Skim babyccino with a shot of lame

Today Yelena and I tried a free class at Gymboree. Thank God it was free, since I would have been greatly irritated if I had paid for it. With the pediatrician breathing down my neck about her crawling (although everyone else insists it's no longer even considered a developmental milestone) I thought taking her to a physical-oriented class might not be a bad idea. Well, this one was. It was the Starbucks of early childhood education. The only benefits were Yelena seeing other children and the bouncy equipment they have -- which the kids only played on for 10 minutes in unstructured play, with no guidance from the instructor. The 5 minutes of blowing bubbles and playing parachute were fun, although a piece of the parachute backing peeled off on my hands. The teacher was not engaging at all (makes us appreciate Valerie at Suzuki more), there were too many kids, the mothers were way too North Shore for my comfort level and quite cliquey, and the singing was lame -- especially since most of the songs worked "Gymboree" into the lyrics as branding. Oh, and Gymbo the Clown -- yikes.

I also got bit. Yup. I was bit by a child probably for the first time since my brother chomped on my plump little baby arm or, at least, since preschool. Caleb, in a yellow shirt, crawled up to me and bit my thankfully socked foot. It hurt. His mother apologized sheepishly. "He usually only bites me. See, I have these bruises all over my arms. He's never bit anyone else before. You should be flattered." And you should get your child a frigging teether. I told her it was ok, but I sure didn't smile about it.

Yelena did like watching all the other children, although I am realizing she does not act like a typical baby. A whole bunch of babies were crawling all over each other in a drooly crying mosh pit while she looked on calmly. When playing with a ball Yelena did her new object routine: pick up, turn around to see all angles, shift from hand to hand a few times, bring to mouth for a quick lick, drop, pick up, throw. A boy crawled up to the ball and, without sitting up or missing a beat, unhinged his jaw like a crocodile, salivated all over it, and then crawled away. Yelena did smile and say, "Ooo" or "Oh," or "Ba-ah?" when kids came up to her but -- and perhaps I am reading too much of my own school room mishigos into this -- she seemed quite apart from the other children. Not antisocial, since she was quite cheerful and happy, just not part of the gang. Maybe because she doesn't crawl or maybe because she spends most of her time with adults (which worked for generations of European aristocracy), but she appeared quite different from a dozen randomly selected babies. Well, a dozen randomly selected babies whose mothers like Gymboree. In her Suzuki and swim classes I never got this impression, even though the other kids are more physical, so maybe it is the Gymboree thing. I shall not return.

Tomorrow we try out a Wiggleworms class at Old Town School of Folk Music.