The Big Show at the Little Gym

For the last three weeks Felix has been joining his friend, Charlie, at the Little Gym's Funny Bugs gymnastics class for 3 year-olds. They go together on Tuesdays while Charlie's mom, Kelly, watches Felix and I get some much needed work done. This has worked out very well as Charlie and Felix get along famously and seem to share the same high level of vocabulary and imagination. With Vala and April in Iceland the success of the situation is a great relief. Anyway, the culmination of 12 weeks of training (only 3 for Felix) is the 'Big Show', which I attended on Tuesday. I haven't attended any of the Little Gym sessions as I figured Felix would be much less likely to participate if I were around. Just after I arrived I saw Charlie coming up the walk so I ducked into the bathroom so I wouldn't distract Felix from his pre-performance preparations. I left the light off so I could hear when to come out and thus scared some poor kid and her mom when they came in to use the bathroom. (Dana just commented, "Renae, you do the weirdest things sometimes." - So True) I continued to hide from Felix until the performance began and then managed to sneak into the audience unnoticed. The kids went through several routines that they'd been practicing, all with child development in mind as well as basic gymnastics skills. After a round of jumping and attempting handstands and forward rolls, Felix ran to sit next to his buddy, Charlie and exclaimed, "That really tires me out."

Felix has always enjoyed the balance beam and the instructor described the story they tell to coordinate with the child's movements: A caterpillar crawls along a branch (balance beam), crouches into a cocoon and waits for the count of three and then stands up, spreads his wings and says "I have beautiful wings" while turning in a circle. Then the butterfly walks to the end of the branch, flies (sticks one leg out) and then jumps off the branch and says, "Tada" with arms up in the air. Felix did the routine perfectly except that as he spun in a circle he caught my eye and exclaimed, "I see my mom!" From then on there was little the instructor could do that kept his attention. All the other parents clearly understood why I had previously been hiding out and got quite a kick out of it.