Every week I take Bear to music class. It’s called baby jam and it’s ran by a mom who enlisted the music teacher at her older daughter’s preschool for private sessions at her house. She gathered a handful of other parents with babies from 6 -20 months to join the class weekly.
Each Thursday afternoon we file into her brick home past the luscious bougainvilleas that drape the entrance and sit in a circle on the floor. Mr.Patrick, a young man, with a kind face, a guitar and boxed full of props starts us off with the “hello” song. He sings hello everybody hello, over his acoustic guitar, and goes around the circle inserting each babies name into the tune to signal that baby jam has commenced. The class is about 30 minutes of singing and interactive games that gives the babies exposure to various sounds, textures, and sights.
It’s all fun and games. After music class is over, signaled by the “oh oh” song, the babies crawl around and play with various toys and books. It’s nice to watch the innovative ways the babies interact with the class. From running off on their own and ignoring the circle completely to crawling into the middle and shaking their maracas wildly (this was Bear). They each have their own unique signature that flows from them organically.
In fact, I see each baby as their own instrument in the orchestra of the class. They each chime in with whichever sound they are fascinated by that week or stare at the whole display in silent receptivity. Before any conditioning has set in they are naturally who their hearts want them to be.
No comparison or competition could possibly make sense amongst babies, but somehow once we become adults we restrict and constrict ourselves to specified ways of being. Observing the babies in their primal states is a lesson each week in acceptance. The beauty and perfection that they each are in their own right can’t be denied.
Every week I’m amazed and every week I remember.