The Walder family: gymnastics

Grady goes to gymnastics class at 'The Little Gym' in Everett each week. Its a parent-toddler class and isn't too structured at this age, so he has a lot of fun there.

We start the class each week with shakers (kind of like maracas?), which are his absolute faaaaavorite. (We were a little late one day and he started bawling when he ran in and they were just putting them away :( oops. Taught me to never be late again).

After shakers, we spend some time running in circles to music, doing different things (depending on what the theme of the week is). Then they get about 20 minutes to explore on their own - playing on the bars, rings, balance beam, wedges, etc. However, Grady mostly just runs around, jumping on the mats and spring boards, and occasionally will do a walk across the balance beam. Still not a fan of the bars or any type of structured skill. So stubborn. This is why it's good this class is more for fun than actually learning gymnastics skills - trying to get Grady to do anything you actually want him to do, doesn't work so well :)

None-the-less, he is wearing off some energy... and watching him jump around, yell, and squeal with a smile from ear-to-ear, makes me so happy.

This week I wasn't able to get off of work to go to our usual class, so we had a makeup the following day. It was a different teacher and Grady didn't like her as much. He really likes his other teacher, Brittany, and seems to really look up to her. She can get him to try things I sure can't. She has got him to do the skill of the week two weeks in a row now - amazing.

I tried to take some pictures today. Didn't work out as well as planned. Turns out Grady hates the camera (I think he is jealous of it-takes away mom's 100% attention). So, he spent most of the class running away from the camera - most of the pics are quite out of focus.

my favorite - love his smile :)

it's more fun to play WITH the equipment, than ON it

rolling down the wedge

the only thing I could get him to go on today and it lasted about 5 seconds... normally the beam is one of his favorites

Grady waits all morning watching for teacher to go to the closet to pull out the bucket of balls. We end each class with balls, then bubbles - more favorites.