Babblin’ Like a Baby

The wifey and I went to what I call "baby wrappin'" class, i.e., cloth diapering class, this week. It was held a cute boutique baby store on the northside after hours. I was actually looking forward to it as I wanted to justify our decision to go cloth and not disposable for other than just economic reasons.

Once we got there and sat down, I noticed our instructor was a bit odd. She seemed to be hurrying through getting ready for the class as if she had never taught it before. Just by her tight, stiff body language I could tell that this lady was going to either know too little or too much about the subject and hold the class to it. Wifey told me that the class was supposed to be an hour and a half long but all students were warned that it may run over by a half hour. What about diapering a baby is going to take 2 hours to explain?!

The instructor started and within the first two minutes, I already knew that time was going to slow down to a crawl. She was incredibly informative and she was really nice and tried to make the presentation as short as she could, but she kept getting off-topic on different points about child care and diapering. She also continued to preface almost point she was making with, "We're going to talk about that later..." and then proceed to talk about future subject immediately in depth. Along with the uncomfortable chairs, the experience was diriving me nuts. I prayed that no one would ask any questions because each 1-2 minute question in real time would become 10-15 in her quantum universe. So, two and a half hours later, we were out of there.

It's not often where I get put into a situation of learning only to walk out of it thinking, "Gawd, I could've taught that more quickly and succinctly." This was one of those situations. Granted, I don't have the experience behind diapering that she did, however, the mechanics and facts she kept giving could've been expressed in roughly 40-45 minutes. There was no hands-on playing with the dolls and diapers, thus, that wouldn't've been an issue. The other reason I feel this went longer than it should've was because has been teaching this stuff for about 3 years two times a week. You would think by now she would be able to get the info out quickly and then field questions later

She did her best and I thank her for it. I'll suggest a Cliff Notes summary sheet for her future classes prior to showing up.

Currently listening : The Ronettes: Ultimate Collection; Greatest Hits

Note: This was originally posted on MySpace with comments at:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=16074757&blogID=422585979&Mytoken=E7CFB89F-D5B3-487D-89557762C84A9AA31350450