gymnastics

Olive and I had our first parent + me gymnastics class today. I was so curious exactly what they'd have 18 month-4 year olds doing. It was great! Olive wasn't quite sure at first. Our house is pretty quiet, so 16 kids in one room with parents and a sibling or two was a little overwhelming to her at first. Then came circle time with song and dance, sticking feet in the air and running in circles.... she really wasn't sure about that. Then some other kids started crying and that was it. Her face gradually melted, and eventually she did cry. We were able to take a step back and observe from the outside of the group that everyone was actually ok, and from the outside, it didn't look quite so chaotic (i can only imagine the view from 2 ft tall). Next came the "obstacle" course which she loved. Monkey hangs on parallel bars, bouncing on trampolines and vaults, balance beams, hand-stand wedges, somersault wedges, bear crawls, and foam climbing circuits; she loved it all but the bear crawl. By that point she realized we were there to have fun and she was bouncing around and had made a couple friends. I have to say I was a little skeptic about ME in a mommy and me class, but it was actually fun. I decided these are the kind of mom's I can hang with; the kind that are willing to embarrass themselves by doing stupid itsy bitsy spider dances and cheers, the kind that don't care if their buts giggle when they exaggeratedly run to convince their kid it's fun. No curtain, drapery, crafty talk where I realize how not "girly" I am, no social elitist, expensive clothes and tastes talk where I am reminded of how not cultured I am :) These are the mom's I want to be friends with :)