Rat-A-Tat-Tat

Today was the first session of our "Village Music Circle" held at the city rec center.  This is Nate's and mine first taste of anything involving other kids and mommies.  I was looking forward to it and tried to hype it up during our little morning talk over breakfast.  "Are you ready to go sing some songs?" I'd ask him enthusiastically and he'd reply "yes" although he didn't have a clue what I was talking about.  The class is only 45 minutes long and -- aren't we lucky -- is held at the rec center up the street from our house.  We drove for this first session so we wouldn't be late (and make a bad impression) but from here on we'll walk over there.  I was curious to see how the other mommies would look -- casual, grungy, makeup, no makeup??  Of course, they were all adorable -- one was even wearing a beautiful turquoise necklace (seriously, jewelry???)  Anyway, we found our way to Room 6 and I've barely stepped inside when Nate starts to cry.  Hard.  And he doesn't stop.  We sit down in the circle and the kid is clinging to me for dear life.  Our circle is composed of only 10 participants so it's not too busy but it was apparently overwhelming for my little man (he was the only one crying).  Miss Beth had drum music playing and everybody was beating a drum -- that might have been a bit much for Nate.  All of the other mothers shot me looks that said "I understand" and "I've been there" so it wasn't uncomfortable but I just felt bad that Nate wasn't having a good time.  After playing with drums, we sang a song and greeted everyone by name.  Jennifer and Michael are clearly not popular names anymore, judging by this group (Cody, Nico, Emma, Samantha, Bella, Brady, Russell, Kate ).  We walked in a circle waving colorful scarves then played with other instruments.  45 minutes goes by very fast!  By the end, Nate had stopped crying and wasn't as clingy but he wasn't very interested in the music and wanted to play with everyone's shoes (eww).  So we'll go back next week and see what happens....