Gymboree Gripes

I have no gripes with the store itself, but I had a definite problem with the mom and her children I encountered today. I made a quick trip to see if I could find some cute shirts on sale for the boys for family pictures to use with my 30% coupon (thanks Christine). We were in luck – the line I really like still had some good pieces in stock! Now, Andrew LOVES the little chairs there with the little TV and is usually very well behaved, except for today. There were three kids all sitting in the chairs already. I told him it was okay and to just sit on the floor.  All was well and dandy until the kids started telling Andrew he couldn’t sit in the chairs. Andrew doesn’t do well with negative talk and telling him things he cannot do – we use positive enforcement with him. So, inevitably, he had a breakdown. **Mean kids** These weren’t just little kids either, it was a sibling group of ages 3, 5, and 8. One of the older ones would get up and leave just to have his sibling guard the chair so no one else could sit there. I even asked if Andrew could have a turn…but no. Their mom even came over and I was trying to be patient and said Andrew just wanted to sit, but she just told her son to sit back down. I mean, really…he is eight and there were lots of other little kids wanting to sit in the chairs. Have they ever heard of sharing?! I ended up leaving the store and taking Andrew outside so he would stop crying until that lovely little family left. I saw them leave and we headed back in. The little boy say Andrew and stopped in his tracks in the road…he knew Andrew was going to sit in the chair – well too bad so sad!!! Andrew was a happy camper from that point on. We now have two cute shirts and a hat for family pictures and their Christmas jammies – yay! (now I just have to tell Bry that I went to the forbidden store…..)