Kindermusik

I signed Annelise up for Kindermusik the day before her classes started. I decided that weekend that I wanted her to get involved with something, especially since she lacks the social aspect of going to a daycare or something similar. I'm glad I found this just in time!

Lots of the activities involve bouncing, swaying, swinging and dancing. Singing about baby activities, or trying to use common phrases that baby would use in regular life. Most of the activities involve holding our baby on our lap or on the floor, and doing motions for them, or doing baby massage. Annelise is way too old for that. She's so wiggly and squirmy! She still really enjoys listening to the songs, though, as she wanders around and looks at people, other babies, or stuff.

Sometimes it feels like Annelise enjoys class too much! She's one of the oldest babies in the class, since it's a 0-1.5 year old class, and she's something like 1.25 years old? 16 months, whatever that is in years. She and one other baby were the only walkers in the first session, which made it awkward when Annelise would keep getting up during the different songs and exploring the whole room. I guess that's totally normal, she's a baby who wants to learn, but I just felt embarrassed that my daughter was the only one not doing exactly what our teacher was singing for us to do! She does like any time I toss her in the air, or spin her around as part of the song activity. Lots of giggles! Bouncing around the room to syncopated rhythms is always fun, too.

One of the songs Annelise loves to participate in is the "Jingle, jingle, jingle, goes the baby bells" song. We do that one at home with her all the time! She learns her "where" sign, and how to hide the bells and then find them again! She always gets really excited during class for the toys to come out so we can sing that song. She will point up to the toys up on the shelf the moment we walk in the room and get excited about playing with them. I have to tell her that they're "put away", and we'll play with them later. And then once play time with the toys is done, we have to tell her again "put away!", and "all done!". She's very understanding about toy time being all done.

Now that we've been to 4 classes, or almost a full month, several of the other kids are now full on walkers, too, so the class is much more crazy, and I don't feel like I'm the only one with an out-of-control kid. They're toddlers now, it's what they do. :)

All in all, I'm glad she's going to Kindermusik. She's still the most active one in the class, running around to everyone and playing and saying hi to them, or wandering outside the perimeter of the room and playing with the mirror, doorstops, or whatever else. But she's getting socialized, and some more interesting mental stimulation, which I'm glad for! She'll also be more ready to participate in the older classes as she gets older, and hopefully continue to develop that little brain of hers with lots of social and logical skills!