The Little Gym

Maddie had her first "workout" in a gym designed just for kids!!! She's a "bird" (the class for 10-19 month olds) in the parent/child classes. The class lasted about 45 minutes, but felt like 15 minutes! It was structured enough that she had to follow some directions, but unstructured enough that she was free to be a 15 month old :) When we first went in to the building Maddie could see all the fun climbing stuff and mats and all and she kept saying "play play" and doing the sign for "play". She couldn't wait to get in there! There was another class going on at the time so we couldn't go in just yet. The nicest surprise was that Maddie's friend Jonathan was there for the class too!! So they toddled around in the waiting area for a while until the previous class finished up. When it was time to actually go inside Maddie got a little nervous. She wouldn't walk in by herself, I had to carry her. She seemed very intimidated by the whole environment. The class started out by singing a song while shaking some bells...fun for everyone, right? :) Then we walked and ran around in a circle (this helped Maddie loosen up a little until the class leader talked to her!) and clapped a while. We had a chance to play with a parachute (Maddie wasn't afraid of it, but didn't want a lot to do with it either) and got to chase bubbles! Next was time to explore and play on the mats and different equipment (balance beams, uneven bars, etc.). We did a log roll together, where I held Maddie to my chest and rolled down the "cheese" wedge with her. Then I helped her do some forward rolls on the mat. She seemed to have fun with that and even wanted to do it once by herself (it didn't actually work, but I praised her for her effort!). Next we had some time to play on the bars. Maddie held on to the bar while I held her by the hips and raised her above the bar and below the bar. Then I let her kind of hang while swinging her back and forth. She had a lot of fun playing with the bar! After that we did some jumping then got back in the big circle to play with balls and before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye. All of the moms and kids were sitting in the circle getting ready to sing the goodbye song...all the kids except Maddie and one little boy...Can you believe that in a 45 minute period Maddie had become confident enough to wander around in the gym without me? She's getting braver and braver every day :) I can't wait to take her back next week!!!