Expotition

(We’ve been reading a lot of Winnie-the-Pooh recently, and even watching the movies, and when they go on an expedition they call it an “expotition.” When Riley heard she was going to be in an “exposition” she immediately wanted to call it a “expotition” instead… I thought it was funny so the name stuck!)

After the ballet disaster, we decided to try gymnastics (which I was secretly rooting for all along). Two of her boy friends Leo and Noah were in a class that they liked, so we decided to have Riley join them even though they are younger. It’s a class with parent participation, so we figured it would work out well for her. She LOVED it. The teacher suggested we move her to the non-parent-particpation older kids class, but that didn’t work out so well, so we end up taking her twice a week to a transition class with kids her age where the parents are allowed to kind of hang around. As the weeks went by, she needed us less and less, and her confidence even outside of class seemed to grow. Her daycare teacher noticed it as well. Anyone who knows Riley knows she can be very very shy, almost paralyzingly so, but when she warms up she does great. Well, somehow the gymnastics class seems to be helping her move past that. Now she’s back in the no-parents class and she seems to be thriving just fine with us staying on the sidelines.

Recently the gymnastics center had an exposition for all the kids to perform and show what they’ve learned. We signed Riley up, not really knowing how it would work out, but thinking it would be fun. It couldn’t have been more of a success. When we arrived there were kids running around everywhere, and Riley was supposed to go upstairs with one of the older kids while we went to sit down. That obviously didn’t happen, but they let me stay with her. The parents were all sitting in chairs by the floor, and there was an announcer with a microphone and loud music and the kids were supposed to rotate between an obstacle course on the floor, balance beam, and the bars. With all the people and noise and commotion, Riley panicked and wouldn’t go out on the floor. In the last minute, the announcer let me walk out with her. Once she started though, she didn’t even look back, and I went and sat in the audience.

She looks so serious! She barely cracked a smile the whole time. You could tell she was having fun though because she had a hard time standing still… she kept bouncing around and skipping from place to place.

My Dad took a bunch of videos…

The last video is Riley accepting her award (every kid got one of course). I was definitely that dorky mom sitting on the edge of my seat taking a million pictures and beaming. I’m just so proud of her! She says her favorite part was watching the older kids do a tumbling routine at the end.

Anyway, now we know that gymnastics can be a huge help for shyness. She’s already asking when the next show will be…