Woot!
Super boring though - watched portions, ate healthy, blah, blah. You know the drill. And best of all, this was managed despite the birthday party of last week including cupcakes, cake, dinners out, etc.
(FYI: you don't need to eat an entire cupcake in one sitting. I simply divided my four cupcakes in half, and ate 1/2 whenever I was hungry. Brian ate part of one, too, and I shared some with Scotty. See? Calorie division.)
No, the real interesting part of this week was the start of Music Lessons. I had been anxiously waiting for it to start, since I had heard all kinds of good things. I definitely want Scotty to learn how to read music one day (any kind of language is good, in my opinion, since it gets a different area of your brain working) and early exposure like this was going to be great. Right?
If you've been reading this blog long enough, you know that anytime I ask "Right?" a crash and burn lies ahead. I feel like I am like the Bridget Jones of Motherhood. I try really hard...just things never turn out the I expect.
Anyways, while Brian and I lack some serious dance skills, Scotty does not. This kid has been rocking out since he was in utero. Seriously -- on my way to perinatal appointments, he would move the most whenever I turned on the hip-hop station. I was always more of a Top 40 kind of gal, but hey, whatever the baby wants, the baby gets. So my dial has been permanently parked on hip-hop since last summer, and now that he's an outside baby, Scotty enjoys rocking out in his car seat. His favs? Katy Perry, Usher, Ke$ha, and Eminem.
I'm not saying we have any street cred, but we can still listen, right? And while I acknowledge that 'Back Dat Azz Up' is probably not the most appropriate music for my one year old, it has a good beat. And he's not listening to the words. Yo.
Back to music lessons.
I should have known it was going to be a bad day when the Bear woke up from his morning nap covered in poo. Poo everywhere. Total diaper blow-out. Poo on the baby, poo in the sleep sack, poo on the mattress cover. It took almost 40 minutes and an entire package of wipes to clean up the crime scene, thus preventing us from going to the park. So we had lunch at home, played, read, etc, and went down for a nap closer to 3 instead of 2 (since he wasn't really that tired.)
Music lessons started at 4:30.
At 3:45, I began to pace.
At 4:00, I started wringing my hands.
At 4:15, I called the office and spoke to a very nice woman who told me to still attend class, even if we are just there for 10 minutes to pick up the paperwork (whatever that was), or I could go to a make-up class next week.
At 4:30, Scotty woke up.
More poo. But I was determined.
By 4:50, we were in the car, flying to music lessons. I could walk in late, right? No problem. It was the first day, I'm sure everyone was late. We were just filing out paperwork or something.
We walked in to find a room full of parents - with kids - trilling. Trilling. As in making "whoooooo!" noises at this high-pitched level. And the kids were all dancing (or just moving) in the middle to the trilling. It sounded a hive of cicadas.
I swear, I know Scotty doesn't understand the word yet, but when he looked at me, I could tell he was thinking, "Momb? Cult?"
And of course, since we were so late, everyone turned to look at us (though the trilling didn't stop). I had spent 10 minutes at the car in the parking lot trying to get Scotty's shoes on his feet only to realize that everyone here was barefoot. And trilling, did I mention that?
They finally, blessedly, stopped. (it felt like it went on for a good ten minutes, though I'm sure it was only probably 30 seconds. I was just so taken aback.) And Scotty and I introduced ourselves (though he was clutching his container of Cheerios with abject fear, I noted), joined the circle of cult members, er, music lesson-goers, and then the teacher passed out scarves. Filmy scarves. And they started singing again, this time about a firetruck. ("Whoo-whoo! Firetrucks....whoo-whooooooo!")
I seriously wanted to cover my ears. And the scarf we were handed was purple. No joke.
I tried trading my scarf with the four-year old girl next to me (she had a lovely deep blue one) but she wouldn't budge. Whatever. I tried to go through the motions with the rest of class (we were now singing about rocket ships - whoo-whoooo!) while fanning the scarves around. Scotty continued to clutch his Cheerios while looking around the room, unsure of what to make of this scene.
I had never wanted to be back in Swim Lessons more than that moment.
I was also having a hard time keeping a straight face. I mean, was this Motherhood? Was I going to have to subject my child to these dorky, geeky classes and pretend that I was enjoying them? Nothing against the music people, but this was just not our bag. I couldn't even look at the other parents because I was afraid I was going to burst into nervous, hysterical giggles.
Ah, but the best was yet to come. The teachers passed out little instruments to all of the kids (holy cacophony) for a song, and then collected them. Scotty, being one of the younger ones, wailed when she took his castanets away. And we suddenly went from being the cool, indifferent pair (in my head, at least) to being the Mother with the Screaming Child.
It took 15 minutes and much walking around to resolve that one.
And then, class blissfully ended. During the last song, fully recovered from his meltdown, Scotty took it upon himself to crawl to the middle of the circle and wave at everyone. For the whole song. He just continued to pivot around the circle, waving, working the room. The Mayor had arrived.
People were smiling at him (thankfully) but I again, was like, "Crap, what do I do?" What is the policy on kids in the middle of the circle? Do I let him stay there? Do I need to keep him by me? Should I get a leash? This Motherhood stuff is harder than it looks.
At the end, I collected my waving, political baby and hustled out the door, but not before the teacher could hand me two CDs for the class with instructions to listen to it "in the car and at home." (that's why they give you two...they are really serious about this.) She told me I need to learn the songs so I can "participate" at the next class. Crap, I was back in high school and they were making me sing. I managed to smile and thank her, but really? Do I have to come back? I had prepaid for 8 classes, so it looks like my Tuesday afternoons are booked.
::sigh::
We listened to Jay-Z on the ride home.