Music and playgroup

I went to a new playgroup today. In that sentence, "I" means me, my two girls, and my mum. Mum is around a lot these days because she is in the hiatus between surgery for breast cancer and radiotherapy. She gets measured up tomorrow, then the radio starts soon after. the surgery was successful and she has no need for chemo, and things are looking good. She's not working this semester, so she's spending a lot of time with her granddaughters. Depending on how taxing the radiotherapy is for her, she might be able to keep seeing them most days during her treatment. I hope so!

So anyway, anyway.

I've been on the lookout for a new playgroup, cos right now we can't get to our rainbow group due to nap times. If I get around to shifting the girls' nap earlier we will make it, but somehow it never happens. Soon. Anyway, anyway.

I found a thing called a Natural Parenting Playgroup. Another term that freaks me out. If I don't do Natural Parenting, am I being unnatural? Anyway, that's my problem and no-one else's  :-)

We went to the Brunswick NP playgroup, in a park, where we met a bunch of mums and one dad, plus lots of little kids. Most were about the same age as my girls, or younger. I'd been dreading it a bit, but it was lovely. Funny that I dreaded something that I also wanted to do. I was really hoping that it wasn't going to be one of those competitive events where everyone subtly mentioned how cool they are because they do co-sleeping or are still breast-feeding or whatever. Not that I mind people doing those things, or talking about them, but the competitive thing gets me down. So I was dreading this imaginary competition, which never eventuated.

Instead, I had some nice chats with other mums (didn't get around to the dad), and my mum nattered too. The girls ate everyone else's nicely cut-up fruit in boxes, and the other mums assured me that this was fine. Hazel went on the slide, and the whirly thing on a stick. Ivy insisted on the swing.

The only bad thing was the distance. It's about half an hour away, which is a long way when little girls are tired and want to go to sleep in the car on the way home. Mum sat in the back between them and frantically read story after story. She fits back there because we are driving my mother-in-law's capacious new Volvo. not sure how we will go with future visits. It's a very pleasant group, but the car trip is a drag. We will see.

In contrast, tomorrow we are not going to the music class. We did three weeks of Suzuki music classes for the girls. These are the classes for tinies (up to 3 years old). Lots of nursery rhymes, bashing on plastic drums, skipping in time to the beat, and all the rest of it.

It was not much fun at all. Suzuki is supposed to be all about the love, but this was not. It was more about social control. If you aren't sitting down or walking around in the right direction, you are disruptive. This attitude is communicated by indirect means - saccharine praise to the kids doing the right thing, and increasingly tense instructions to toddlers to sit down, or stand up, or wait their turn. The actual music stuff was great, but not worth all that control. They are too young. Maybe in a year they will enjoy it - or maybe not!

I feel relieved to not be going any more. Now we can go to the market on Wednesday mornings instead.