Snow Daze

Like many NW moms, I drag my babies to music classes (www.musikids.com) where we overstimulate them with shakers, scarves and bubbles. At first I took my older son, because it was a great place to meet other moms. (See previous post about mommy dating) I took the classes very seriously and clapped along and sang out of tune enthusiastically, because it was expected, and I took perverse pleasure in the cleverly disguised as cooing for other babies, but in reality are comparisons that highlight your own child's superiority in some ridiculous acomplishment.

"Look how Ainsley reached out to catch a bubble! Oh Ashton are you trying to help Mommy blow bubbles?"

"Oh my, I'm sorry Nate crawled in front of Taylor during the ball game. He is such a fast crawler, it is so hard to keep up."

My darling son stacked up well in these comparisons as he was an early and fast crawler and talker.

Now I am doing round two of musikids with Jacob, and it is a whole new ball game. I show up as the class is starting. I exhange murmered greetings with the other mothers and make no overtures beyond that, and I barely look at the other children. After all, I am there to focus on Jacob as he rarely gets to be the sole object of my attention. Luckily, the other moms in the class are like-minded as these children are all second or third siblings and the mother objective is to get in, sing the songs and get out in time to pick up the older sibs from preschool.

In some ways, I enjoy it more, because Jacob so obviously loves getting to sit on Mommy's lap for a whole hour and sing songs. On the other hand, I was hard pressed the other day to stop a fit of giggles in class. I looked around at the other Moms singing a ridiculous song about a wise old owl and the absurdity of the situation struck me. There we were, 10 highly educated and intelligent women crouched on a dirty carpet flapping our wings and yelling "hoo hoo!"

Have other mothers in history endured such levels of ridiculousness to possibly give their children a slight edge in the intelligence game? We are so anxious about our children's school and career futures that we are dragging them to all sorts of classes and extracurricular activities in the hope to give them a competitive edge. Lest my comments deserve a backlash, I will admit the children do enjoy the classes. But as I rush now to get dressed before heading out to class, I wonder if our time could be better spent?