The face of little gym

L started little gym three weeks ago- he adores it.  Last week was a bit of a dud due to a little boy- obviously on the older end of the age allowance for L's class- picked on L three different times.  Twice L cried.  The first time he blew the other kid off, the second time he cried a bit since his ball was snatched from his hands, and the third time he cried because the kid knock into him super hard causing him to fall over and then took L's balls.  This caused me to mutter to D, "that kid's an asshole".  Another mom overheard and since then we seemed to have hit it off, so I am assuming she felt the same way.  This older boy didn't only pick on L either- he made three different kids cry during the bubble play time.  After the class D looks at L and says, "is he getting a black eye?"  I couldn't believe that it would form that quickly- but sure enough, the older kid had smacked into L's head hard enough to cause a mild black eye.

Now you may have noticed something missing from the story above- no mention of the older boy's mom. Well his mom doesn't come to the gym, but his grandmother does- and the whole time she didn't see a single thing, and never once redirected her grandson because she basically wasn't watching him- chatting it up with another mom.  The teacher had to step in and "play" with the older boy to keep him occupied so the littler ones could play safely.

I went there this week ready to confront the grandmother if she was that checked out again- but I was pleased to find that he was now in the older kids class before L's.  It made sense- he was obviously too "advanced", "big", whatever you want to call it for the little kids- and I bet if he tried to steal balls from kids his own age they would have a different reaction then crying.

So here is L- with his little gym face he made for daddy who wasn't able to come to this one due to work.