Stage mother

I just love Saturdays; that's our taekwondo day. I started Miguel on classes last month, and he's really taken to it. He's the youngest in a very small class held at his school. Beside the older kids in their taekwondo outfits, he looked like a baby again. He asked me when I would get him a uniform, and I said, "When you really like it." Well, so far he likes it. I felt so rewarded when I saw him do his first 45-degree kick, little fists up, in front of the master. It was even cuter the following week, when he did it with a "hyaah!"

My original intentions in signing him up was to get him socialized and to get him into a sport. He's got so much energy and natural aggression to use up. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we moms tend to think that it's better to tire out our hyperactive kids during the day so that we - did I say we? I meant they - can catch some good zzzzz's in the evening.

It's also our bonding time; Miguel enjoys the time together as much as I do. During his second class he left the taekwondo master to come up to me and say, "You ought to come to school more often." (To which I replied, "Okay.") Sometimes we drop by Aly's place after class so that he can play with his cousins. Last Saturday the kids were out, so we went to the ice cream parlor instead - him, my sis and me.

There are a bunch of stage fathers there too. Last Saturday one of them had to deal with an 8-year-old son who kept sobbing because his stretching partner had stretched his legs too far. Then another boy, aged 7, started putting his thumb, then fingers, then his entire hand into his slobbering mouth. My sis and I kept crying "Ew!" but the kid just kept on doing it. It was really disgusting. But selfish me, at the back of my head I was thinking, thank God it's not my kid who's acting up this time!

Well, I guess that was a good day.