My Best Friend, who might as well be my sister, and I capitalize that because she has been my BF for over a decade, as in since we were both in middle school/ I was in Elementary, is expecting a baby girl.

I'M SO EXCITED!

Because this little girl, who will be called Little Beastie because I have an obsession with Maleficent right now, and probably for a good while to come, is supposed to come in late August/early September.

I'm flying up on the fifth so that I can see her, because not only is she my BF's daughter, her first child, but she will also be my Goddaughter.

Which I am all for, because this is a child that I will love and adore and spoil and who will be well behaved and taught manners and

Just everything that children who come to the hotel are not.

Honestly how difficult is it to control your kiddo?

My Sister, who married my brother but who 9 times out of 10 I get along with much, much, much more than my brother if only because he irritates the shnot out of me when he's anywhere near me, is attending college classes to be a nurse, working basically full-time even though it should only be part-time, and also doing her study thing where she works at a hospital to get her time done?

I really want to call that her residency, but I'm not totally sure that is what it's called.

Anyway, she does all that, and my brother works a lot, but they both have managed to instill some form of manners and discipline in my 2 year old niece.

And really if they can do that in their busy schedules, then why can't you control your own child? Especially when it has already been brought to your attention that your child is misbehaving?

It's not a difficult concept, do not make me go all angry female on you. I'm already giving you a disapproving look, and I know you can see it, so why are you not controlling your child who just pulled part of a display setting off of the display table? Do not make me ask you to leave my lobby and go to your room.

I rant here, because it isn't appropriate to bitch slap parents who are staying at our hotel upside the head, nor is it appropriate to spank someone else's misbehaving child.

I wish it was though. I could give some people such a tongue-lashing.

My Co-Worker who is 4 or 5 months pregnant herself, brought to my attention on Friday, when we were working the evening shift, a child who was running around in the lobby between her family and a glass top table that has live flowers in a glass vase sitting on it. Every time the kid would run near the table she would bump into it every other time. We were both just waiting for her to hit it hard enough to make it fall over.

The Hotel pays like $150 or so for the flower/vase every week. Every. Week.

Neither of us knew how much the table top would cost to replace, but after the evening we had, we both just wanted someone to do something stupid so we could charge them for it.

See, on Friday the Hotel decided to finally start changing the locks over to a new lock system. The one we've had for a long while has recently starting having a lot of issues. So many issues in fact, that we would get at least five different people from different rooms every single day, and never the same rooms, who would come down and say that their keys weren't working.

It got so bad that when we would ask if they got a green light, or a red one, we, the Front Desk, could diagnose their issue and figure out if we needed to send a maintenance to the room to fix it.

Now Fridays at the Hotel are busy. Super. Busy.

We were expecting over 130 arrivals by the time I came in at three that afternoon.

That's not even the people count, that's how many rooms were supposed to be coming in.

We had five family reunions, three wedding parties, and four groups that were with some junior Olympics teams staying with us.

That's at least two to every room, if not six.

It. Was. Chaos.

Not to mention they were all just hanging out in the lobby once they were checked in, talking to others who were in their group.

Our Lobby is not big enough for that.

So we were sort of chomping at the bits, waiting for them to move on, so that we would have space again.

Other than that, and all the kids that were running about it went pretty smooth.

Kids though. Ugh.

I started this job absolutely loving kids, and then sort of halfway through my first year here, I realized that evidently for other people these days, when they go to a hotel they feel like they don't have to control their children.

No. Nu-uh. Not True.

You need to contain your kids, or be with them. We are not paid to be your babysitters, so those kids in the lobby, need to be taken to your room. Especially if it's like 2 am in the morning. Seriously. Just No.

It isn't just a singular phenomenon either. Almost all of our guests who come in with children do this.

It is insanity, and makes me want to pull my hair out of my head. Do they not know that kids can get snatched up? Even if they are in a hotel?

Honestly, people don't have the sense they were born with, if they were born with any period!

Drives me nuts.

So after two years, I have decided that I like kids that are in some way or form related to me, but not stranger's children.

I'm good with that.

-Jacq