Mother's Day Trout
Tonight was the orientation for Iris's Mother's Day Out program, which I mentioned in yesterday's post. Had this been a normal event, I probably would have let this one fly undocumented..
But I digress- I acted as the sole ambassador for Iris- Mama D was up at the school preparing for tomorrow night's first Open House.. Dave, the father of Iris's two new pals, also came along.
The evening began innocently enough, with all of the parents assembled together- I felt like I was in church but perhaps that was because I was in a church (albeit a basement) and there was a prayer led by the church's minister...
The program coordinator (a woman, mind you) then spoke, introducing the program as an opportunity for "mothers to get a break from watching their little ones and go shopping or clean around the home and do laundry or cook dinner". I seriously thought 'were stay-at-home fathers eligible for this?' After some general comments and a terribly long stream-of-conscious concluding prayer, we broke out into groups.
Everyone went to their kids' classroom-to-be, where the two 'teachers' were waiting with big smiles and showing off the cubbies-to-be with each baby's name already affixed. It was genuinely cute and it was easy to imagine little Iris trucking around the square room, pulling up on the baskets and bookshelves.. Each class, it seems, consists of about 10-12 kids within the same approximate age range, although Iris got bumped up one grouping because her's was filled at the time of registration. This means that Iris will be the youngest among babies as much as 8 months older- and one of two kids that cannot yet walk..
So we all sat there, discussing the "rules" and what to bring, a typical day, label everything, etc., and all seemed peachy. It wasn't until the concluding moments open for questions that a european couple decided to make things interesting (as though just having accents alone didn't blow the socks off most of the people there). The euro father started talking (not asking) about being 'really disturbed about the prospect of having their child subjected to 15 minutes of Barney videos while the two 'teachers' cleaned up from lunch'. One of the teachers immediately back-peddled, 'we hardly ever get the TV since there's only one to share for 4 classrooms'. The euro wife counter-back-peddled, 'maybe its because we're european, but..' (they never specified which country after ~10 references), and back and forth.
For 10 minutes I observed some of the most beautifully uncomfortable dialogue I'd heard in a long time, where other parents would suddenly chime in, making some vapid comment about TV or their child without making eye contact with a single person.. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to blurt out one of the best non-sequitors ever that I learned from my college roommate Ryan- 'I have a room to rent', but I held it back..
The whole sequence came to an eerie halt when the euros admitted that the root of their concern was that their 5-yr-old watched TV all the time. Hmm! And that this same child had been involved with the program last year. Hmmm! I was rolling! The one teacher said that this was the first time anyone had complaned about this in her 20+ years and then everyone just stopped talking altogether. After 30 seconds of silence (that felt like eons), we all got up and walked out without saying thanks or goodbye..
None of this should be a problem for the kids though, since they don't possess the linguistic ability to wind themselves up in such a mess..
But I digress- I acted as the sole ambassador for Iris- Mama D was up at the school preparing for tomorrow night's first Open House.. Dave, the father of Iris's two new pals, also came along.
The evening began innocently enough, with all of the parents assembled together- I felt like I was in church but perhaps that was because I was in a church (albeit a basement) and there was a prayer led by the church's minister...
The program coordinator (a woman, mind you) then spoke, introducing the program as an opportunity for "mothers to get a break from watching their little ones and go shopping or clean around the home and do laundry or cook dinner". I seriously thought 'were stay-at-home fathers eligible for this?' After some general comments and a terribly long stream-of-conscious concluding prayer, we broke out into groups.
Everyone went to their kids' classroom-to-be, where the two 'teachers' were waiting with big smiles and showing off the cubbies-to-be with each baby's name already affixed. It was genuinely cute and it was easy to imagine little Iris trucking around the square room, pulling up on the baskets and bookshelves.. Each class, it seems, consists of about 10-12 kids within the same approximate age range, although Iris got bumped up one grouping because her's was filled at the time of registration. This means that Iris will be the youngest among babies as much as 8 months older- and one of two kids that cannot yet walk..
So we all sat there, discussing the "rules" and what to bring, a typical day, label everything, etc., and all seemed peachy. It wasn't until the concluding moments open for questions that a european couple decided to make things interesting (as though just having accents alone didn't blow the socks off most of the people there). The euro father started talking (not asking) about being 'really disturbed about the prospect of having their child subjected to 15 minutes of Barney videos while the two 'teachers' cleaned up from lunch'. One of the teachers immediately back-peddled, 'we hardly ever get the TV since there's only one to share for 4 classrooms'. The euro wife counter-back-peddled, 'maybe its because we're european, but..' (they never specified which country after ~10 references), and back and forth.
For 10 minutes I observed some of the most beautifully uncomfortable dialogue I'd heard in a long time, where other parents would suddenly chime in, making some vapid comment about TV or their child without making eye contact with a single person.. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to blurt out one of the best non-sequitors ever that I learned from my college roommate Ryan- 'I have a room to rent', but I held it back..
The whole sequence came to an eerie halt when the euros admitted that the root of their concern was that their 5-yr-old watched TV all the time. Hmm! And that this same child had been involved with the program last year. Hmmm! I was rolling! The one teacher said that this was the first time anyone had complaned about this in her 20+ years and then everyone just stopped talking altogether. After 30 seconds of silence (that felt like eons), we all got up and walked out without saying thanks or goodbye..
None of this should be a problem for the kids though, since they don't possess the linguistic ability to wind themselves up in such a mess..
posted by naM modnaR at 11:17 PM
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