Hellobee

When Addie was about four months old, I began bundling her up every week to bring her to the infant story time at our local library. Every Tuesday at 10:30am moms, because it was always moms, and their infants would gather in a small room off the children’s library for Baby Bookworms. While sitting in a circle on a colorful mat, we would sing nursery rhymes, and help our babies move their limbs along to the music. The librarian would read stories, and the grownups would listen intently, and point the pictures out to the little ones, who were inevitably either 1) asleep 2) pooping 3) eating a communal toy 4) crying or 5) some combination of all of the above.

Infants are notoriously enthusiastic about reading.

I’m not sure how much A got out of it, but I really enjoyed our time there. I got to talk to grownups and felt strongly that Addie was benefiting from the activities as well. Baby Bookworms was the first in a long line of “Mommy and Me” classes Addie and I took over the years.

There was the open gym class, where I would chat with a friend while our girls crawled around on the mats. Before we knew it, they were taking hesitant little steps that got faster and more confident until they were running on the trampolines, and gleefully getting in the big kids’ way.

Then there was the music class. Again I found myself in a circle of moms and their children, but this time we were under a tree in a park. I sang, and desperately tried to convince Addie that participating in the class was more fun than climbing the nearby tree. I seldom succeeded, but by the end of the session, she could climb high enough that I would catch my breath looking at her.

Later, we found ourselves in a gym once again. This time I was a pregnant mom waddling alongside my long-legged almost three-year-old while she somersaulted, jumped on the trampoline, and marched along the balance beam. Along the way she fell a little in love with her teacher, and decided that she much preferred holding “teacher’s” hand instead of mine. My heart broke a little, but I still showed the shaky video of her forward roll to literally everyone I met.

Then Addie turned three. Suddenly our mommy and me days were behind us. Now it was time to enter the world of “big kid” activities. The kind where I would send Addie off to a studio, or a gym, or a field, and wait outside until the class was over. After some consideration, I settled on a once a week ballet class for three to five-year-olds.

The first week, I helped Addie into her tights and leotard, twisted her hair into a ballerina bun, and took roughly 8 million pictures. Then I watched as she ran into the studio without a second glance back at me.

Everyone knows that ballerinas only wear pink polka dot socks with their tights. 

While the ballet studio belongs to the tiny ballerinas, the waiting room belongs to the moms. We sit together, and for thirty minutes share stories about our kids and laugh at the ridiculousness that is motherhood. To be frank, I’m not sure if Addie or I benefit more from that half hour every week. Addie is absolutely thriving in a class without me alongside her, and, just like at Baby Bookworms three years ago, I can’t put a high enough value on getting to talk to grown-ups.

After the word’s shortest thirty minutes, the little girls will come flooding into the waiting room. Addie will eagerly show me her sticker, which is a reward for (more or less) listening to her teacher. She’ll pull off her ballet slippers, and put on her Lightening McQueen Crocs. I’ll hold her hand, and as I wrangle the double stroller out the door, I’ll listen to Addie share all the new things she learned that day. It’s amazing how even thirty minutes apart gives us so much to catch up on.

Sitting in the waiting room is another reminder that my days as the mommy half of a “mommy and me” team are numbered. Now it’s time to learn how to wait on the sidelines. It’s time to trust my tiny whirlwind to behave when I’m not around. It’s time to acknowledge that other adults can teach her some things better than I can. Someday, not too long from now, I’ll be pushed to the side in so many areas of her life. So, for now, I sit in the waiting room and try to memorize every detail of how she looks bouncing around the corner to me. For those seconds, all the frustration that comes with being a mom melts away, and I only see the love.

It’s the best part of the waiting room.