Playground bullies

Today we ended up at the playground at Washington Square Park. Theo was having a good time, playing well with the other kids, being a good boy. There was a little boy (around 4-5) standing at one of those wheel thingies they have on these jungle gyms, the kind where you can pretend you are steering a ship or something. There was an empty one next to him so Theo, besotted as he is with big kids these days, went up to the empty one and was turning the wheel while gazing adoringly at this "big" kid. The little boy's friend, a girl, came up behind them and the boy said "Hey, come take this wheel away from the little boy!" and she did! She pushed Theo out of the way and grabbed the wheel. Theo was understandably upset and I attempted to talk to the kids, saying "can you please share?" and "that's not very nice" but they talked right back to me and refused to budge. I was so infuriated by these two I had to bite my tongue not to call them little brats who should be ashamed of themselves. I wanted to stomp over to their mothers chatting on the bench and tattletale in defense of my little boy. But I didn't. Theo was easily distracted, I apologized to him loudly saying "I'm sorry those kids aren't sharing and playing nicely" and then, admittedly, there were a couple of times the little girl made defiant? guilty? eye contact with me and I shot her a dirty look. Yes, me, 33 years old, shot a dirty look to a 4-year old. Don't judge until you've been there yourself.