Firsts

This morning Gus and I dropped Lucy off for her first day of three-year-old preschool. She was ecstatic. Gus was very sad. As we pulled up to the school, he yelled, "coo-ahh" (his version of school, Lucy says scoo-ahh). We came back home and he wandered around the house saying "LaLa? LaLa?" (that's what he calls Lucy, he can say Lucy, but LaLa is just easier). My friend Sara and her daughter Emily came over for a play date. It was Gus' first official play date, he wasn't just the tag-a-long little brother. He and Emily ended up doing well together, it took them a few minutes to get acquainted and figure it out. We picked Lucy up and she was so happy. She loved her new teacher, Mrs. M. She loved seeing her friends again.

After school we had a quick lunch and naps all around and then we went to Lucy's first dance class. A fight almost broke out between two moms. No joke. Definitely the most eventful first dance class a kid could ever have. There was a big room for the class and all the parents sat in chairs and on the floor along two walls of the room, WHILE the kids were trying to learn how to dance. So there are ten little girls between the ages of three and five trying to pay attention to the instructor. There are another two girls (which makes the class 12 little girls) who are wild. They won't stop talking loudly to each other and they wandered around the room. They did not stay on their red tape. There are two other sets of parents who are letting their 18 month old girl and nearly three year old boy run around the room and interfere with the dancers. Not cool. All sorts of chaos and the teacher just keeps going. Meanwhile, the two naughty girls start talking to Lucy, literally standing in front of her talking to her, nearly nose to nose, while the instructor is talking! I am such a rule follower and I was about to lose my mind! These little girls weren't following the rules, the parents weren't minding their children, and they were making my daughter not follow the rules. It gets much worse. One of the naughty girls went up and hit another girl, just because. The victim-girl's mom comforted her, but the naughty girl just screamed and screamed and screamed. The mom tried dealing with her and it didn't work out too well, so she gave up and put her back in the circle with the eleven other kids! Then they did this little ribbon dance thing and came back to their red tape spots on the floor. The instructor asked the girls to put the ribbons on the floor in front of them and they did, except for the naughty girls. And then the little 18 month old comes up and takes Lucy's ribbon! Lucy tried so hard to keep calm, and she said (not yelled or whined), "She's taking my ribbon!" Then the instructor had the AUDACITY to say, "Well I guess we should put away the ribbons because you (collectively, but implying Lucy) can't listen and just leave them on the floor." The 18 month just happens to be the victim's little sister. You'd think that mom would at least pay attention! So they sit in a circle to talk about rules. Meanwhile, naughty girl is still screaming 10 minutes later and the instructor just tries to ignore it and keep going. So the naughty girl goes and hits the same girl again, across the face! It's true. I couldn't make this up. So then victim's mom starts going off on naughty girl's mom. But the almost funny part is that they were both from countries other than the US and had very thick accents. We could barely understand what they were saying, and I'm sure they didn't understand each other, but you could tell by the tones that they weren't happy. The instructor FINALLY asked the naughty girl's mom to take her out of the room. She took her in the hall, and we could hear her scream for the remaining 10 minutes. I have no idea why she didn't just leave. After all that happened, the instructor said that next time the parents would have to stay outside in the hall. You think? Clearly, it wasn't working. In spite of all the drama, Lucy LOVED, LOVED, LOVED her dance class. I asked her what her favorite part was and she responded with, "Learning to plie." Lucy has really been working on saying her "L"s properly, and so the "L"s were overemphasized when she answered. I'm really torn about the whole thing. She loved it, but the class was a bit chaotic, to say the least. I guess we'll see how it goes next week.