Toddler Class Dunce...

That would be me, not my son. This season we've signed up for three classes. One we've already taken, but he loves it so I figured, what the hell. I can sit through another 12 classes of singing the hello song & songs about paw-paw patches if Music Together makes him happy. The other two are brand new to us this week and I must say, while Ethan handled himself quite well, I was a complete bumbling idiot in both of them, and possibly *that* mother in one of them.

We started on Wednesday with our baby sign language class. It is signing through songs, so we sing things like "The wheels on the bus" and "itsy bitsy spider" using sign language. Which is good because, you know, Ethan someday might need to tell me that there's a spider crawling up my back or that the wipers on my car are broken. So these signs will be very helpful. The instructor is lovely, but she's one of those balls of energy that makes you think she peels off her human-suit at the end of the day and is really a hummingbird who has to suck nectar all night just to get through the next day. We heard all kinds of stories about her signing virtuoso children, stringing entire sentences together with signs at the tender age of 5 months. I tried very hard not to be a cynic and open my mind to the possibility that a baby could communicate entire thoughts before she could actually even roll over, but whatever.

We sang songs and I bumbled through the sings. Fortunately it takes awhile for the kids to pick up on the signs because if it was an immediate thing, my child's sense of language would be forever screwed up. I had "what" and "where" confused and "thank you and "happy" were interchangeable during the first hour of class. I'm really good with combining cognitive and motor skills--it's totally forte of mine. This is why I can't do aerobics classes; it takes way too long for my brain to tell my muscles what to do and I end up getting trampled by the skinny bitch next to me who's on her 5th grapevine while I'm trying to figure out how to do my first.

Anyway....at one point during our class, I attempted to take a toy from Ethan because it was time to move on and I figured we had to put the toys from activity #1 away to move on to activity #2. And I got scolded. Yup. I was told, "We don't want to model grabbing as an acceptable behavior. Please don't grab the toy away from your child." Um. Okay. Please call Child Protective Services. I suck at parenting.

Then later in the class, my brute-in-training of a son decided to rip a teddy bear out of another child's hand. While the instructor was trying to teach the crying child the sign for "sad", I jokingly asked what the sign was for "bully" so I could teach it to Ethan. People, you would have thought I asked permission to beat my child in front of the class. I was chastised with a very solemn, "We don't call names here," and given the I'm-very-disappointed-in-you look generally reserved for when your 13-year old is suspended for pulling the fire alarm or "pantsing" the geeky kid in gym class.

I kept my mouth shut and my hands to myself for the duration of the class, lest I slip up one more time and find myself in "mommy timeout". Hopefully my kid is a dynamo and makes a good impression, because I am so on this teacher's shit-list.

Today, we attended the class to end all classes. "Tiny Time", or baby gym. Fortunately we have this class with Carlin and Chloe from our playgroup. I think it's probably more fortunate for Carlin & me than it is for our kids, as they are still fairly oblivious to one another if there is absolutely anything else remotely interesting going on around them. After Carlin and I listened to the plethora of rules while trying to contain our roaming toddlers, the fun began. Our first station was "the pit".

Let me explain this thing to you. It is a deep chasm in the gym floor filled with foam blocks. When we slid into it, I fully intended to feel my feet hit the floor because that's a natural human expectation when one jumps, right? Well...they did not hit anything but more foam blocks. I have no idea where the floor in this pit actually was. I suspect that had we dug far enough, we would have found little Chinese toddlers and their mamas on the other side.

Navigating the pit presents one with all sorts of challenges, not the least of which is THERE IS NO FLOOR! I can only say it is felt like what I would imagine walking through quick sand would feel like---intense trudging and focusing all your energy on your leg muscles, willing them to carry you somewhere, anywhere close to the edge of this thing so you might be able to get out with your life. Oh, and you're carrying your child. Some moms were putting their kids down on/in the blocks and they'd sink a bit, but they seemed to like it. Ethan looked at me like, "What? Are you kidding me? If you put me down in this crap, you and I are finished."

So we worked our way over to one of the mat-slides, where Chloe was giggling her way down the slide and into the blocks. She looked like she was having fun, so I figured we'd give it a try, if we didn't suffocate on foam on our way over. The first time down, I was sure he was never going to speak to me again. But after a couple of swoops down into the blocks, it was clear this was going to be Ethan's favorite new place.

By the end of class, we were both exhausted; aside from the pit there was an obstacle course, a trampoline and bars, both parallel and unparallel.

It was the longest nap ever.