Earlier this year I was talking to a relative, who would probably prefer not to be identified, about a couple of things I’d like Caspar to be able to do as he isn’t at 3yo kindergarten due to single-mother budget constraints. One of those things was a music class, and I’d found one that actually had a pay-per-session Mini Rock Band at fairly reasonable prices. The other thing was a weekly sports class but the price, if I’d enrolled him for the entire year, was not much lower than kinder would have been. I was trying to save enough for at least a term of that, mostly because I wanted Caspar to get some experience with a structured environment to help prepare him for school.
So… Just your general parent-of-a-small-child talking to a parent-of-small-children conversation.
Except for the, “I’ll pay for that. Sport is my job,” with a shrug of the shoulder because it’s NO BIG DEAL. (Which made me cry a little bit because when you’re a single mother everything is your job and it gets a bit exhausting.)
Anyway, the point of this story is not really about how great it is to have very tall, baby-boy relatives with the highly under-rated sense of masculine, familial duty. The point is that Caspar had his first sports class today.
The question in my mind was… Which Caspar will he be when we get there? If it was the painfully shy one, then it might not be fun the first few times.
I took a wrong turn and we were 5 minutes late, everyone already lined up and ready to go. I held open the nets for us to squeeze through and join them… And he just ran into the thick of it.
He did try to follow the instructions as they ran, or stomped, or jumped from one side of the nets to the other to warm up, but he was just so excited (and giggling constantly) that co-ordination or anything that required slowing down was not on the cards. And when they formed a circle to do some bending and stretching, he, apparently, belonged in the centre of it showing off his crazy wiggles and fake-falldowns.
Attention-seeking Caspar had been another on my list of possibles. I think it is something that might be an issue in the first years of school. The problem is though, he is so delightful he’ll probably get away with it. (Which reminds me of my Grade 3 teacher, Sister Ursula, handing my empty workbook to my mother at the end of the year and saying, “I made sure she learned everything, but she is just so full of joy that I didn’t want to restrain her.”)
After that, he did some soccer exercises; slightly calmer, slightly better at following the instructions, only needing a gentle reminder to go to the back of the line after he kicking his goal instead of the front of it. And then it was time to cool down, which is when possible Caspar #3 showed up.
Playing musical hula hoops, jumping into hoops when the music stopped and having to share hoops as more were taken away, he always found his way into the teacher’s hoop. Sitting down in a circle to sing the goodbye song, he completely ignored the huge gap and squeezed himself right in next to her, almost landing on her lap and staring up at her with that flirty little sparkle in his eyes.
My charming little suck-up.
But the short story is… The first day was wonderful. Caspar wishes he didn’t have to wait a week for the next class. I think it will be very useful. And I love my unnamed relative.
(If you are wondering… The classes are run by Ready Steady Go, which operates throughout Australia, and I highly recommend them to anyone who has a pre-school age child!)
Fantastic.
It was! And he really did sparkle.
Sounds like he had a marvellous time
Glad Caspar enjoyed it.
Have you got Little Athletics near you …and do they have a Tiny tots (3-5yrs) .I goes for 6 months from Sept to March (registration is usually once only cost ours was $50 each for the 6 months less $10 early bird per family so my friend’s was $40 for her 1 child.Nothing else.
Tiny tots don’t have to have a uniform at our club.
I might check out Ready steady go too.
I’d love to find a music class for my little drummer boys.
I think I’ll have one class clown at least.
Little Athletics in Victoria don’t run Tiny Tots, sadly. Only age 5 and up. But that would have been great. (And at that price, he could have done both!) I’ll definitely keep that in mind for later though. Thank you.
And class clowns… well, everybody loves them.