ECFE
For those of you not in the know, ECFE = Early Childhood Family Education. We started our “birth-5 months” class yesterday. Well, I say we, but really I took her to scope it out and see if there were any other fathers there. There were so we’ll be going next week together. The trend has already started of her being old for her class. The other babies were all between 6 and 10 weeks and Muiread is 16 weeks today. In some ways that’s kind of fun because seeing her next to littler babies shows me that she really has grown.
She put on a good show during class; smiles, checking everything out, and general calmness. Her mom however was a little perplexed. How do these people already know these songs?!? I didn’t know any of them, but I guess I’ll learn. And why do people look at us in shock when we mention that we’re clueless and never have really even held a baby before this one? Are they worried for our daughter?
It was fun though and the other people there were really nice so hopefully if nothing else we can build a network of people up here. (since all of our baby-making friends are in Iowa).
Comments
Those feeling are totally normal. I went to a Mommy and Me class, and I felt like an idiot doing the songs and actions. Everyone seemed to have done these things a million times and knew exactly what to do. It ended up being pretty informative because they would always have a question-answer session at the end. Then I found out that other people don't know what they're doing either. I even found some of their questions stupid, which made me feel good :) Have fun!
Posted by: Diane | February 5, 2008 02:46 PM
I think joining some sort of peer group is a great parenting move! It's fun to meet other parents and realize that you're "normal". And get lots of good ideas too. It'll be fun to see how it goes in the months ahead. I still get together occasionally with the Yoga Mommies and Babies I did Pre-natal yoga with. And the more "events" you go to the more familiar faces you see over and over again. I wonder if it will be like that in the Twin Cities?
Posted by: Sara | February 5, 2008 03:08 PM
Many of our babymaking friends are also in Iowa and although Drew is a little bit older we took the same approach. We enrolled Drew in Kindermusik and swimming lessons so we could get out and do stuff with him. He loves the interaction, even if some of the activities are stuff we do at home anyway.
The first night of swimming lessons last spring we walked into the pool via the stairs. Drew absolutely freaked out and we stood in the corner with him wailing and kicking and clawing at me for the whole 30 minutes. I was "that parent". Fortunately, all of the other parents looked at me with a smile that said, "dude, I've totally been there before" and I didn't feel quite so bad.
Posted by: Jeff Utech | February 8, 2008 12:31 PM
WOW congrats on the baby!!! It's been aloooong time!!! thanks for emailing me your blog i should totally start one thats not facebook :o)
Posted by: gretchen schneider | February 10, 2008 08:22 PM