The 30 Second Massage

My Pioneer-Valley-Hippy husband recently got wind of a free infant massage class and suggested that Tai and I go check it out. Yes, that's right. Infant massage. It's a class where you learn how to massage your baby. Personally, I'd rather spend my time receiving a massage, but I decided to give this class a try anyway.

Feeling like I already know my son pretty well, I was sure ahead of time that he was not going to be down with this class. I expressed my feelings to Minh who assured me that in a class of babies I should not be embarrassed if he fusses or cries, as all babies do from time to time. I took comfort in that and went to the class.

As we walked in the door, Tai decided he wanted to eat. Not a problem, I fed him while we settled in and did introductions around the room. Then it was time to get to the massaging. We laid our babies on their backs, on pillows, and undressed them from the waist down. We were then instructed to rub some of this special oil into our hands, hold our oily hands up in front of our babies faces and ask their permission to massage them. Yuh, we had to literally ask them....out loud. It went something like this:

Kathy: "May I massage you?"
Tai: "Eeeeeeeeeh. eh. eh. eh. eh." (translation: "I don't think so.")
Kathy: "OK, here we go."

I started to rub his left leg, as instructed, while he verbally protested. Even the instructor pointed out the problem by saying "Tai's not so sure about this, huh?" The "eh. eh. eh." turned to full on crying before long. After about 30 seconds of massage, I gave up and picked him up into my arms to comfort him. The rest of the class continued to massage. Then they moved on to the other leg. Then they moved on to the butt. And then the belly. And then the chest. All while I rocked, fed, and burped Tai. And then rocked him some more.

Twice I tried putting him back on the pillow for massage and twice he balked. At one point I was hoping no one was watching as I tried to shove a pacifier down his throat so I could rub his chest. I had no luck. I realized how ridiculous I was being.....trying to force him to relax so I could give him a massage is not very relaxing at all.

About 10 minutes before class ended he took a huge dump. I changed him and he screamed the whole time I was doing it. Then, with a fresh diaper on and class due to end in one minute, he fell asleep in my arms.

Exhausted, embarrassed, and overwhelmed, I tried to get out of there as quickly as possible. As we were packing up, folks came over and encouraged us to come back the next day (it's a 3-day class). I smiled and assured them we'd be back (yeah, right!)

Pulling out of the parking lot, I realized I had packed up so quickly that my bra was still unhooked from Tai's last feeding. So, go ahead and add "putting your boob away with one hand, while driving with the other" to my list of newly acquired mommy skills. Unfortunately, infant massage will NOT be on that list.