MAP-COPs (Moms Against Pecker-head Children on Playgrounds)

I've decided to form a gang.  My gang - MAP-COP (see above) - will be trolling the playground at my kids school after dismissal, using our scary mom voices and embarrassing our families. We are going to be throwing hard, disapproving looks and standing with our hands on our hips.  We are going after the overly aggressive, big for their age,  soccer players.

After school,  a mass of boys, ages 6 thru 11,  converge on the playground field .  That doesn't seem like a big age spread in print, but for those unfamiliar, thats like the difference between Stewart Little and the Stay-Puff Marsh-mellow man from Ghostbusters.  They split into teams and play soccer and it generally ends badly.  Insults and elbows fly, and mom's herd their kids into the car vowing "we will NOT be playing soccer after school tomorrow.  Really!  I mean it!  I'm done with the whole "ball-playing" thing after school!".  To which my kids mumble and snap at each other and huff and puff and say "it's SOCCER, mom, not "ball-playing" ".  Which, of course, lead one brother to yell at the brother who said that "Why are you so RUDE???  You don't have to be SO RUDE!!",  bickering ensues, whining impressions of each other are done, sides are taken, egos are bruised...until I finally yell "ENOUGH!!  NO MORE TALKING!  NOT ANOTHER WORD! NO TALKING TO EACH OTHER BACK THERE!!!".  Which works.  For about 50 seconds.  Then they start the post-mortem.  

"Marco is so mean.  He totally cheated", 

"Yea - he cheats, like, all the time!", 

"And its so not fair because noone else cheats except him", 

"Yea - just him.  He's such a cheater!", 

"That ball really hit his hand and he said it didn't but it really did 'cause I saw it and James saw it and we both said we saw it and he's like, "NO WAY!  I DIDN'T AND YOU'RE LYING!!", and HE'S TOTALLY LYING he's such a LIER!", 

"Yea...."

"Yea.."

"Yea - he TOTALLY lies, everyone could see he was lying because he's such a cheater..."  

On and on and on.  And on.  At least they stopped fighting with each other and are fighting the injustice of this obvious cheater.  (side note:  Names have been changed to protect me from being sued for slander.)

Of course "Marco" is 40 pounds heavier and 2 years older.  Marco is a bully and a pain in my ...

neck.  Today he pushed my oldest to the ground and I was ready to go "crazy mom" on him.  But, because my child begged me not to, (and the fact that I was wearing slip-on shoes and knew I would most likely suffer a blow-out and break my ankle storming over to bully the bully), I didn't "talk" to him.  Another (more attentive) mom saw what happened and came over to check on my son (and make sure he had a mother who gave a crap) and commiserate with me.  A couple other parents asked what happened (Marco wandered off by now) and we decided on the gang idea.  

We are in the preliminary stages of gang-formation, but are moving forward. We decided on purple as our "color", and agreed to look into some kind of pattern - maybe a stripe or subtle plaid - and re-group tomorrow.  There is alot to do, I realize, (gang sign, tags, tatoo, hood boundaries, aliases...) but you have to start somewhere.  I think I'll bring a purple blanked (I don't think I have a purple blanket so it may have to be a towel, or maybe a pillow case) and set-up our first meeting smack-dab in the middle of the field.  And I'm going to wear sturdy shoes.