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Raising Demons

 At music class, I can't help but hear Sondheim's "Ladies Who Lunch" in my head:


Here's to the girls who play wife--
Aren't they too much?
Keeping house but clutching a copy of LIFE...
Just to stay in touch.
The ones who follow the rules--
And meet themselves at the schools--
Too busy to know that they're fools!
Aren't they a gem???

At the end of the ten-week course, the teacher announces that you can "reup" for another season, and this seems like the wrong move. It seems to me, if you've done ten weeks, you should get a yearlong break (until you forget how tedious the program is, and you then sign up in a burst of cheerful optimism). But, amazingly, there is one mom who seems extremely excited to reup. Also, she is on time for each class, and she never seems to be in a medicated haze; in other words, she actually seems to be listening.

I try not to think about why karate draws enough funding to support its own studio, but music class has to happen *in* the karate studio. I do anticipate (and do love) the crabby karate man who appears five minutes before the end of each music class just to scream at small children who wear their sneakers on the athletic mats. ("Read the sign! Parents! PARENTS! Read the sign!!!!")

The music teacher is unbothered by this. She hands out small cupcake stamps to drooling, agitated children; the rush toward the "cupcake stamping" station evokes thoughts of the fall of Saigon. "I've just read a wonderful book about lightbulb moments," she says to no one in particular. "When your child hits you, you can use a quiet, self-controlled voice to simply say, Ouch...."

The door slams shut; my children show me two smeary outlines of cupcakes on their germy hands. "It's a little runny," says Susie as we are driving away. "Mommy? Mommy? Do you think we could go back?"
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