Full Circle

As a young girl my super passion was cheerleading....I started gymnastics at a very young age so by the time I got to junior high, cheerleading was very natural for me. And.....most girls don't stop growing when they are 12 (like I did!) so I was the perfect basket toss thrower upper, girl you wanted to have on your shoulders b/c I only weighed 75lbs!! My petiteness definitely paid off in this area. And of course as much as we as parents say we aren't going to push our kids into activities that we cherished, I think we all have that natural tendency-its comfortable for us. Justin loves football, Wesley already knows how to say HUT HUT and throw the football to him! It's just natural.

When we lived in Conroe I enrolled Kate at Flips gymnastics b/c I had heard such good things about the program and wanted to expose her to as many things as possible to see what she liked and hopefully she'd find a niche. Kate didn't really care for it. I couldn't really tell if she didn't like the skills involved in gymnastics or if there was some other reason she'd break down and didn't want to go. So we stopped going after a year. Looking back on it I think that she was just exhausted. She was attending Primrose at the time and they were super structured and after 8 hrs of super structure, she just didn't want to participate in anything...she basically wanted to veg out. Lesson learned.

So I (internally) wrote off the fact that my Kate would ever even remotely like cheerleading or gymnastics. Then when we were at Port A, Kate and Justin were playing in the water and a girl (about 8) comes running down the beach and does about 6 back handsprings in a row. Kate was just amazed..she loved it. Coincidentally the next week at her summer camp they started practicing cheers with her class. So she came home doing toe touches and saying 'Ready...OK'

She did look quite cute!

I asked her if she liked cheering and she said she LOVED doing toe touches and she showed me her jumping skills for the next few hours.

Yesterday after summer camp I enrolled her and Wesley in Manning Gymnastics here in Victoria. Kate will start an hour class on Tuesday evenings and Wesley's class is a Mommy/Daddy and me class after hers. So our Tuesday evenings will be kind of late but I think they will both enjoy it and Wesley will have a chance to see his big sister practice and also release some of his own energy.

Manning Gymnastics was the place I went to Gymnastics 27 years ago....where I learned so many fantastic stunts....where I broke my arm doing a back handspring and everyone rushed to my side. It was the place where I met Bella Caroli for the first time when he was in the prime of his USA Gymnastics coaching career. Manning Gymnastics is where I met Mary Lou Retton who intrigued me so much! Of course she did. She was an Olympian! How cool is that?!? She was also super small but extremely confident. So in years to come when I would get teased about being so 'short' I really didn't care. Mary Lou Retton had a competitive advantage b/c of her size.

So walking into Manning Gymnastics yesterday was very surreal for me. Seeing Mrs. Manning registering my kids was even more surreal. She has to be like 90 years old!
This was my first time since moving back where I really felt a good sense of why we moved back. That comfort level with the community. Being able to share my childhood with my kids. Getting involved in something that allows us to network with other parents in the community.

Now we just have to wait until Sept 8.....our first class. I obviously am just as excited as Kate! We've come full circle.