Shannon Phillips

…Was fun! There were four other boys there of various sizes; Robin was the youngest. He loved being part of the group and interacting with the older boys. He didn’t even mind the clothes-changing aspect: it was only three pairs of shorts, and he was so happily distracted by the presence of other children that he didn’t seem to mind it when I put them on or took them off.

There were a panel of five Gymboree representatives there.  They would examine each boy in his shorts and make notes about the fit.  The older boys seemed a little embarrassed by the scrutiny but Robin lapped it up.

The closest kid to Robin’s age was a todder named Zel, who was kind of hilarious.  He zeroed in right away on Robin’s toys.  Robin watched in calm, slightly baffled interest as Zel grabbed all his toys away.  I think he was really quite happy to watch what an older boy did with these things: sometimes he would pick up a toy just to hand it back to Zel.  Zel, for his part, at the urging of his mommy, was pretty good about sharing his own toys, although then I had to watch and make sure they didn’t go into Robin’s mouth.  But the whole delicate situation fell apart when Zel tried to hand Robin his pacifier.  While praising this as a very nice gesture, I showed Zel that Robin had his own pacifier.  Well!  This proved UNacceptable to Zel who immediately tried to grab it away.  And when the mommies thwarted this maneuver he had a total meltdown and had to be temporarily carried from the room.

Afterwards one of the Gymboree people told me that Robin had been really well behaved.  “But Zel was a nightmare,” the other one remarked.

“Oh well,” I said, “showbusiness types, you know?”