Saturdays at the Y

First, these are the kids making "touchdown"arms today. They should've also made "extra point" arms too, evidently. But I digress...as my friend said, "Now I know how Sparty fans feel."

For those of you still reading, here is the fun way we get to spend our Saturdays now - gymnastics at the YMCA. We just spent 6 Saturdays in the beginning class. ALL OF US! The class runs 45 minutes and a parent needs to be with each child for the entire class. They play on gymnastics equipment that is their size and have a blast. There are some other pretty cool toys there too - bounce-house, super inflated slide/climbing wall, pit of foam you jump in and the awesome Tumble Track. I suggested to the person in charge that they open it up to adults as a Friday Happy Hour but she didn't think that was as brilliant an idea as it obviously is.
After the first 6wk session, the instructor decided that Marie was ready to go sans parent. Today was her first day flying solo. They did allow me to sneak in briefly from the waiting area to take a few quick photos of her. Here they ran (sort-of), jumped on the mini-trampoline and got on the vault. Then they jumped into the foam pit which Jim and I call "the pit of despair" as it is difficult to climb out of. Two instructors for 6 kids so I was thrilled with that ratio. They also did a number of other pseudo-gymnastics activities like go on the low uneven bar, do the tumble track and balance beam. She was nervous but decided that she loved it.



Ty gets to go too! This is perfect for him. It is safe, fun and there are lots of ways for him to crash, smash and fall with all the equipment and mats. He has no fear and it is all Jim can do to keep up with him.

How do they get the kiddos off the equipment at the end? Here the YMCA shows it's brilliance. At the end, each kid gets a freezy-pop. They run to get in line for their treat and, voila, they exit the mats to the waiting area.

So we will continue spending our Saturday mornings this way until the snow sets in and then we will subject Marie to ski school and move gymnastics to a weeknight. Fun stuff though!