOU CAN PLAY WITH THIS BOAT. BUT I DO NOT WANT TO LOSE THIS. YOU MAY NOT PLAY WITH THIS. When you are done with the boat, you bring it up here. RIGHT HERE. DO NOT LOSE IT."

Guess what happened? Little Alex cried. A lot. He ran to his Grandfather, who was the poor man taking care of him, probably completely unaware of standard beach behavior and this woman's awful reach of those expectations, and I could just see him trying to figure out if all people were this way, or all mothers, or what.

Carter noticed that Alex was crying, and in an effort to send a signal that we were not all like that, I suggested that he bring Alex some Cheddar Bunnies because it would make him feel better. Bless his heart, he did it.

I swear, I have never seen anything like it.

I am actually curous if it will have the opposite effect on Tyler. He sure looked like HE wanted to share.