Basketball

My 4 year old, Max, is taking a basketball class at the YMCA.  It's supposed to be for three and four year old kids, but there's this one kid who is basically this guy:



Maybe, maybe, he's almost five….it's possible.  It's also possible that he can get into R rated movies.

Anyway, the class is held every Saturday morning for about a million weeks - seriously, I don't think this class ever ends - and is a nice activity to give Max a break from the Netflix film festival that our lives have become.  It's hard to get dressed and out of the house so early though, what with the cold weather, and the snow, and the fact that Amazon now streams Team Umizoomi.  

But it is always worth it, as there are a few interesting parents in attendance.  Luckily these are pre-schoolers, so we don't yet have the red-faced, thick-necked dads screaming things like LET'S GET SOME HUSTLE!! and CAN'T WE GET SOME DEFENSE?!? (these are all things people scream at sporting events, right?).  We do however have these guys:

1)  The lady who is out there doing literally everything with her kid.  Like, everything.  Time to do drills?  She's out there galloping sideways down the court.  Time to shoot the basketball into a hoop that's like three feet off the ground?  She shoots, she scores!  Time to hop like a frog?  There's a sight I will never be able to erase from my brain.  Although, last week she stayed on the sidelines and her kid spent the entire class running back and forth across the court wearing a superhero cape. So maybe she knew what she was doing.

2)  The dad who shows up in head to toe Addidas athletic gear, and then sits there on his iPad.  What are you doing?  I mean, you looked like you were either going to assist the coaches against their will, or you were going to leave and go workout.  But you're doing neither of those things.  You're sitting in a chair playing Rayman Fiesta Run and not even looking at your kid.  You could have at least worn jeans.

Then you get the older kids that come in and are just waiting around for the class to end so they can use the court.  They start dribbling and doing all this other basketbally type shit on the sidelines, and then one of their red-faced, thick-necked dads comes along and starts clapping and saying things like LET'S GET THAT DEFENSIVE STANCE GOING.  Or whatever.  He doesn't actually say it in all caps, but that's how I hear it because I AM TRYING TO WATCH A CLASS OF 4 YEAR OLD CHILDREN. Would it kill you to just wait quietly out in the hall?  The world will not end if you have to stop dribbling for fifteen freakin minutes.  Here, I'll give you a book to read.

After class, we stop in this play area that looks like a giant tree with a slide built into it, and kids randomly drop their socks on my head while I send text messages to my husband who, for some reason, got to go wait for us in the car.

In conclusion, I'm glad that we are getting out of the house and that Max is getting some exercise.  And once it's over, we get to watch four straight hours of Team Umizoomi with a totally clear conscience.

Basketball!