sao95
09-14-2005, 05:46 PM
*warning- this is in the form of a rant, which may contain emotional under currents, seemingly irrational judgements of others, and mystical over tones*
Alright, I have been looking for things to take my daughter to where there will be other kids. With us living far from our families, and not having any friends who have children, my daughter hasn't had the oppurtunity to be around alot of other children. Unfortunately there isn't alot offered in Corpus Christi Texas. But I saw something on story time and decided it might be worth a try.
So we pack up and head to story time. We get there with time to spare and sit around the childrens book section. At first I saw another guy with his daughter and thought "this could be cool, I'm not the only guy here, could make a play friend to have over or what not." So we pick out a book to look at and head to a table, women are filtering in with their kids, and a woman with a boy sits fairly close to us, I give her a "hi, I'm here for story time too" smile, and she returns the smile. So it's seeming good, got a lady who seems nice and also a little shy like myself, and a guy with a kid and I'm thinking "this may work out after all". Then comes the superficial, loud, chatty, housewives. I don't know if you guys see this bunch the same as I do, maybe not. But they are the ones who know each other, they form a little click, talk about trivial crap, have those fake laughs, it's seemingly all about appearances. Well then the guy with the girl has a wife that shows up and joins the click, and the shy mom just seems to suck all the positive energy she was letting out, back into herself and withdraws to giving total attention to her son, (it's the shy persons way of dealing with groups of strangers, I know because I'm guilty of it). Now the superficial bunch saturates the place with their vibes and closes everyone else out in a sense.
Well now it's story time, so Jilly and I make our way into the room, we're the first ones to enter basically, there is a carpet on the floor and chairs around it. This being my first time I figure the carpet is for the kids and the chairs are for the adults. I assume that "story time" is supposed to be for the kids to be around other kids, an introduction to society if you will, where the parents give them a little room to investigate the trials and tribulations of social interacting. Unfortunately I was wrong. A few women sat and then the chatty bunch comes in and sits on the floor outside the carpet, right next to their kids, then the few other parents who had had the same delusion as me about what storytime was supposed to be (this included the shy woman) immediately sat down on the floor as well. I wasn't worried because I still had easy access to my daughter and I wanted to see how she would handle herself, I was only three feet away. Well then a few straglers came in and sat right in front of me cutting off access. And boom the lady starts story time. But she doesn't start reading, she starts singing with gestures, I don't know the gestures to these songs, and I know my daughter doesn't so I'm watching her and she is watching the other kids, (some doing the gestures, I'd say all had been there before) and I can see she is feeling a bit left out because she isn't getting what's going on. Finally they start reading, the librarian, although seemingly a nice woman, doesn't have that quality that captures kids attention, and her voice is a bit too low, so most of the kids aren't paying attention, some people have brought in infants who are way to little for story time and are disrupting, and Jilly isn't interested in the old lady reading the story, it's no big deal to her because she gets read to every night. But she does see the alphabet in the carpet and she starts crawling around the carpet pointing to the ABC's. Then anothe rlittle girl takes her shoes off, so Jilly takes hers off, and the guy with the girl is now holding his daughter in the back while the mother talks with the chatty bunch who have yet to shut up, which by the way isn't helping the kids be able to hear the story. At which point this bacame painful I don't know exactly, but it did. It ended (thank god) and I pick up my daughters shoes and start putting them on her, only to have a woman say they are her daughters shoes, which they were, same size make model everything as my daughters. :roll: The worst part was that seemingly the women wanted nothing to do with me, the other guy was alright because he had his wife with him, but it seemed my presence made even the librarian uncomfortable.
What really hit me though was at the end, and this is the emotional part, but I felt really bad. I felt like my inabilities in social settings are only hurting my daughter. I felt like I was letting her down. So we are gonna go back next week, and I'm gonna try to make something positive outta this. But what exactly or how to go about it I don't know. Something to bring the parents who go, together as a group I'm thinking, so that all of the kids (and parents) feel included.
So any advice or suggestions on how to go about this are much appreciated, also any insight on how to infiltrate the chatty club would be much appreciated. On a side note I did have a chance to talk to the the guy briefly and he seemed alright, and I got the impression he is a stay at home dad, but it was only an impression, don't know for sure.
Pat
Alright, I have been looking for things to take my daughter to where there will be other kids. With us living far from our families, and not having any friends who have children, my daughter hasn't had the oppurtunity to be around alot of other children. Unfortunately there isn't alot offered in Corpus Christi Texas. But I saw something on story time and decided it might be worth a try.
So we pack up and head to story time. We get there with time to spare and sit around the childrens book section. At first I saw another guy with his daughter and thought "this could be cool, I'm not the only guy here, could make a play friend to have over or what not." So we pick out a book to look at and head to a table, women are filtering in with their kids, and a woman with a boy sits fairly close to us, I give her a "hi, I'm here for story time too" smile, and she returns the smile. So it's seeming good, got a lady who seems nice and also a little shy like myself, and a guy with a kid and I'm thinking "this may work out after all". Then comes the superficial, loud, chatty, housewives. I don't know if you guys see this bunch the same as I do, maybe not. But they are the ones who know each other, they form a little click, talk about trivial crap, have those fake laughs, it's seemingly all about appearances. Well then the guy with the girl has a wife that shows up and joins the click, and the shy mom just seems to suck all the positive energy she was letting out, back into herself and withdraws to giving total attention to her son, (it's the shy persons way of dealing with groups of strangers, I know because I'm guilty of it). Now the superficial bunch saturates the place with their vibes and closes everyone else out in a sense.
Well now it's story time, so Jilly and I make our way into the room, we're the first ones to enter basically, there is a carpet on the floor and chairs around it. This being my first time I figure the carpet is for the kids and the chairs are for the adults. I assume that "story time" is supposed to be for the kids to be around other kids, an introduction to society if you will, where the parents give them a little room to investigate the trials and tribulations of social interacting. Unfortunately I was wrong. A few women sat and then the chatty bunch comes in and sits on the floor outside the carpet, right next to their kids, then the few other parents who had had the same delusion as me about what storytime was supposed to be (this included the shy woman) immediately sat down on the floor as well. I wasn't worried because I still had easy access to my daughter and I wanted to see how she would handle herself, I was only three feet away. Well then a few straglers came in and sat right in front of me cutting off access. And boom the lady starts story time. But she doesn't start reading, she starts singing with gestures, I don't know the gestures to these songs, and I know my daughter doesn't so I'm watching her and she is watching the other kids, (some doing the gestures, I'd say all had been there before) and I can see she is feeling a bit left out because she isn't getting what's going on. Finally they start reading, the librarian, although seemingly a nice woman, doesn't have that quality that captures kids attention, and her voice is a bit too low, so most of the kids aren't paying attention, some people have brought in infants who are way to little for story time and are disrupting, and Jilly isn't interested in the old lady reading the story, it's no big deal to her because she gets read to every night. But she does see the alphabet in the carpet and she starts crawling around the carpet pointing to the ABC's. Then anothe rlittle girl takes her shoes off, so Jilly takes hers off, and the guy with the girl is now holding his daughter in the back while the mother talks with the chatty bunch who have yet to shut up, which by the way isn't helping the kids be able to hear the story. At which point this bacame painful I don't know exactly, but it did. It ended (thank god) and I pick up my daughters shoes and start putting them on her, only to have a woman say they are her daughters shoes, which they were, same size make model everything as my daughters. :roll: The worst part was that seemingly the women wanted nothing to do with me, the other guy was alright because he had his wife with him, but it seemed my presence made even the librarian uncomfortable.
What really hit me though was at the end, and this is the emotional part, but I felt really bad. I felt like my inabilities in social settings are only hurting my daughter. I felt like I was letting her down. So we are gonna go back next week, and I'm gonna try to make something positive outta this. But what exactly or how to go about it I don't know. Something to bring the parents who go, together as a group I'm thinking, so that all of the kids (and parents) feel included.
So any advice or suggestions on how to go about this are much appreciated, also any insight on how to infiltrate the chatty club would be much appreciated. On a side note I did have a chance to talk to the the guy briefly and he seemed alright, and I got the impression he is a stay at home dad, but it was only an impression, don't know for sure.
Pat