Thank you to everyone for the well-wishes! Part of the reasoning behind sharing our news now was because I knew your positive words would help carry me through the hard days coming next week. It means a lot to know so many people care. I am very lucky. I am making my way through all the comments and emails, and I promise to answer every question in the next day or so.

Like a typical kid, Annie recovered from our shared illness pretty much overnight. It took me the entire weekend, but I finally woke up yesterday feeling like I could breathe again. It’s crappy when you’re sick and pregnant because you can’t take ANYTHING. Pregnancy is hard enough for me without a cold and sinus thing added on. I’ve been really trying my best to push through my pregnancy difficulties to be there for Annie. It kind of flips her out to see me throw up a million times a day (because, you know, she won’t let me go to the bathroom by myself), so I am making an effort to put on a happy, non-queasy face for her.

To that end, yesterday she had her first gymnastics class, and I was going to be there no matter what. I mean, the kid was so. freaking. excited.

ready for gymnastics

When we got to the gymnasium, she was squealing with delight. She jumped up on one of the benches to look in at the older girls tumbling.

watching the older girls

I'm so excited!
Now it’s my turn, mama!

We signed her up for a class of 2.5 – 3.5 year olds, and man. The teacher gets mad respect from me. I cannot imagine corralling five kids Annie’s age, let alone trying to teach them skills and keep them from getting hurt. That requires some serious patience.

The first thing the teacher had the kids do was run after hula hoops. This was the greatest thing ever. She would have run after it all day! I am SO going to buy some hula hoops for home.

chasing the hula hoop

bringing back the hula hoop

Then it was time to stretch. The teacher told the kids to copy what she was doing…Annie managed to do that about half of the time.

not exactly following the teacher

The other kids in the class had all taken gymnastics before, so they knew the drill. Annie needed a bit of extra attention to figure out how to do things, but I was surprised by how quickly she picked up new skills.

balancing

For most of the kids, jumping in the big foam pit was the big draw, but for Annie, it was climbing the random foam shapes.

climbing

My favorite part was seeing Annie do a somersault:

She was SO proud of herself. I think she might be able to do an unassisted somersault by the end of her next class.

It was cute seeing her interact with the other kids. It was also a bit of a relief to see the other kids get distracted and wander off. Like, “OH, other kids do that, too!” Annie got distracted by her own reflection a couple of times. She’s never met a mirror she didn’t like.

Before bedtime, she insisted on reenacting everything she learned at gymnastics. She then fell asleep the second her head hit the pillow. YAY GYMNASTICS!