In poker when you lose all your chips you bust. My son did that today during circle time at his My Gym class, with his colossal tantrum.

Now, as a Mommy of a 2 year old, tantrums come with the territory. The kicker is when you are in a nice, quiet class, where all the other little kids are intently listening to the teacher and sitting with their Mommies and you don’t really see the meltdown coming. As soon as I sit down, he is screaming like I am torturing him and writhing around on the floor; trying to escape the confines of circle time. I am sweating and trying to calm him while the onlooking parents’ stares bore into me. I try not to look up; feeling it is enough.

My favorite moment was the little kid next to us. He is staring at Spence, in awe. I reassure the little onlooker not to worry, my kid is ok. Like my words really meant anything to him, as he stared with his mouth gaping open. It felt like a necessary explanation.

The assistant teacher comes over and quietly whispers that this is normal and to sit it out. Not what I wanted to hear. I just want to crawl into the nearby ball pit and hide. I did contemplate leaving, multiple times. I did second guess my decision to enroll him in the class. But, we stayed. We survived 10 minutes of circle time, torture, which felt like much, much longer. We were then rewarded with the next part of the class to enjoy jumping on the trampoline and running around.

I remain hopeful that circle time will be better for us both, the next time. Nothing comes easy with parenting, so we will keep trying. If we fail, at least Spence can enjoy jumping around in the kid gym. And for me, maybe I will go to my gym to sweat out the anxiety from the day–maybe.