Cleaning and Playground Bullies

Today I'm cleaning. Quite a bit. My parents come tomorrow, and I want to have everything done today.

On a completely different note, Conlan has encountered some bullies lately. It makes me very sad, because pretty much all of the time, Mom is right there but doing nothing about it. I don't think I mentioned the kid at the library. This child seems to have it out for Conlan. Every time Conlan goes for a toy or book in the play area, this child snatches it out of his hand and screeches at Conlan. Normally I just remove Conlan from the situation, but this Monday the kid followed us to the board book bin and took every one I started to pick up. I can understand to some extent not correcting another person's child, but I definitely said something to him about that. He grimaced at me, grabbed a handful of books, and ran off. It's possible that this kid has behavioral issues that need to be addressed, but Mom is denying them or believes that he should get whatever he wants. The screeching seems to be an indication that something's not right chemically. As for his vendetta against my child, I think Conlan messed up his elaborate train track one week, and as a result, this kid gets mad at him. (However, when Conlan was messing with his tracks, I made him stop. It's not my job to make other people's kids share. But it is my job to teach my children to be respectful of other's work.) Anyone have any suggestions about this?

We also encountered another bully at the park yesterday. This kid was probably 4 or 5, and didn't want to let Conlan play on the playground equipment. He kept trying to keep Conlan from climbing steps or going down slides, saying, "You can't play on this. You're not a big kid." In this situation, Mom/Grandma/Babysitter (I'm pretty sure it wasn't Mom; she was much older) was just watching it happen, sitting on the park bench smoking a cigarette (at a children's park!!) I just watched the situation carefully and didn't say anything until the kid pushed Conlan. This happened twice. The second time I told the kid that he couldn't keep Conlan from playing on the playground just because he was little. The kid kept saying, "Yeah, but I'm big, and he's little, and I can do big kid things that he can't do." I just told him that he should show Conlan how to do it instead of pushing him down. After that, the kid played with Conlan a lot. He introduced him (and me) to his sister and showed Conlan how to go down the slides and stuff like that. This kid was easier to deal with; it almost seemed like he was looking for validation from an adult, and I gave it to him. He really was a sweet kid in the end. Much different from the library bully...