The Truth About Lapsitters

Or, There is No Such Thing as an All-Ages Event

I think the question you need to ask yourself at the beginning of this post is How much attention can you expect from a 21 month old at an event with a multi-colored octopus? If your answer is anything more than "fleeting attention, at best", you're not going to think this is funny. Move along, nothing to see here.

Tonight I took Brades to Singalong Storytime at the library. Reasons I thought this might be a good idea:

• I'm an idiot
• He really loves music
• He does really well at school, listening-wise. Or so they tell me.
• The program was falsely advertised as an fun for all ages event

It was fairly apparent from the beginning that things were not going to go as planned. You see there was this multi-colored octopus:

It's actually that exact one. It was sitting on the table.

Let's backtrack.

There were a solid fifty people there, kids included. Here's something I didn't know about kids: they sit in laps. Like, for prolonged periods of time. Did you know that? Because my kid doesn't sit in laps. Unless I'm sitting in front of the computer and he wants to be able to reach it; then all the sudden he's oh-so-cuddly. Granted, he is probably the youngest one there, minus the babies who are sitting in laps sheerly because they don't realize they have legs yet.

Anyways, so all these kids are sitting in laps, watching this jolly man in a purple sweater play his ukelele. Except my kid, who is beelining it for the octopus. He brings him back to me. I tell him "Go put him back and say bye-bye". So he puts him back. Waves bye-bye. Then he goes and picks him back up, brings him back to me. Rinse and repeat. He's not being defiant about it, he just really loves the octopus.

This is fairly embarrassing. On one hand, I want to be stern about it. Seriously, I believe in discipline. Brades spends some time in time out, and he's actually pretty well behaved when we're out. On the other hand... really? He's 21 months old, in a room with a bunch of other kids, a ukele-playing man and stuffed animals. I think that any 21 month old kid that lacks curiosity about a multi-colored octopus must be plugged into the Matrix.

Regardless, it's a little embarrassing. Something that's true about me is that I am weird, and that when something is awkward, I will do one of several things:

• Laugh at completely inappropriate times, like the time a woman ahead of me tripped while walking up the stairs at the Cliffs of Moher and I laughed? This was circa 2004, but still horrifies me to this day
• Do something repeatedly without realizing that I'm doing it, like the other day when a mom at preschool was yelling at her kid about a Capri Sun straw, which made me feel super uncomfortable, and then I looked down and realized I had been unknowingly rubbing Brady's head while he ate his Nutri-Grain bar in his seat for a solid minute. Sort of surprised he doesn't have a bald spot after that one. Lady, do you not remember how hard it was to get those Capri Sun straws in?! And how- with one miscalculated punch- your fruit punch could spring a leak, causing you to suck the entire contents out of a hole in the back?! GIVE THE KID SOME SPACE!?!

Anyways, I'm watching Brady, but I'm also feeling super uncomfortable, and when I come to, so to speak, I realize that all along I have been sitting there, doing the movements that go along with the ukele-man's song, which is basically spirit fingers, which wouldn't be so weird except that Brady is at the front of the room playing with an octopus and no one is in the seat beside me. It sort of looks like we're here for me and Brady's just entertaining himself until it's over.

Then, the man takes out a Dr. Seuss hat. He says "I've got all the letters in this hat, and I'm going to pull some out!" He pulls out an F. He pulls out an R. I'm sitting in my seat, nervous as hell for this guy, thinking "DUDE. What if you pull out two more letters and they don't spell ANYTHING? You are screwed!" And then I realized that it wasn't a hat full of the entire alphabet, as he had previously stated (lying ukele liar!), but just four. It spelled the word "frog".

Well, everyone yelled "FROG!!!" when he put the G up on the letter stand, and then a man popped out of closet and said "Did somebody say FROG!?". I was very glad that this odd man did that, because at this point, Brady notices the letters and jumps up, grabs them all, and brings them back to me. Brady stole frog and runs full-speed at me, arms full of letters, yelling "MAMA!".

Something else that's true about me is that I really can't help laughing when I think something is funny. And it was funny. And so I am laughing. And probably the other parents were thinking thoughts about me and my baby frog thief, to which I say "Oh, what the crap ever, people."

You know who else had trouble sitting down during storytime (probably)? Albert Einstein! And Steve Jobs! And Bill Gates!

You know who was a lap-sitter? Ted Kaczynzki!

(disclaimer: all of that was made up)

Here's something that's comforting to me: I was NOT a lapsitter. Not for a second. And I turned out relatively normal (minus that weird head-rubbing thing). Which is why I know that you, Frog Baby, will be fine.