First Gymnastics Class!

Laurel had her first gymnastics class today. I have been wanting to do something like this with her forever, but she just got old enough to do it this past month. She has so much energy and loves to jump and climb and basically just throw her body around which can be pretty dangerous if you are not in a padded room!

I put her leo on at home and she kept running her hands over the velvet and saying "cute". We got in the car for the 15 minute trip and I kept saying "We are going to gymnastics; are you excited?" and she kept saying "yeah, yeah!" She was so excited when we got there to see her friend Emily was in her class too.

We got inside and put our shoes in the cubby holes. Laurel wanted to go into the gym area right away. She was so excited and could see all the cool stuff. She kept pointing and saying "please" and pulling on my hand. She did not understand my explainations that we had to wait until class started to go in! We met the other kids and parents while we waited and Laurel was happy to be around other kids as usual. I discovered that Laurel is the youngest in her class (like always). The other kids are all closer to two, but Laurel was taller than all of them though!

Finally (after 5 minutes, but it must have seemed like a long time to Laurel) we were able to get into the gym. The teacher asked the kids to sit on a circle and I thought "uh oh". For those of you who don't know, Laurel does not sit. Of course she surprised me and sat right down on her little circle and followed all of the teachers directions! She waved her scarf and patted her knees and put her legs in a "butterfly".

Then we got in a train behind the teacher and followed her to the first play area which had a barrel to climb through, bars, a slide, things to climb on, a trampoline, and balls to throw in a bucket. Laurel was in seventh heaven! She mostly wanted to do the slide over and over, but she tried and liked everything. After a few more stations we went to the balance beams, which Laurel did not do so well on for two reasons: number one - Laurel did not want me to help her at all and number two - she wanted to run on them! She did manage to do it a little by herself and had a good time. That's all that matters right? I don't know where she gets her "I want to do everything myself" attitude, oh wait from me!

At the end of class she got on the big trampoline with Matt for a few minutes and she just went crazy jumping. She was very sad to leave. All day I kept asking her if she had fun at gymnastics and she would just say "whee!" Hope that was a yes! Here are some pictures of her first class (and a special thanks to Matt who took off an hour from work to come and take these pictures!).

Laurel and her friend Emily before class started.

Asking me "please" to go into the gym!

Following directions during circle time!

Swinging on the bars.

Her favorite part: THE SLIDE!

More following directions. They were suppose to touch their feet up to our hand.

Rolling!

Ready for more!

Forward rolls with Daddy!

I did it! Look at that happy face.

The balance beam (she let me help her for a second!)

Walking by herself on the beam!

So our first class went great and we are ready for next week!