I had a strange experience today at my daughter’s ballet class.  Alex has class in a little room with about 5 other little  4-5 year olds.  Just outside this room is a little “holding” room where the mothers and siblings can hang out while the class is in session.  There’s a window where adoring Moms can stand and oogle their darling tutu toting angels but after a few rounds of passés and pliés it gets to be redundant so we mostly just sit down read books, chat, etc.

Today, I had to bring Jackson.  To his surprise and enjoyment there were two other boys who were about a year older than him who were also dragged to their sister’s ballet practice.  After the initial, “What’s your name?  How old are you?  Do you like Spiderman?” chit chat they were the best of friends.  One of the boys showed the other two how to make paper airplanes and a roudy game of “lets see how far these babies will fly” ensued.  The mothers (myself included) did our best to rein the noise and jumping around in but sometimes that like trying to keep a cat on a leash.

After several moments of  ”Jackson come sit down for 5 mins and relax” and trying to make sure Jackson didn’t work himself into a lather they were getting loud once again and I was just about to stand up and get him to bring him over to me and…..Another mother yelled at my son to be quiet. I was sitting right there. What’s puzzling about this to me is her son was one of the three in the plane game. She then turns to me and apologizes and says, “Sorry, I was just assuming you weren’t saying anything b/c you were tired so I thought I’d help you out. Sometimes having a stranger say something helps. Takes a village….” I just sat there stunned.

After a second of complete silence Jackson looks her right in the eyes and says, “Um…..that was awkward. It’s like you think you are my Mom.”  The whole place erupted in laughter.. Thank you Jackson!!!! I couldn’t have said it better myself!

I agree with her theory that sometimes we can help each other out but this was just plain weird. Why did she not take her child, I take mine and the other Mom would get her son?  I am sure Jackson was loud but I do not know if he was any more loud than the others.  What was worse is she goes on to explain how she isn’t afraid to get on to other people’s kids if she thinks they need it.  At McD’s there was a Mom who wasn’t in the play room, sitting out in the dining area w/ her back to the play area and let her kids run wild.  Like I’m in that category??!  What the hell?  This is the same woman who asked a group of people who were speaking Spanish if they were related “because I hear ya’ll over there talking and you all seem to know each other.”  Another Mom says, “I don’t know one word of Spanish.”  Her response?  ”Really?  Because you look the most likely to speak Spanish (loud obnoxious laugh).”  And my all time favorite was a little boy talking about how his Mom is Korean and Dad is Japanese and how he’s trying to learn both languages.  Her response?  ”Are they very different languages to learn?” (not so bad) “Oh yes, very different.”  ”Oh like American English and Britain English?”  (stunned silence).

And I have to deal with her two times a week. Sigh……