A Date With My Littlest Guy

Saturday started out as normal as most any other but I knew to expect it to be a busy one since my 4 year old was starting his new gymnastics class, which means overcoming shyness, and my husband was going to be home most of the morning dealing with our mechanic and car repairs. So I took my baby girl, whose 18 months old, to her Parent and Tot gymnastics class and boy does she love it! She's so adorable in her little outfits and her coach, Mrs. Sheila, calls her Twinkle Toes on the balance beam. She loves to hang and swing from the bars, too. But her favorite move is doing front rolls. Anywhere. On the mats, beam, floor...she loves doing front rolls. As soon as I hold my hands at her waist she bends and puts her head on the floor and over she goes with a huge smile on her face! I love having this time with her. There may be four or five other little ones with their mommies and daddies in the class but we just love our time together. She scoots around the mats and loves to try to chase the big kids. She isn't even walking independently yet but she did take four or five independent steps in gym yesterday while attempting to catch the bigger kids. Mind you, the bigger kids are all either 2 or 3. She is the youngest, by far. Her older brother and sister, Shawn and Makayla, came to watch her today. They couldn't believe how well she bounced on the trampoline or did her front rolls over the barrell and how adorable she is doing it. After her class was over, we all headed back home so I could drop these three children off and pick up my little man that was waiting on his new class. Fortunately, Dad had him ready to go because it took every minute of driving back and forth to get back to his class after hers ended. We got there with a few minutes to spare and I began the ritual of talking him into being prepared to go out there...on his own. Ok, so that didn't happen. He is very, very...I do mean very, shy! We already had it arranged for me to be able to accompany him to his first couple of classes until he got used to being there and got to know his coach, Ms. Renee. As soon as we went through the door, he glued to my leg and anchored himself. His coach was trying to introduce herself to him but he would have none of it. I couldn't even find him, he was so glued to me. She tried to get him to stretch and do warm ups but he just wouldn't come out of his shell, so she offered to let him start out on the trampoline which is always a big kid favorite. It took a minute or two to get him to go the length of the trampoline without holding on to me but finally he did. Then I would race him down the trampoline or make it a game that until he did the "right" move I couldn't move. It turned out to be a lot of fun for both of us. He started to really warm up. He moved on to the balance beams where he was doing the bunny hops, bear crawls (which scared him a little), sideways walks and a few other tricks like he had been doing them for a while. When it came to bars he has amazing upper body strength. He walked right up to a bar that's set at about 4 ft., just over his head, and lifts his entire body up by his arms until the bar is at his waist with his elbows straight. He then proceeds to flip over the bar. He loves doing this! After straddle jumping onto the kiddie vault he does a front hand spring onto the mats after jumping down from the vault. He has arrived! He is now running around and performing amazing feats of gymnastics right along with the best of the four year olds! He even went up to his coach at one point and told her he thought she was nice and shared the most priveleged of information about the origin of his latest boo-boo. It may not take as long as I thought to get him to attend his class on his own.
Since he did so well in his class, I took him to his favorite restaurant afterwards for lunch...SdlanodcM! Ok, for the rest of the world that's McDonald's. Years ago we started saying it backwards because it is impossible to discuss the possiblility of going there with little ears all around. If they hear about it, it's a done deal. Now we've just become accustomed to calling it SdlanodcM...we pronounce it like this...Saddle-on-da-Mac. Got that...LOL! So he, of course, got his favorite meal...a chicken nugget happy meal. Now for all you McD's workers out there, there is a cardinal NO-NO! Don't ever give a little boy a girl toy! Especially when it's a case of ICarly vs. Star Wars. So back the girly thing went for a Jedi Starfighter that we got to shoot across the table at each other. Ordinarily playing with your toy before eating your meal would be out of the question but I figured since this is the only time in his life that it's truly only been the two of us alone together, why not! The only other time that happened was when I was pregnant with baby sissy. After playing with the toy for a bit we finished eating and naturally he wanted to play in their PlayLand. I told him he could have 15 minutes since we still needed to pick up a few groceries before heading home. He took to the PlayLand like a pro and I can remember a day not so many years ago that we couldn't even get him to do that. But all I could help thinking on this day was, how much of a playland could this be? The boy just left a gym full of major gymnastic apparatus...Hello! Going up a tunnell and down a slide seemed to pale in comparison. But he loved getting to do it none the less. Well, his first trip down the slide with an exuberant, "WEEEE!" came with a splash down at the bottom, literally!!! His words as he climbed off the end of the slide were, "My butts wet!" But did that stop him from attacking the climbing contraption again and again, no way. So we put a towel in his car seat and headed for Walmart since grocery shopping now involved buying dry shorts :) He waddled with grace as we entered the store. We were able to grab the few items we needed on our way to the boys section where he picked out what he considered to be the perfect outfit. We made our way to check out and decided to change him in the van since I couldn't leave my purchases outside the bathroom at that point. He got all decked out in his new clothes and climbed into his seat for the ride home where he pronounced the next best words to hearing your little one tell you they love you. He said, "Mom, I had fun with you today! It was a good date." Awwwwwww! My little man. I love him so much and wish I could keep them little for just a while longer. Enjoy every minute with your babies, they grow so fast!