On a lighter note

Avery has been asking us to take her to "flipper" class for months now. At first we were hesitant since she is already a ballet school drop-out and didn't want her to hurt her chances of getting into a good college by making her scared of extra curricular activities. It's competitive out there and you have to have a well-rounded transcript to get in anywhere good. We just weren't willing to risk her entire future success on a 2 year old gymnastics class. 

But she broke us down using a common torture technique: asking us repeatedly every day for weeks. A parent is helpless against this because they just want it to stop!

So we got her on the waiting list for the gym near our house and after 2 months of waiting, tonight was her first class. 

We are no dummies, though, having been fooled once by her ambitions to attend a structured activity and decided NOT to buy a leotard for class. Instead we used part of her butterfly dress-up outfit that Lauren made for her. We also talked extensively to Avery about how she was going to be in class and we were going to be in chairs watching. We didn't think to go any further than that because we assumed she would melt as soon as class started.

We were wrong. And the teacher probably wished that we had talked to her a little about following the leader and staying in line. We'll be sure to add that in for next time.

She was hilarious. Not only was she thrilled to be there, but she couldn't get enough of the running around and bouncing. If only that is what the rest of the class was doing...

Here are some shots of her that we took from about 100 yards away. They aren't great but I think you get the idea.

jumping on the trampoline. She was supposed to jump a few times, land on her bottom and then jump back up. She never could master the skill but it was so funny to watch her try.

Here are all the other girls in the class. The closest in age was the girl in the green shorts. She was 4 and a half. So Avery was the youngest by far and it showed, but also made things really funny because she just didn't get standing in line. She would watch the first girl in line do her trick and then would run up in front of everyone else for her "turn." The teacher would very patiently guide Avery to the back of the line. haha.

There she is slivering down the side of the trampoline area while the teacher is focused on someone else. She kept creeping lower and lower until she realized that there was still some space between her feet and the ground. 

It is clear that we will definitely be back next week. She was jumping around and dancing as if she had just been released from prison. How could we deprive her of that kind of fun again?

Meanwhile Jack just played in the viewing area by getting his head stuck in the bars, crying for help, getting rescued and then repeating the whole thing all over again. Fun for the whole family!