Rec Center Classes

Anyone who knows me knows I like to stay busy. I have to be busy or I get bored. And a bored Niki is not a nice Niki! So every Season I sign Alahna and myself up for classes that are offered through the City Rec Centers. We have done Rock N Roll kids classes, Swimming classes, and Tumbling classes in the past. Every single class we have done in the past (6 classes total) have been a blast and Alahna has a great time going to them. So this time around I thought I would try something new - it was a Mini Music Class and was described, "Parents and baby enjoy music together. Learn lullabies and rhymes to music, increasing the child's perception of life through music. It's a fun way to bond with your little one." Sounds fun, right? WRONG!
Monday morning Ryan, Alahna and I walk into this class (hey it was his day off - gotta drag him too!) and the instructor had kids on the right of the room in tiny chairs around a pre-school type of table, and the parents on the left side of the room in bigger chairs. We should have known from that moment that this was all wrong for Alahna's age group. We should have walked out right then and there. But we had no idea the next 45 minutes would be pure torture. The instructor, bless her heart, was a nice little old lady. But she had no concept of how to teach the 18 month to about 2 and 1/2 year old age group. The first mistake as I described above was having the kids in a classroom type setting away from their parents. At Alahna's age they need the hands-on approach to learning something new. The teacher kept using words WAAAY over their heads - like count to a beat, march time, and baton! And she wanted them all to say those words! Half of those kids didn't even know how to say their names yet! So needless to say when the class was over, we headed over to the information desk and asked to switch classes (along with the other 15 or so parents that had kids in that class!)!
So on Tuesday we went back to the Rec Center and we were excited to try a different tumbling class than we had tried before. And it would have been a BLAST if Alahna wasn't having a bad day herself. She normally wakes up between 6:30 and 7:00 AM and that day she slept in til 8:30 AM! I think she over-slept because boy oh boy was she grumpy!! And she was not a nice girl! So we left class early, screaming, because we couldn't be a nice girl! Let's hope our next week at the Rec Center goes much better than this past week!