Monday, September 2, 2013

Gymnastics

Did you know you can enroll your child in gymnastics as early as 12 months old?  Well, Shelby just hit 18 months old and with all of the energy and lack of fear that she has I thought this might be the perfect activity for her.

We tried out a local gymnastics center near our house last week.  The great thing is you can go try out a class and see if it is for you before you commit.  So, we arrived about ten minutes early and immediately I knew this was the right place for her.

There was no sitting on the sidelines waiting for class to begin.  She started checking out the foam pit and climbing up the little stairs to jump in it.  Once class began I think the best way to describe it is organized chaos.  And guess what child added the “chaos” to the mix?  Yep, that would be mine.

They start out on the trampolines which Shelby loved, but why stay on your own trampoline when you can jump on the one next to you that is occupied by a new friend?  We have to work on the rules of the class for sure.

After the trampolines we started going through a series of skills stations.  Since it is a mommy and me class all the mommies go through and help their child with each station-all except for this Mommy.  Shelby was so excited I spent most of it saying “wait your turn!” and apologizing to the other Moms for my over exuberant child trying to rush ahead.

The class is only 50 minutes long and at one point I remember thinking “are we done yet?!”  I did have one Mom say “wow she is doing ten times better than my daughter on her first time.”  I’m going to hang on to that statement in hopes that we can harness Shelby’s excitement as we move forward with this new activity!

So, in the end, I think this might be the perfect activity for her when it comes to burning off some of her energy and I am already looking for cute gymnastics outfits for her.  We will see how class number two goes this Thursday.  How do you figure out what activities your child might like?

Makala Pollard works in Brand Management & Promotions for Texas Health Resources
She is a Stepmom to two boys and Mom to gymnast-in-training Shelby.

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