A quick note here – the girls and I had our last Mommy and Me dance class yesterday.  Honestly, I am not sad to see this class end.  The girls loved it, but I thought it went on for too many months and I was bored.  Anywho, as I was sitting on the mat with my girls waiting for class to start I noticed how all the other mom’s were interacting with their daughters.  I really couldn’t help but look due to the wall of mirrors in front of me (it’s a dance studio – say no more).  All the other moms were sitting with their little 2 year olds cuddling and playing nicely.  Me?   I was being mauled.  Picture a scene from and old school National Geographic show with Marlin Perkins narrating – the mother lion playing with her cubs as they run and jump on her, bite her tail, make her fall over and roll around in the dust.  One would come running up to me give me a hug then proceed to jump on me and knee me in the gut while the other pulled me in her direction to get my attention.

Ok I must run – the girls have been trying to feed the dog for about 15 minutes, last I saw they were running downstairs to get “their brooms” to clean up.  This is what happens when you try to solve an espresso machine problem and the girls are “entertaining themselves”.

Like my boot?  Earned this nice little “accessory” from an Achilles injury.  I had been training for a half marathon – good girl training not knock yourself out and risk an injury training.  Pretty bummed out about it actually.  Any who – there is a silver lining to all this!  I am actually able to use it as a bonafide real excuse to picking up the girls every time they want “uppie”.  Generally I don’t give in to their demands for this – but it does suck listening to the whining etc when you don’t concede to pick them up.  It’s kinda nice, they can see it, so they seem to get it!  Woohooo!

“Today is Tuesday you know what that means…”.  There is probably no chance in hell you watched reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club as a kid – old reruns the ones with Annette.  If you did then you know the Tuesday Guest Star Day song.   Sorry if you don’t.  Well selfish me was looking forward to my Tuesday because the girls have school in the morning – 5 hours of sheer flipping bliss for me!  But nooooooo, they woke up with fevers!  My kids just went back to school last week after being gone on vacation for a week – I want to know who sent their child to school sick and I want to know now!  I am taking names and heads are going to roll!

So instead I spent my Tuesday morning with the girls.  I thought hey maybe a bike ride would be nice, seeing as it was a nice day.  Loaded them up in the Burley and away we went.  There is nothing more pleasant than a bike ride with one of your children screaming and crying “slow down don’t go so fast – mommy stop pedaling the bike!”

Why is it that parents allow older siblings to interrupt their younger siblings group classes?

I am already grinding my teeth  - I have another session of toddler gymnastics after this one.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great group class and it’s at an actually gymnastics gym taught by real gymnasts – so it’s pretty good.  The class size is nice, only six children.  Plus there is a small waiting area for other family members – it’s a parent child class, so if more than one parent is there, they can sit and wait in a room with a large window so they can observe the class and there are toys for other siblings.

It’s some parents in the class that are the proverbial thorn in my side.  Two families that had both parents with them brought an older sibling with them to the class.  Instead of keeping the child in the outer room the other parents brought the older sibling into the gym and allowed them to wreck havoc with the class – which in turn you can guess jacked up all the other kids.  This is a problem on so many levels!  First the gym makes you sign liability waivers for each child in the class.  One mother was encouraging her son to jump in line and go down the trampoline while another small child was still in the “pit” trying to get out.  I really, really, really hope I was giving her the “WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING” look (oh you’re right, “heck” was not the word I was giving visually).  OK why can’t you just lay the old disappointment factor on the line and tell you kid that “no you can’t go in the class you are too old and too big – it’s not your class”.  I mean seriously what happened to teaching restraint?

Of course I have a personal vendetta seeing as one of the older siblings who easily doubled the weight of one of the girls almost flattened her when she was sitting in a pool of foam blocks.   Yes it is the coaches responsibility also, but parents PLEASE – use your head and tell your children NO!  I am just dumbfounded and these irresponsible, no concern for anyone else, inability to discipline their offspring parents!  I mean really I am there alone juggling twins, keeping them in line, telling them to listen – teaching some social skills – oh what a concept, social skills for children!  Am I wrong but it’s this just common sense?

Have you had experiences like this?  Think I am wrong (I’m not) – I’d love to hear about it!  Even if you think I am wrong.