Champagne Friday

So, champagne thursday sounds great in theory, but instead I spent my Thursday night looking at a potential future employment opportunity and I have to say, I was intimidated. I sat in a gymnasium while two women in their early twenties entertained ten little girls between 6 and 8 for an hour. The activities included hand stands, front rolls, parallel bars, uneven bars, rings, balance beam and floor mat activities. Now, I'm not as tiny as I once was and definitely not as in shape as I wish I was, but I looked at this as an opportunity to possibly find employment outside of my current work history. I thought, hey! not sitting at a desk all day will mean that work will be varied and exciting! And working with kids is pretty cool, I mean, they're pretty straight forward, you don't have to work to hard to impress kids. Then there's the fact that it's indoors and there's all these activities to do with the kids, right? Not like soccer where they can go running off in all kinds of crazy directions and kicking balls into eachothers faces and stuff like that. Gymnastics coaching would be WAY better, right?!?! At least you can see some of my logic behind that thought process, right?!

Well, I think I'm a little bit tramatized. I mean, I thought girls, well, with girls they'll do better at listening and taking turns and things like that right? WRONG!!!!! OMG, half of those little snot nosed brats where HOLY TERRORS!!! One of the things I like about coaching soccer is that I like my team parents. They don't mind it when I yell at their kids and appreciate it when I have them run laps when they can't seem to concentrate on the task at hand, which makes practice that much more effective in improving team performance as well as running out some of their excess energy...mutually beneficial!!

I have to say that taking the job which is part time starting at $9-$12 an hour is a HUGE drop in pay for me, but I guess I was feeling like I really need to just get a job doing something, I even looked at volunteer opportunities just to keep my sanity, I mean I'm used to having a lot to occupy my every waking moment between juggling school, work, the kids and their schedules (OMG, my kids have thier own SCHEDULES...MAN....I JUST MADE MYSELF FEEL OLD!!!!) and I've just been taking care of Gage which does have it's own fullfilling aspects but for me, I need other things. My last two classes for my degree begin on Monday and looking at the syllabus they will be pretty grueling so that was part of the appeal of a part time job, ya know? Not so much work as I'd been doing....which brings me back to the trauma....

So you know that Marry Poppins is freakishly thrilled to be with kids right? Well the girl that was the ringleader of this gymnastics circus was like Mary Poppins....ON CRACK!! She was like OMG, you kids are SO AWESOME! ALL OF YOU! Even you demon-in-pink (I made up nicknames for the kids in my head while I was sitting there....yeah, I'm bored okay!) and then while the other group leader closed the class, she walked out of the gymnasium where all the parents were seated watching the class through the windows and with all the enthusiasm of a high school cheerleader went through all the activities the kids just completed and what developmental milestones the activities where helping the kids reach.

Yeah, gymnastics is no longer because flipping over some bars is fun or learning how to walk a straight line high up off the ground is scary and you feel cool when you do it. It is now a way to "strengthen not only children's physical abilities, but also their ability to learn through progressive curriculum and individualized instruction that begins at infancy and continues through pre-school and grade school to ensure that your child gains skills in an age-appropriate way." I just threw up in my mouth...just a little bit....AHEM...

Has society gotten so shallow that they can't just say, hey, my kid wanted to do gymnastics so we said yes, now look at that cool flip thing she can do, neat eh? Does every single activity that your kid participates in have to have some deeper nurological result that you can brag to your other mommy friends about? Is it so that when your kid grows up and inevitably blames you for everything that goes wrong in their life you can say, "no way man, not my fault, I put you in developmentally appropriate activites to encourage your fine motor skill development, your displeasure can't possible be because of me!" I still maintain that some of my least favorite people in the world are first time parents that are near forty that only have 1 child. I think it's because they usually act like they're kid is God's gift to the planet. It's been my experience that those kids are usually the worst kids in the world, and this is from my experience based both on working with kids now and going to school with those kids throughout my youth...ASSHOLES usually, yes, spoiled rotten brats...Sorry....I was having flashbacks there for a minute...ahem...

I wanted to get on here to post a new pic of the people that mean the most to me in this world, the ones that I considered working at the demon-child-gymanstics-mary-poppins-on-crack-place for. I actually still am, I don't know if I'll even be offered a job, but I really gotta do something...it's getting to the point that my hubby and I are talking about our feelings, and sharing secrets, and stuff....it's nice don't get me wrong, but I think that there comes a time in every marriage when you realize that if you don't ever come home from work and go, DAMN I HATE MY JOB then hubby can never help you work out your frustration in spontaneous and lusty ways.....ahem..... ;~) Happy Champagne Friday this week (yes, it's come twice this week) and hugs and kisses to you all!