Today was another brave day for mommy. There’s a ‘thing’ here in Bellevue called “MyGym” that i’ve been eyeing for some time now, thinking that maybe Fi would like it and maybe it would be a fun thing for her grandparents to do with her during the winter months. The web site is pretty illusive when it comes to explaining their programs and fees so I when I saw that they were having a free open house I thought I’d better go. Then I saw that it was also to raise money for a great local charity – AND – that the God of toddlers would be there. Elmo.
Forget Santa Claus, Elmo has super natural powers. Fiona has watched Sesame Street maybe 3 times. She’s really way too busy to ever pay attention to the t.v. There are a few toys with Elmo on them in the house and she does absolutely LOVE her Elmo crackers…but other then that no contact with Elmo – so how, HOW, does she now she loves him SOOOOO much?
So into the car we go with promises of seeing Elmo once we get there. MyGym is a fairly small, well padded, indoor play ground with tons of stuff to climb on, balance on, roll on, slide on, bounce on, flip on, spin on, and spread germs on. The classes are led by an instructor based on age and they go through a series of exercises and songs and dances and adventures. Fiona would totally dig it.
When we first arrived it was a free-for-all. Parents, kids, teachers everywhere. Maybe it’s because I’m still coming down off a nasty cold, or maybe I’m still just a protective parent of one, or maybe there are a lot of A*%@!holes out there but I was about ready to spank some butts….and I don’t mean kids and I don’t mean in a fun sort of way.
There were several kids there completely out of control and there parents just stood there watching. Throwing balls at people, blocking the slides, laying down in the middle of everything. Now this might be fine when it’s just you, and it might be fine with a small group of kids your child’s age, but there were kids from little-itty-bittys to old-enough-to-know-betters, and a lot of I-need-to-learn-to-know-better-but-my-parents-are-clueless’s. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR CHILD. Instead these parents would just laugh, oh isn’t that funny. Strangely enough these were the same parents that were also in everyone’s way and never seemed to notice.
Finally one of the teachers called everyone together for an organized exercise and to prepare for Elmo to take the stage. When he did, once again, those parents who’s child is more important then everyone else’s practically trampled all of the other kids and parents who were politely waiting their turns, so they could get pictures of their kids – while everyone else politely stayed seated so that ALL of the kids could see.
whew.
Elmo led the group in a couple of dances and Fiona was super psyched. She totally followed all of his moves and had a smile from ear to ear. Afterwards Elmo sat down and everyone had a chance to get their picture taken with him. It was noisy and they were trying to move us through quickly so when Fi got up there she got scared and wouldn’t sit on his lap (can we say DEATH GRIP) but she gave him a high-5, waved and blew kisses, and then asked about him all the way home.
I won’t hold the chaos against MyGym, not their fault. But I may hold the $75.00 for 4 / 1 hour sessions against them. Oy!
