Gymnastics Round 2

I grew up watching Bella Karoli guide our women's team to the gold medals that we (I can say we because it was my team spirit that guided those girls to victory from my living room) so richly deserved. Knowing that, it was time to head back to gymnastics class to redeem ourselves.

Takes off Sadie's shoes. Takes off his own shoes. The ground is cold. Notices that none of the other caregivers have their shoes off. Considers putting shoes back on. Doesn't. Some guy is mopping the floor. Now my feet are wet.

Why are all the other kids in her class so big? Why can't she compete against other 2.2 year old's? Eventually class begins. We start by running around in circles on dots. This time, I just smile benevolently as she sort of goes in a circle/cuts across the middle. I won't be running today. I don't want to embarrass the family. We finally stop and sit down on a dot. "Daddy on a dot!" she says. She's bossy, but I sit to show what a good sport I am. The teacher asks us to put our hands over our head. Why isn't she doing it? Is it that she doesn't understand, that she doesn't want to? Either my child is slow or petulant. Maybe both. I glance around and one of the other kids is off on the side picking up his dot and chucking it at his loving mother. We're all right...besides the fact that I'm the only guy here.

We move on to the rope swing. I know the drill. Some giant little boy climbs up to the top and swings across like he's Tarzan. Sadie has to be coaxed into going and then holds on with only one hand to show how amazing she is/still hold on to the teacher because she is scared. We go over to roll down a mat instead. I try to get her to do a somersault but she's more a fan of log rolls. Maybe she'll specialize in uneven bars.

We move from the bars into the next room for some sort of obstacle course, somersault, crawling through some things, walking along a dot path, doing a handstand, then jumping. She struggles with the somersault but pulls it off with a heavy does of assistance. She moves gamely through the obstacles like Bruce Willis in one of the Die Hards. Then she starts to walk along the path. "Keep going!" I shout at her when she stops. What is she doing? As it turns out I've forgotten about the handstand, but she hasn't. She does a relatively good handstand against the mat to teach me a lesson. I consider spanking her to teach her a lesson but don't.

We move over to the balance beams where she steps neatly over some sand buckets while keeping her balance. We'll probably have to move her to some Eastern Bloc country to get training for this kind of talent. On the second trip, she kicks over some buckets. I don't blame her. Maybe she'll be good at soccer?

We move into the last phase, running and jumping across a trampoline. She decides that she'd like to hold up the whole line of kids by picking up the plate/dots they're supposed to walk over to get to the trampoline. I explain that she is supposed to walk on them, not pick them up and set them on the trampoline like table settings. She doesn't agree. I pull her away. She attempts to bite me. Some other judgmental parent says, "Oh." She hasn't tried to bite me in months. I'm glad she waited until we were in a public place with a bunch of moms, okay nannies around to judge me. I put her in timeout. She runs out of timeout screaming that she wants to go on the parallel bars.

We eventually coax her up onto the trampoline. She runs across, comes down and delays on the uneven bars again. I tell her to move it along. She does....sort of. She sits up on the trampoline with the teacher saying, "It's your turn Sadie. Sadie, it's your turn," but she keeps waving other kids in front of her, going so far as to push the girl next to her on the shoulder like hey, "Your turn girlie." She's the Mark Madsen of 2 year old gymnastics. I can see her riding pine on the 9th grade basketball team but being real enthused about it.

We finally move into the final room so the kids can zip line. Well, we kind of move there. Most of the kids move there but she wants to use the rings. "No rings," I say, pulling her away, which leads to her attempting to bite me a second time. This child is never going to daycare, but at least she'll be famous like Mike Tyson for biting other gymnasts that beat her, or her coach or whatever.

The day has mostly been a failure. The other kids, including the behemoth three year old boy are zip lining like they are in the Amazonian jungle. Sadie says she doesn't want to, but she is finally coaxed into going. The last person to do so. This is her big moment. Meh. She does all right. Nothing to write home about. I wouldn't even blog about it if she weren't my only daughter.

We're waiting around for round 2 when Sadie decides to dart across the room. She winds up running towards this bald mustachioed man who holds his arms open wide as if to hug her, he says, "Hello" and I'm benevolently smiling, in part because that's what I do, and because I'm sure he belongs, and if not, I'll smile less benevolently. And finally she sees her moment to make me proud. She sees his oncoming hug and turns around and sprints in the opposite direction, not stopping until I catch her almost leaving the room. "Good girl," I tell her, and I can tell we've shared a special moment together.

When we get home Steph asks if Sadie saw the coach. "Yes," she answers. "And what did you do?" Steph asked.
"Ran into the other room," Sadie answers.
She's got a bright future ahead of her.