The Queen's Rambles

We have been half-assing our Camp Fire program this year. I’ve found it really hard to get motivated when the kids don’t seem to love it and I’ve got so many other commitments. We realized that we were supposed to have a meeting on Sunday (we meet every third Sunday so it is hard to keep track) and no one wanted to host. We were lamenting the fact that it was freezing outside since we were supposed to do a fitness unit and it would be perfect to go to a park and make the kids run around in an organized fashion.

Then lightening struck!

There’s a gymnastics center that has open gym on Sunday evenings. It’s crazy expensive, but it was the answer to our problem. No hosting duties for anyone, running wild for the children. Score!

I used to go to this gymnastic center’s week day open gym all the time when Erik was toddler, but had never been on a Sunday night. Week days are preschoolers with bored caregivers. Sunday night? Whoa, dude. There were a few non-gymnasts burning off energy, but it was mainly honest-to-goodness gymnasts honing their art. Some of them were little girls doing things you’d expect little girls to do, but a lot of them were completely awesome ninja teens. This is an actual, serious gym. They’ve trained Olympic gold medalists. I have a friend who has a daughter on their elite team and she is expecting her daughter to be in contention for the Olympic team in a few years. They don’t mess around at this place.

There were these big, bearded teenagers (just the vision you have, when you think ‘gymnast,’ right?) who set up a bunch of big bolsters in an obstacle course, then went around jumping over them in mid-air flips with no arms involved. They were rolling all over the floor in crazy ninja ways, while I was watching with a dropped jaw. I can see why guys would enjoy gymnastics–it was like something out of a Mission Impossible movie.

They had little tween girls climbing ropes with their legs straight out to the side. Those girls could climb to the top of the rope by using arm strength only. Even if those girls never stand on the podium and receive an Olympic gold medal, they are completely amazing in my book. I can’t imagine how much time they must spend, developing those types of muscles.

I think I’m going to put Elsa in a real gymnastics class this fall (vs. the mommy and me pseudo-gymnastics she currently takes). I always felt so left out when I couldn’t do a forward roll or cartwheel. My mom always told me I was clumsy and couldn’t learn to do one, but I think that was a lie. I bet I could have learned to do some basic tumbling if I was given the opportunity to learn. My sister got to take gymnastics, but it was obviously not for me, the fat one. I had a lot of jealousy about this, but believed what I was told and continued to be the clumsy fat one. I have no idea if Elsa will ever be a world class athlete (kind of doubt it, since I don’t have the drive or dedication required of a world class athlete’s parent) but the kid can learn to do a flip and enjoy playing around with kids in the neighborhood.

I would kind of like to sign Erik up as well. Learning some gymnastics skills couldn’t hurt, right? He’s not interested, so I guess I’ll save my money. But he could be a real life ninja! I’d stress that he could only use his skills for good. No assassinations–unless the victim was super-bad.

Ok, nothing like the abrupt ending, right? I need to go to bed. I forgot I am hosting playgroup tomorrow so I’ve got a lot of housecleaning to do in the morning. Yikes! I’m just happy I can put away the stupid chamber pot style potties. They are so gross to have hanging around when you have house guests. Elsa is doing her business in the real toilet, which is soooooooo nice. A little flush is much easier than the pot scrubbing. Yuck.

Currently our only potty training problem (knock on wood) is that she wants to change her pants even though she is totally dry. She can’t be convinced that her dry pants are fine, so I find her standing naked in middle of the store, screaming because she can’t get her pants off over her shoes.

I love this age. I really do. But irrational creatures are just so. . .irrational.