Stressoree

Could someone please tell me why everything has to be such a goddamn hassle all the time?

(takes deep breath)

(Internet rolls eyes, refills coffee and sits down, because HERE WE GO AGAIN)

So I signed Noah up for Gymboree. I don't think I can adequately describe just how jazzed I was about starting Gymboree. It just sounded so...parental, you know? So very responsible. So very concerned about my child's enrichment activities, which prior to Gymboree have involved chewing on books and breaking into child-proofed cabinets.

Also a pantsload of television.

But Gymboree! Fun! Socialization! And...I didn't really know what else, because the Gymboree website wasn't exactly helpful. It placed Noah in the Level 3 class, which is described as follows:

Children this age are adept communicators. They show what they want or need through actions, such as pointing at a toy or leading you by the hand to open a door for them.

Um. They do? Noah still takes a more...vocal approach to demonstrating his needs, although I suppose his ability to throw his arms up in the air so his armpits or any other grippable part of his body disappears into a single slippery, dead-weight torso is a form of communicating through body language. (TRANSLATION: WOE. MISERY. I HATE YOU.)

Level 3 it is!

Anyway, all week I kept telling everybody about Gymboree. "I signed up for Gymboree! We're going to Gymboree!"

(TRANSLATION: WE'RE GOING TO LEAVE THE HOUSE AND GO PLACES! OUTSIDE PLACES! WHERE THE OTHER GROWN-UPS LIVE!)

If Noah understood a single word I said, he probably expected Gymboree to be some kind of magical candy boat ride to outer space, where both Steve and Joe from Blue's Clues live, where every bath is a bubble bath and no one ever makes you get out because you are pruney and the apple juice flows like wine.

So I hope you can understand my state of mind when earlier this afternoon, when we were ready to depart for our very first class, my car wouldn't start.

My car (WHICH I JUST PAID OFF, BY THE WAY, HOW AWESOME) is dead. I don't know if it's the battery or the oil or the engine or the hooziwhatsit manifold, but it is supremely dead.

So after attempting to start the car (WHICH I JUST PAID OFF, ALL FISCALLY-RESPONSIBLE AND DEBT-FREE AND SHIT) several dozen times, I finally gave up and got out of the car (THE CAR I JUST PAID OFF, IF I DID NOT MENTION THAT PART).

I looked at my watch and realized that Gymboree started in 15 minutes.

A normal person would probably just skip fucking Gymboree that day, right? Call and bump her enrollment to the next week? Take the baby inside for an afternoon of Noggin and Cheerios?

It would take at least a half hour to get there by Metro and required two bus transfers. So instead I hauled Noah to the street corner and hailed a damn cab, because I am determined (TRANSLATION: INSANE).

$8.50 later, I released my white-knuckled grip on Noah and extricated us from the elaborate seat-belt set-up I'd rigged around our bodies, and got to Gymboree just in time. I was sweaty and disheveled, and the outfit I'd carefully selected (yeah...shut up) was really just super gross by now.

BUT GODDAMMIT. I WAS AT GYMBOREE. LET THE MAGIC BEGIN.

The good news is that Noah had an amazing time. He smiled and laughed and rolled balls and climbed slides. There were bubbles. He's clearly a little behind the experienced playgroupers in his socialization, since every other baby there was indeed using hand gestures. The pace is fun yet frenetic, so I thought he did really well despite being a bit overwhelmed at times.

(I mean, I was freaking overwhelmed, what with all the songs I didn't know the words to and apparently I do the hand motions for Itsy-Bitsy Spider TOTALLY WRONG, so I guess we both have a little catching up to do.)

(And of course, there was the inevitable encounter with a little girl who smacked Noah across the face when he tried to give her a hug.)

(Whatever, it was totally just a pity hug, as she was one homely looking child. He can do better and he knows it.)

(Yep. I'm about ready for Noah to bring home a girlfriend. Meow!)

The bad news is that as an actual mother there with her actual child, I was clearly in the minority. (This is bad news because you KNOW I was hoping the Gymboree tuition money would also buy me a brand-new BFF.) Most of the women were nannies and babysitters, and the only other woman there with her own son mentioned that he had a Spanish class the next day and I thought she was joking and laughed, because haaaaa those crazy overachieving types.

Of course, she wasn't joking. God, I'm such an asshole.

(An asshole who took a taxi to Gymboree and then had to figure out how to get home now, and you know damn well she wasn't getting a ride offer from Ms. Perfectly-Coiffed-and-Manicured-Latin-for-Toddlers.)

Luckily, while I typically don't demonstrate the good sense God gave a fly, I at least had the presence of mind to grab Noah's stroller from the car (THAT IS DEAD) (YET PAID FOR!) before hailing the cab.

So I got a lot of exercise walking back to where I could catch a transferless bus (I don't do transfers, although I have no idea why), although the exercise was probably rendered moot by the Frappuccino I stopped for halfway through, especially since I ordered a tall (TRANSLATION: GRANDE) and they made me a venti. Which I took. And drank. Because the universe owed me.

Sigh.

I prepaid for 12 more weeks of this. We are all super excited.

THREE CHEERS FOR GYMBOREE!