Farewell Baby Classes
Letting go
I just went to my last mommy/baby class, the kind where you sit in a circle, kid on lap, singing songs and clapping. My daughter is too big.
Some readers may remember me whining about these very same classes a year ago. I didn’t think preschool classes should be run like IKEA, where customers (i.e., parents) do all the work.
You go to swimming lessons and it’s you in the pool — not the trained instructor — pushing your child on a float and trying not to think about the dubious science of swim diapers.
I figured if I paid people to teach my child something, they should get on with it while I enjoyed a cappuccino with my new mom friends. But now, here I am on the last day of Sing and Sign, and am near to tears.
Doting parents will tell you the best age of their children is whatever age they are. But that age when they fling themselves with total abandon into your arms and remain happily on your lap, clapping soft little hands, is hard to beat.
I remember that first class. I was in the park with my daughter. She was just over a year old. I saw a group of moms heading into a pavilion. The sky was gray and threatening to rain, and so I followed them.
It was a Sing and Sign class, where children, who don’t yet speak, are taught to sign their…
