this morning I loaded the girls and charlie in the car to head over to J.E.T.S. gymanstics for eleanore and claire’s first gymnastics class (well – a parent and child class). my thinking behind signing them up for this would be 1. to help give them an outlet for their endless energy and monkey climbing business 2. it would help my weeks go quickly if I fill them up (I want this year to go faster than ever – we miss seeing bill!) 3. I thought it would be good for them to have to listen to a teacher and follow more specific directions.
WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!?!??!?
I know my honey badgers – what ever made me think they would make this easy on me? let me just say that this morning was a HOT MESS! I have never sweat so much in my life trying to chase/wrestle/contain them! and charlie was also a crying disaster! I will explain.
here we are packed up to go.
bill said to me last night – take some video so I can see how it goes. ha! this is the first and only picture I snapped on my iphone before I took them out of the stroller. this was taken in the sibling room. it is a nice play space where the older/younger siblings or parents can hang out and watch while their siblings take lessons. it has big windows into the other rooms and I thought it was a great place. once charlie realized me and the girls were going into a different room he freaked out. you can kind of see out that window into the mini toddler gymnastics gym area. it was super cute. next week I will snap a picture of the gym rooms.
as soon as the badgers came out of the stroller they never stopped going…in opposite directions. we first went into a plain room and “warmed up” with hula hoops. they were supposed to jump into their hula hoops. instead I spent the entire time repeating “no (claire/ellie), leave your hula hoop on the floor. don’t pick it up yet”. they didn’t jump in once. I picked them in and out of the hoops over and over. by this time I just had light sweat going on. midway through I heard charlie start crying. ugh! so I quickly left the girls and talked to charlie. showed him his markers, snack, etc. he was still not happy but I went back to the girls. we stretched our legs…meaning I stretched my legs while the girls stood up and watched everyone stretch. fail 2.
then we went into the big room. the little kids were supposed to stand on this yellow foam pad to wait while the instructor gave instructions on the circuit (cart wheel, hand stand, elevated somersault, floor somersault, etc). guess who didn’t sit on the pad?? guess who was still crying – even louder – from the sibling room? yep – my kids. at this point, I comforted charlie one more time and told him I was going to have to stay with sisters. he continued crying. when I got back into the room the girls were across the room already on the big trampoline. funny girls – run away from mom time. I grabbed them and carried them back to do the circuit. my pits were already sweated out at this point. I got them to do a few somersaults and head stands. but it would look like this – me working with claire on her somersault, ellie running across the room giggling to the big trampoline to jump a bit, me running to get ellie to bring her back to have her do a somersault while claire booked it across the room to the trampoline. can you say NOT IN CONTROL MOM??? fail 3.
on to the next circuit – balance beams. ha! they were supposed to side step, walk, leg dip on these different levels of beams (all really really low though). what I described above about working with one and having one run to the other side of the room to the trampoline happened again and again and again. I was able to get them to walk on the balance beams, but that is about it. my entire back was sweaty – dripping at this point.
side note: a wonderful, angel of a mom (who I learned later is a mom of twins – bless those moms of twins), started comforting charlie and he stopped crying. at some point a little boy let him watch him play his nintendo DS and that cured all things (charlie instantly told me he wanted a DS for his birthday. well that isn’t happening but you can watch another kid play).
on to the next circuit – bars. they had little bars to hang on, big bars to hang on, etc. at least with this one I could get them to both be on one bar so I could pin them in my arms and let them grab the bars a bit. but we were really close to the foam pit and trampoline at this point so they were super excited to try to escape and run to that. note – my kids were the only ones running away from their moms and giggling. fail 4.
last section – I was praying it would go quickly. jump down the trampoline and into the foam pit. we practiced jumping into the foam pit first. I would just plop the girls butt first into the foam. they had been waiting for this all morning and then when I did it - of course they started crying. mostly because they were freaked out about how to get out. but seriously girls – pull it together. anyway – we (thankfully the instructor took a badger at this point) walked them down the plank of a trampoline and then plopped them in the foam pit. they whined, I got them out and then they had to wait on this yellow pad until they got their stamps. I pinned them down and we waited. when the teacher had them put their hands on the walls so she could stamp them, I told the girls to stand like they were in timeout. guess what – they did it PERFECTLY – first time all day! ha! they got their stamps and thank the LORD we were out of there. I was soaked – front and back, but I didn’t care. we were finished.
when I exited the room, I thanked that savior of a mom who helped charlie. she told me she had twins and that it gets better – let’s hope so because right about now I want to hire a full time nanny. another mom looked at me and said she has 5 week old twins at home. I couldn’t even say anything encouraging – just congrats came out. I was that exhausted. it would be a lie to say “it gets easier” because as of right now – it hasn’t gotten easier – just different. I love these sweet girls more than I can even describe, but sometimes they just wipe me out.
thankfully it was only a 4 week course that I signed them up for. 1 down – 3 to go. I contemplated quitting multiple times through, but decided to stick it out – no matter how crazy or not in control mom people think I am. I do think the girls will benefit from a few weeks of directed play. but I definitely won’t be signing up for another 4 for awhile!
here were the pictures I took when we got back to the car. they were proud of their stamps.
eleanore.
claire – admiring her butterfly.
my back is already sore!
