Schadenfreude

It wasn't out of the goodness of my heart but on Wednesday I made at least 14 people feel really good about themselves. I trialled a new music group for babies. There is no doubt in my mind, no matter what else happened in their days, they'd all be content thinking "Well at least I'm not that mother from this morning". That mother is me.

I know what babies are like in group settings. Some days they're great, other days they're not, but there's usually one little person creating so much calamity for their poor mother that the entire class can't help but feel just a tiny bit grateful that today it's not their little person.

Today my own flesh and blood was wreaking havoc. I'd forgotten how painful these days can be. My bundle of destruction stole Henry's food, opened Amelia's mum's bag to steal a fetching toy, took nappies from Jonathon's pram and ripped car keys from Pheobe's hands all before the class began. Did I mention that she also stood up and rattled a double pram with sleeping twins?

Not only did she leave a trail of screaming babies in her wake, she became the loudest screaming baby of them all each time I returned the embezzled goods to their rightful owner (except for poor Henry, it was too late for his apple).

I apologised profusely while racking my brain for ways to instil an understanding in my little girl that the entire world is not quite her oyster. I'm still lost on that one.

Things didn't improve when the class began. While fourteen babies sat peacefully on their mats, letting their patient, relaxed mums sing them sweet songs my terror child screamed blue murder every time I tried to sit her down.

After five minutes battling her protests, the teacher gave me a knowing look and kindly assumed responsibility for her. For about 30 seconds she was blissfully happy to sit on the mat with the teacher in the front of the class – basking in the glory. She didn't stay there too long because soon enough she was trying to wrest the guitar, song sheet and ipod dock from the teacher, who swiftly gave her back to me.

Cue loud wails, kicking legs and flailing arms. She was only happy crawling about but that didn't work well. She climbed over poor Aisha, tried to yank a dummy from little Lizzie's mouth and attempted to steal every bag in the community hall.

While the other children happily gave the teacher the toys back at the end of each song, guess who tried to hoard them, take them back out of the container the teacher was filling and scream with protest when I took them away? Yes, that would be my daughter. Oh the sweet swell of pride I felt.

At the end of the class the teacher nervously announced that some of the new children might want to trial a different timeslot. I laughed out loud and reassured her that we were unlikely to be back. The relief in her eyes was priceless. The truth is I'd travelled about 20 minutes to attend this particular class, so desperate I was for an indoor activity to amuse my bundle. That turned out to be wise.

Many of the mums smiled at me with a scared "my god how do you live with that force of nature?" look in their eyes. Of course I wanted to say "she's actually not always like this, she's rarely this crazy" but I didn't. I thought I'll let them indulge in a little schadenfreude. Let them believe that some mothers have it much worse than they do.