Back to the mats
A long time ago, in a dazed overtired world where I had a three-year-old son and an almost-two-year-old daughter, she was a gymnast.
Well, as much as toddler can be a gymnast. Ah, Kindergym, where people sit in hula hoops and the moms try to have conversations but end up rushing across the bouncy floor to stop their child from falling off a balance beam twice their height.
But when she turned three, she started ballet.
And oh, for three years, she was a beautiful little ballerina.
But as much as she loved dance, the entire third year of ballet, she kept begging to also take gymnastics. She couldn’t even remember being there as a toddler.
She wanted to swing on the bars, do flips, cartwheel all over the place, etc. etc. She loved our backyard monkey bars, and then loved our hanging bars even more. She taught herself how to cartwheel, and even seemed to have the ideal build for gymnastics — small but super strong.
When I explained that it would be too expensive to do EVERYTHING she wanted to do — dance, gymnastics, cheerleading, and taekwondo — she said she’d choose gymnastics above everything else.
But you know that thing about parents living vicariously through their children? It’s totally real, and I was NOT ready for her to give up dance. I mean, come on! The spring recital?! That was really more for ME than her. I admit it.
So starting in September, she’ll enter her fourth year of dance — except this time it’ll be Lyrical instead of ballet — and she’ll also return to the mats at the gymnastics club, too. It’s what she wants.
And really, I can’t deny she’s probably going to be amazing at it …
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