My little gymnast

A couple weeks ago Penny started a 1 month trial at JETS Gymnastics. She is loving it! The first time we went she threw a fit that she had to leave. I think she would have watched the older girls for 2 hours if we'd let her.

I came home and looked at my photos to find that the majority of them were of all the little kids sitting down watching the teacher demonstrate the moves. It really doesn't happen a lot in class, but I'm always amazed that she got 5 3-year-olds to sit down and listen that I take photos of it. It's like a solar eclipse or a sighting of a rare species...

Penny walking on the bars

Jumping into the pit. I love that they have a little version of the big gym for the little kids. No distractions from big kids  doing roundoff back handspring back tuck. 

She is good on the balance beam. She takes after her Aunt Jennifer.

 I feel like home at the gym. Although I was terrible at gymnastics, my mom taught it for years and my sister was a competitive gymnast until she hurt her back. That meant lots of hours at the gym for me and brother. We were sort of allowed to do whatever we wanted as long as we stayed out of the way of the classes. I'd jump on the tramp, sit in the corner with a book, take over for the secretary when she needed a break (yup, as a 3rd grader people handed me checks and I'd write receipts and update their records). What I never did was hang out in the lobby with all the parents watching the gymnasts through the glass window. There was always some mom who was loud and talked to anyone and everyone in the room. Well, now I'm a parent looking through the glass and guess what? 20 years later and nothing has changed. One of the mom's talks non-stop. As Chris put it, she wants to be "leader mom" so she comments on every move every kid makes. I think I could count maybe 20 seconds throughout the class when she wasn't talking. She isn't even making conversation and just talks over you if you answer with a "uh huh" or "you're right. so cute at this age" I'm an obsessive talker and even to me this is really weird. The other moms and I give each other looks. I'm trying to telepathically say "I don't know you, but would you back me up if told her to stop making comments about my kid?" I'm pretty sure they will.

So that's the gymnastics experience from both sides of the glass! Thanks for dealing with my little vent.