Baby Rhyme Time

Yes, I know the title of my post this morning may sound a little cheesy, but I actually stole the name from a weekly "activity" that is held in a neighboring town library.  Yesterday, as in previous weeks, was my day off to watch my son.  It started off as a rainy day as most people who live in Connecticut know, but that doesn't matter much to a 1 year old.  All my son really cares about is being able to walk around, play with his toys, eat his food, and take his naps.  That about sums it up.  Yesterday, though, we made an excursion that we hope to make on a regular basis to the Woodbridge Public Library.  At the library, if you couldn't guess already by the title of my post, they have "Baby Rhyme Time".  It is a short little activity where parents/guardians and their children between 6 and 18 months can gather together and enjoy some of the favorite rhymes that we used to enjoy when we were little.  Some of the rhymes are "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Patty cake, patty cake", "If your happy and you know it".  You get the point.  Some of the rhymes I was very familiar with as I sing them to our son and others I had completely forgotten about until the little old lady from the library started singing them.  In any case, I am getting ahead of myself a little, so let me backtrack.  My son and I were going to go last week, however, as I went to change his diaper before leaving, he had a little freak out moment due to his tiredness and I decided that it would be best if we waited till this week.  I got a little worried that we wouldn't make it this week either as he started exhibiting signs of tiredness due to his running around the house in the morning.  Despite the eye rubbing, the head scratching, and the ear pulling, he didn't freak out and we made our way to the library.  On our way there, he almost fell asleep in my Jeep (which is a feat in and of itself due to the rocky suspension) but managed to stay awake during the 10 minute ride.  We arrived a little early as I like to do when going anywhere, and he got to "meet" some of the other little kids who were there.  I say "meet" because as all the children are between the ages of 6 and 18 months, none of them actually talk to each other, they merely play in the same area, occasionally make eye contact, and try to take toys away from each other. 

When we walked into the children's area of the library, there were a good number of mothers and their children already seated around the carpet where the rhyme time would take place.  Not wanting to intrude, we made our way to the little table that had a toy train set up on it for children to play with.  He absolutely loved it and went right to work grabbing trains, showing them to me, and seeing how many he could fit in one hand.  He had his first interaction with another young boy a little younger than him right off the bat.  I must say, our son is very polite.  The other young boy went to go take a train away from him and he just let him take it, looked at him, and then went for a different train instead.  The mother of the other boy stopped him, which was nice, and our son tried to reach for the train back, but I only had to stop him once before he figured out that he couldn't take things from other children.  If only all the other children were as polite.  He played there for about 5 minutes before "rhyme time" started at which point he didn't want to leave the trains at all.  He didn't fight too hard or throw a fit thankfully and we made our way to the circle to join in.  It was a little awkward for me as I was the only father there and it seemed as if every else new each other at least a little from the "rhyme time".  I didn't care too much though and we had fun through the whole 10-15 minutes that it lasted.  Our son is usually a chatter box and animated, however, during the rhyme time, he just sat and looked around the circle at all the other children and their mothers.  All in all there were probably about 10-12 parents there with about as many children.  Most of the other children were animated and got into the rhyme time.  Our son, however, just took it all in yesterday and I think was more fascinated in the other children than the actual rhymes being sung.  I will definitely go back next week provided that he doesn't freak out because all in all, it was good to get our son out and amongst other little children his age.  Once the rhyme time concluded, he made his way over to some of the toys in the middle of the circle where we were sitting.  Despite all the fun colored "stuff", he chose a basket full of egg shakers and rattles.  As he loves to do for whatever reason, he started taking them all out, and putting them back in the basket.  He would make a pile in one spot, then move it to another all while some of the other children were just sitting there shaking the rattles.  He wanted nothing to do with the whole shaking part, he just wanted to sort and move things around.  At one point, I tried to get him to put all the eggs and rattles back in the basket so he could go play with some of the other children around the trains, but he almost lost it so I let him play a little more with the his piles of eggs and rattles. 

Eventually, I managed to coax him away and over to the trains again where he went right back to what he was doing before.  We were probably at the library for about an hour before most of the other children left and I decided that it was time to get our son home to feed him so food and get him down for a nap.  He didn't fall asleep on the way home luckily as that would mean going down for a nap afterward would be difficult.  Overall, he was in really good spirits yesterday and we both had fun playing together.  He is starting to walk more and more.  At the library, he rarely crawled at all, he just wanted to walk from place to place.  While he still wants to hold one of our hands from time to time, he is getting more ambitious with his walking and almost tried running yesterday without much success.  It was kind of funny to watch as he had the right idea.  He started walking and then tried moving his feet faster and leaning forward.  The leaning part did him in though as he leaned a little too far forward and went down.  I am thankful for that as our son running is the last thing I need right now.  What amazed me most about yesterday and the rhyme time was that our son didn't do much "talking" while at the library.  Most of the time he doesn't stop chattering away.  In any case, he was probably not used to being around that many other children and didn't quite know what to do.  He'll warm up to them though and get used to it.  Till next week, at least I had my fantastic day off with our son.