Flip, skip and (s)tumble

Back when Allie turned three, we started taking her to tumbling classes. These aren't gymnastics, where advanced equipment skills are acquired and skinniness is mandatory. These are classes where she learned to do a forward roll, backward roll, bear crawl, walk on a balance beam on the floor, and jump on a trampoline. She loved it and we went faithfully until she started kindergarten. Frankly, for a little girl whose middle name is Grace, we hoped she's acquire a little more grace, and she did.

And then we stopped going. She had gym class three times a week at school and it was getting tougher to entertain/distract her mobile little sister for the half hour of Allie's tumbling class.

Now that Julia's turned 4, and because we don't have our kids in any other kinds of structured activities, we decided to revisit the old tumbling class. Julia is in the tot group and Allie's in with girls about her own age, trying to learn how to do a cartwheel. Lots of cartwheels emphasized in this group and she doesn't have it yet, though she had gotten pretty close to doing one until we stopped going to class two years ago (selfish parents! bad parents!).

Tonight were their first sessions. Their classes overlap somewhat, so I couldn't see much of what Allie was doing in the other room. Julia turned unexpectedly shy, rather unlike her but she was being watched by about 8 other parents and I think that did it. After some encouragement, hugs, handholding, and high fives, she started participating on her own.

Afterwards, they both said it had been the most fun thing they'd ever done. They say that alot. Remember when it was true? That every new thing you did was the most fun thing you'd ever done. I miss that. Time to try bungee jumping, I guess.