Fa la la la FREAK

On Friday we had our second session of Music Together, a "mommy and me" music class for toddlers and parents so desperate for outside contact that they will shed their shoes and dignity and dance around with scarves to hippy, folky music while their children watch them aghast, agog and drooling. After our first class, I was sure that a Renaissance woman was leading the class. Not Renaissance in the "capable in multiple areas" kind of a way, but more in an "I dress up for Renaissance Faires and my friends and I act out witty vignettes in Elizabethan prose amongst the crowd and I always play the Saucy Wench" way. My reaction to our first class was to call Gregg afterwards and shout "I will NEVER, EVER, make you go to this class." I knew he would be unable to handle the improv-like warm up exercises, including the Becoming the Bee exercise and the beating on the chest while trilling scales. The thought of him twirling scarves around Madelena's uninterested head while dancing to a saccharin version of Autumn Leaves Are Falling was almost enough to warrant investment in a secret video camera and additional couples counseling, but I decided the risk was greater — if only by a smidge — than the hours of gut busting laughter provided by the tape, sure to become a favorite at family get togethers.

After our second class, I downgraded our instructor to perhaps more of a Burning Man participant — still gung ho and in character, but more ironic than creepy in her belting out of Tiny Frog and Hey Lolly Lolly Lolly. Just like those who share a foxhole, the mothers bond through the shared the pain of the scarf dance and more than a bit of embarrassment for the one mom who seemed to find it stimulating and an outlet for her inner Salomé. And in the hours and days that have followed our class, I find myself mindlessly singing Sandpiper, Sandpiper and Rocket Ship and even the Hello song, which seems to play in my head in a constant loop, my first thought in the morning and a buzz in my ears that awakens me at 3am. At home I try to come up with new "spontaneous" verses for Hey Lolly Lolly and Jim Jiggety, knowing that I will be called upon for some improv verses about my child, a body movement or a color. I don't want to be the mom who stops the party because she is confounded by the sudden need to create a new line, unable to croak out "Jim jiggety, twirl jiggety, twirl joesy joe" and instead stares in a panic at the cheery, expectant teacher.

Recently I've been reading articles and essays about making families more adult-centric than child-centric, providing your child with the independence and self-sufficiency they need to recognize their insignificance in the larger world. Send them off to play by themselves while mama and daddy have a pitcher of martinis, some rumaki and adult conversation before the kids become little egocentrics who expect to be included. Taken to the extreme, some say children who are always catered to and cheered on just for breathing and blinking are later shocked when they realize they need to get jobs, work hard at relationships and find self-worth inside rather than in the world around them. They will fall into lives plagued by promiscuity, career failure, drugs, porn and right-wing Republicanism.

As I sit on the floor in ratty socks singing All The Pretty Little Horses while wrangling Madelena into some semblance of calm cuddling, I wonder if I am doing her a disservice. Should I instead be sitting at a café enjoying a strong cup of Peets and thrusting the business section in her face when she demands my attention? Will she sleep with a bike messenger at the age of 15 because I just spent the last hour playing small musical instruments and will spend the upcoming hour playing with wee farm animals and monkeys on the floor, showing her the joy of putting them into muffin tins? Will heroin be her drug of choice because I make her organic meals and feed her not only before me but also often in lieu of filling my own body? IS AN ADULT-CENTRIC STRATEGY MY GOLDEN TICKET, A GUILT-FREE ONE-WAY PASS OUT OF HERE AND INTO THE NEAREST MARTINI BAR?

Not a chance. I spent nearly 40 years focusing on ME and my needs, and now it's my turn to just suck it up and sing some folky, overly sweet songs and dance like a freak with a tie-dyed scarf and ensure my daughter knows that yes, yes, she is the center of the world.