We Romped...

...and we Rolled!

Today was our first day of baby gym at Romp N’ Roll at 4:30 p.m. Unfortunately, I felt that a good part of my day was spent preparing for our gym outing, dressing, scheduling feedings so they wouldn’t be hungry during our 45 minute class, and preparing mentally. I was excited about getting out of the house and spending time focusing on the twins but I was also nervous of having two of them in a class when they barely meet the age requirement. (They won’t be three months until Saturday technically but I slipped in without them noticing.)

So I feed Trauma so he isn’t hungry during baby tumbling, because he is ALWAYS hungry. And we left early to put Trouble in a calm state of mind that is only reached after eight hours of sleep or thirty minutes in the car. Really folks, this forty minute class took a lot of energy from me. I can’t even imagine the things to come. Dating, sports, running for SCA President.

We got there early. As a new parent I often hear that I am going to be late because I have twins so I am making every effort to be early where ever I go. Today I succeeded. I was there before any of the other people in the class. Baby Gym is at the same time as the Princess class apparently. Yes, you read that correctly, Princess Class, which is titled Princess Party. Princess attire is optional. Not really, every little girl there for the class was in princess attire. I can’t imagine the little girl who goes in there without a royal gown on, the other girls would probably kick her out.

So one of the princesses is there with her father and he sits down beside a woman and her eight month old baby. He decides to start up a conversation with her, but it may have been his first ever, this is what he chose to open the chat with:

King: Is there Oriental in your child, his eyes look like he’s Chinese.

Unsuspecting Helpless Mother: No, my husband is Irish and I have Indian in me.

K: He’s also cross-eyed, huh. Look at that.

UHM: Yeah, a little. Sometimes.

K: And he doesn’t have much hair.

UHM: No, not yet.

At this point I am really feeling bad for this lady. She is trying to be friendly, but this guy is being a pompous jerk whether he realizes it or not. He then starts belittling his own princess.

K: She didn’t have much hair when she was born. I had more hair when I was little then she did. I was ahead of her. (Haha)

I am not making this up. He laughed about this and said it in front of his daughter like it was a competition and he’d won. Other parents were chiming in at this point about how little or how much hair there children had or were born with. At this moment, I was very unhappy. I feared I had signed up for ridiculous parent competition class and not baby gym class (which is probably ridiculous on its own anyways).

Thankfully, the Princess Party leader came in and sang for her princess girls to follow her and ended the King’s reign of inconsiderate egotism.

Then the Baby Gym Class leader sang a song for all the babies to follow her and looked at me and said “You have your hands full”.

I have twins. They are in car seats. I literally have my hands full. I had been to the post office and people said “You have your hands full.” I went to the bank, “You have your hands full.” I went into Rompy’s house “You have your hands full.” I try to smile, folks. I try to pretend these pointless comments aren’t so common, but they really are. I have my hands full is like saying, you are walking. It is really only stating the obvious. How am I supposed to react to this statement when I hear it so, so often?

And then Trauma was sleeping, and he wouldn’t wake up (OK, I didn’t try all that hard but I didn’t want him to wake up with a grudge either). I was beginning to wonder if I had made a mistake ever signing up for baby gym.

But then the class started. We were read a story. And we sang songs to our babies. And we shared stories with the other parents about the things that worry us, like meeting developmental milestones. And we played in the gym and Trouble showed me how strong she is when she held her head up for a long time and smiled the whole time. And we played with different textures. And we sang Beatles songs and Trouble shook a little plastic maraca. We blew bubbles and did baby yoga. We learned a sign to do with our babies. And Rompy (the puppy mascot) sang good-bye to each and every baby all in fifty-five minutes.

And now I am hooked.