As she walked in Doris looked around. The primary colored room itself looked like a normal toddler gym. With padded floors and walls, soft toys, and various playsets it looked like any number of places Doris took her children to when they were younger.
Though this was significantly less loud than those had been despite the number of people inside. All ranging from her new age to 5, the two dozen or so "children" were milling around quietly. Some were examining their reflections, others were staring apprehensively at various toys, a few were having hushed conversations amongst themselves.
A few employees were off to the side going over what looked like a list of activities. One of them noticed, Doris standing by the entrance and walked over to her. She appeared to only be about 10 but was wearing an employee uniform, so Doris guessed she was probably older.
The tween smiled at her, "Hiya I'm Jenny! Looks like you're hear for Toddler 101!"
"Yeah, I guess I am," Doris hesitantly replied.
"Well that's just great! I'll get you signed in. What's your name and current age?"
"My name is Doris and I'm...three"
"Wow almost no one goes all the way to the minimum age. Well go on and join the rest of the class we should be starting in just a moment."
Jenny skipped away and Doris did as she was told. She looked around for Sandy, but didn't spot her. Doris was about to ask one of the employees if they'd seen her, but before she could one of them spoke to the group.
"Hi everyone! Welcome to Toddler 101! My name is Miss Cindy and I'll be the head instructor here! I'm sure you're all ready to get started, so form a circle and we'll get started!"
Doris thought it was wierd how overexaggerated the employees in this class' speech was. It was almost like they were talking to actual toddlers. Oh well, once she's done here she'll be bumped back up in age, so it won't be an issue for long.
After a few moments, the requested circle was formed and Cindy spoke again, "Good job everyone! Now this first activity will focus on hand-eye coordination and vocubalulary! You'll take turns throwing this ball, but first you'll have to tell us what word is on one of these cards! Doris why don't you start us off?"
Cindy handed Doris a bright orange ball and held up one of the cue cards. Doris hesitated for a moment. She wasn't sure how any of this was supposed to translate into a better older body. Though with everyone looking at her expectedly, she should probably just go with it and leave the understanding magic to the professionals. So, she read the word "meticulously" from the card and prepared to toss the ball.
When she squeezed the spongy object, she found it contained some kind of gel which left a slight tingling sensation even after tossing the ball. The game continued for a while. At first it was easy; catching and tossing the ball one handed might as well have been instinctual and reading whatever was on the cards didn't take a genius.
However over time it got harder, Doris found she was starting to have trouble properly anticipating where her hands need to be to catch the ball which led to her having to run over to retrieve it when it flew past her. Her own tosses were also all over the place, sometimes she threw the ball too soft and it ended up hitting the ground too early or nowhere near the intended recipient. Switching to using both hands turned out to help a bit.
To make matters worse for whatever reason, Cindy would occasionally give Doris really hard words that she had to try to sound out. She wasn't even sure if some of them were even real. Who had ever heard of a "bic-yc-le"?
At least the instructors noticed the game was getting too hard and took steps to make it easier. Like slowly taking the bigger kids out to make the circle smaller. They eventually even switched out the cards for ones with pictures when the former proved too difficult, though for some reason some of the instructors laughed when the players told them the answers. Doris for one had no idea why her calling a small feline "titty" was so funny. Thankfully the game came to an end shortly after and then it was time for...