Caught With My Parenting Pants Down

I'm shell-shocked. I just attempted to take the Little Man to his first class. And it went oh-so-badly. SO badly.

I chose a play/gymnastics class at My Gym, thinking that he would enjoy the physicality of it and benefit from someone teaching him how to control his ever-lengthening body (the kid is over 38" tall at 2 1/2 and has the wingspan of a condor - I'd like to give him at least a shot at coordination!) We got there for our free trial class a few minutes early. And the Little Man went apeshit. There was all this stuff to play with - ladders, slides, a ball pit (SURELY cleaner than McDonalds) a basketball goal at which he could dunk, and lo, other children! He ran around happily from one thing to the other, diving, climbing, sliding and generally laughing like a madman. And he didn't push, he didn't hit, he didn't make any negative contact whatsoever with another child. I was so proud!

Then class started. The teacher sat down for Circle Time. And all the other little kiddies dutifully sat on their mommies' laps and patted the ground. Except for me, who was trying to figure out what the hell was going on and keep an eye on the Little Man, who was having no part of these silly people who were sitting when you could be running and playing! I finally pulled my head out and went and grabbed the boy and carried him, protesting loudly, over to the circle. And I made the stupid mistake of sitting beside the teacher to the left, so I got over to the circle just in time for the "question of the day": What is your name, and what is your Mommy's name?

Oh my.

My son knows his name. He says it when he wants to point out that something is unequivocally his, or to say "I not a boy. I Little Man!". When I ask him what his name is, his reply is always "Darwin" (our cat) or "No-No" (our former cat) or sometimes Mommy, accompanied by a giggle. He is a smartass, you see (I have NO idea where he gets that from). And I don't think he has a clue what my name is. He calls me various forms of Mommy, and sometimes Honey, which is what his dad uses most of the time.

Fortunately/unfortunately when she posed the questions to my son who I knew had no answers, he was still wrestling with me trying to get back to the playing. All she actually got out of him was an "I stuck!" At which, you know, they chuckled. However, the chuckling stopped as the wrestling billowed into a full-blown temper tantrum while the next polite, socially-apt child was giving his well-formed answer to the teacher.

I gave the Little man a hushed lecture, a series of choices and an ultimatum, but finally we got up and left. After a sum-total of about 5 minutes in the room. My kid is clearly not down with the Circle Time, or any other structured activity for that matter.

How is it that 10 other kids in the same general age group (ok, he IS on the younger end) can manage to sit and participate in a group activity and mine is the only one that acts like he was raised in the wild by hyenas? Do you have to start at 6-mos with the expensive-ass Gymboree classes to instill this behavior in your kid? Or maybe this is my penance for not attending church regularly (or at all). And are they really supposed to know their mom's real name at 2 1/2? I read Parenting - how could I be missing out on such vital knowledge as "your son is socially incapable AND he doesn't know your name, shame, shame".

The Little Man has been behaving really well for the past month, minding and learning new phrases like crazy. He's polite - says please, thank you, no, thank you, you're welcome and blesses people when they sneeze. Last weekend we put up his big-boy bed in his new room and he's slept in it fine every night except the first (besides rolling out of it onto the toddler mattress on the floor occasionally). And he can get up and down the ladder to the top bunk safely (yes, we taught him this for fear of him getting up to the top bunk some non-safe way like climbing up a pile of pillows, which he attempted, and not knowing how to get down). And he's started helping with chores around the house. I thought he was a little ahead for his age!

This is the first time in about 6 months I've felt like a completely inept parent. Help me, Internets! How do you give a bright, active, independent kid group social skills? Because I obviously sure as hell don't know. At this rate he'll be the kid in kindergarten that's running laps around the room while class is going on. I can see a lot of principal time in my future.

Eh.