I Believe I Can Fly

Upside Down and Inside Out

It's so refreshing to see these being performed in a proper place.

And not from my refrigerator, balcony, and/or coffee tables. 

And in the Center Ring...

Behold...

The Amazing Reedini


Weighing in at only 25 pounds, and in the <5% for weight....

He's the strongest two year old on earth!

Routine

I know my title seems harmless and nondescript, but it's actually making me giggle. I used to teach a girl name Routine, which always struck me as funny. That happened to also be the year I taught Chrishieka, Princess, and DeJourna (pronounced "Del-jour-nay". And no, I didn't spell her name wrong, it didn't have an 'l' in it. Luckily I was so distracted looking for the new "E can also make an L sound" grammar rule that it kept my focus off "Routine". )

Anyway, we've settled into our new school-time routine (*giggle*) quite nicely. JR's favorite activity by far is still Cub Scouts. But we're giving two new things a try. JR is taking piano lessons and also a hiphop/break dancing class. Of course I couldn't be more thrilled that he wants to learn to dance, but I'm not so jazzed (pun intended) about piano. He's been begging to take since last year, so I have finally given in. I remember the piano lessons of my youth with about as much fondness as math tests, so we'll see how it goes.

Kyle and Reed have started up gymnastics after a break this summer, and though it's hard for me to snap a picture with the two of them constantly running, jumping, hanging and rolling, they did stay in this position long enough for documentation.

From Tigers to Monkeys

Last week at Tiny Tots as the teacher was explaining what they needed to be doing, Reed walked right over to the rings, grabbed them up, and did a back flip. The entire room did a collective gasp, and since I

A. have all boys and am used to "high adventure"

and

B. didn't want to scare him

started clapping and saying, "Yeah Reed! Woo-hoo!" (Yes, the other moms looked at me like I'd lost my mind.)

Today I had my phone in my pocket and decided to try and capture some of the death-defying Tiny Tot moves in action. And as usual, I was way more worried about taking pictures than the actual safety of my children. They could have fallen at any time, and I would have been standing there saying, "Cheese! Say Cheeeeeese!"

The first 4 pictures are all Reed. He got himself in all of these positions without any help or spotting from the teacher or me. I, of course, was too busy trying to unlock my phone and get ready to take pictures so how could I possibly do something like, oh I don't know...help my child.

The infamous flipping rings

This bar is low enough that Reed can reach it on his own from his tippy-toes.

An upside down "cheese!"

I'm guessing his next move will be to let go with his hands and hang from his knees. Great.

Kyle isn't one for upside down, but he loves to hang. (He's also better at forward rolls.) Here he is hanging from a bar that I'd say is at least 5'5". (I have to lift him up and the bar is quite a bit over my head)

And I finally got a picture of The Sliding Mat of Danger. That's Kyle about to slide down and Reed on his way back up.

Prom with the Bros

I was trying to work with the little guys on the Bro Pose. You know the pose I'm talking about: Arms around each other's shoulders, other arm at their side, completely manly and cool. As you can see, we had a little problem with "side arm placement", so the boys actually turned out looking more like a prom picture. But being that they're boys (who could care less about having their picture made) and not girls (who love to pose and model), I think we did pretty good.
Speaking of boys vs girls, we're back to our normal routine which means Tiny Tots is back in the mix. I switched their Tots day from Wednesday to Tuesday and was fairly certain I'd made a monumental mistake when we walked into a gym full of girls. I immediately thought, "Uh-oh. There's going to be a whole bunch of paying attention, taking turns, and following directions going on here. Not sure this is going to work for us." But surprisingly, they did pretty good. Of course after seeing them in a class full of girls my dreams of them being gymnastic prodigies have been shattered. But other than that, I think there was lots of "taking turns" going on. The girls happily took turns while the boys cut right in front of them and did what they pleased.

Seriously, When is my 'Mom of the Year' Trophy Arriving?

Yet again, my amazing mothering techniques were on display for all to see today. It's Wednesday, so you know what that means. Yep, Tiny Tots day. The Sliding Mat of Danger was back again, but the teacher had it turned on its side, so it wasn't near as tall as it has been in the past. In fact, the mat was so short, I could reach about 3/4 the way up. (Are you impressed with my use of a fraction? I am.) So Kyle was first to climb The Mat of Danger, and since I was able to reach farther, I was giving him a little help. Problem was, I helped him a little too much. As he neared the top, I gave him a little extra boost, which sent him up and over the top of the mat and pinned him between the wall and the back of the mat.
And what did I do? Did I scale the mat myself to rescue my child? Try to run behind it in case he dropped to the ground?
Um, No.
Rather than actually trying to save my child, I choose to use the Jan Approach to critical situations: I screamed out.
"Oh no! I've lost him!"
Of course Kyle was busy putting on a dramatic showcase all his own. As the teacher climbed up behind the mat to rescue him, I just knew I had traumatized my child for life. But, surprisingly, the little dramatist shook it off and went right back to Danger Mat climbing. I couldn't believe it! In the end, the day turned out just like Kyle and I like it...crisis averted and hoopla aplenty.
(And by the way, my "helping" was much more minimal for the rest of class.)

Dangerous Again!

So after a few weeks of boring ol' Tiny Tots with age appropriate activities, the good ol' high adventure Tiny Tots that we know and love was in full force. Death-defying apparatuses abounded today: There was walking on the high beam, flips over the bar, and the big 7 ft tall climbing and sliding mat was back. (Kyle was able to do it today!) But I guess the Ingy boys enjoyed the past few weeks of low key gymnastics. Although they participated in all the daredevil stunts asked of them, their favorite activity of the day was much more calm. Both of them would lay on one of the mats, then log roll all over it (and each other). After a few rolls they would say, "Night, Night" and then the other would fall out laughing in hysterics. Now why is it they can't entertain themselves with this little game at home? Especially the "Night, Night" part!

Um, I Don't Blog Well With Boring

I think our Tiny Tots teacher must read my blog. Guess what happened today? Absolutely nothing. No danger, no insane heights, just perfectly age appropriate activities. What's up with that? How am I supposed to blog and diagram just a normal, average, plain ol' trip to Tiny Tots? And since we had what seemed to be an OSHA monitored class today, I was even able to whip out my camera phone and snap a shot of Kyle. So I'm sorry to say, you won't be enjoying my artistic stylings. But I do have a picture of a bar swinging baby! (You'll notice it's the low bar...totally safe, boring, and unDurangoan!)

There's Danger and Diagramming Today!

As we were getting toward the end of Tiny Tots today I thought, "Wow. They didn't ask the kids to do anything crazy." But of course, I was wrong. It was about that time the teacher started dragging out the big blue mats. I should know by now that "big blue mats" are really just a way to alert the parents that it's time for the danger portion of class. I couldn't imagine what in the world the kids were going to do as she started setting them up. She stood one mat up on its side leaning it slightly against the wall (so it was about 7-8 feet tall), then left the other mat on the ground. And here were the instructions: climb the mat (Um, there's nothing for them to hold on to) and when you get to the top, turn around and slide down it. (Um, it's pretty much at a 90 degree angle, won't the kids just fall 7 feet to the floor?) Reed was first so I turned to the teacher and said, "I have no idea how this is going to work. What should I do?" She suggested holding Reed at the waist, but he (like me) didn't really understand how to climb the mat without anything to hold on to, so I just kind of pushed him up as far as I could with him sitting in my hands. He then "slid" down (I was holding onto him). Then it was Kyle's turn. I should have known he wouldn't need any assistance since he's able to scale everything in our house. So here's Kyle's turn climbing the mats in diagram form. (Please remember I was trying to make the mat look like it was standing on its side, which requires 3-dimensionalish drawing...and that's pretty mathy, and y'all know how I feel about math.)

Okay, so diagram 1 shows Kyle scaling the mat. He just dug his little feet in and went straight to the top. (And in no way, shape, or form does Kyle have that much hair. I was just trying to show that was the back of his head.)


Diagram 2: Yep, he went straight to the top...and stood up! I would have had to climb the thing myself if I needed to get to him. (And BTW, one of the moms did have to climb it when her son got up there and got scared.) After Kyle stood up and got a bird's eye view of the gym. He sat down and dangled his feet over the side.


Diagram 3: And then he slid down! It was pretty much a half slide/half free-fall drop, but he did it. Twice.

Mary Lou Part 2

Last week I predicted they'd break out the pommel horse at Tiny Tots today. Well, it wasn't the pommel horse; it was the vault. So much easier, right? They were to run up to the vault, jump on the springboard, and land on top of the vault feet first. This happens to be one of the skills JR is still working on in his gymnastics class, so of course it's totally appropriate for the 3 and under crowd. Obviously the babies were never going to be able to jump feet first onto a 4 ft high vault, so basically they stood on the springboard and I slung them up there stomach first. You'll just have to imagine that one since I don't have any artist renditions of that particular apparatus. But what I do have for you is what we looked like when we moved on to the bars. They were to do bat hangs (hang and bring your feet up to your hands) from the high bar. I needed to be in ready position to catch them (since they were hanging 7 feet off the ground), but for some reason I was being attacked by a swarm of gnats. It was about that time I found myself breaking out in a flop sweat. The heat was on in the gym (since it was 45 degrees outside), I was wearing pants and long sleeves (since it was 45 degrees outside), my children were dangling from the bar above me, and I was being mauled by a pack of gnats. And as Jason will confirm, I don't do well with bugs (swarming, crawling, or otherwise). So here we are today. Babies hanging, and me slapping gnats. Thankfully nobody was injured in the hanging/gnat fiasco; we all came out of it unscathed.
(I actually drew this to resemble me swatting gnats, but after looking at it, those gnats could also double as my flop sweat....so really, it works both ways.)

Mary Lou Who?

I keep forgetting where I live. If I had remembered that I live in Extreme Fitness Land, I would have realized that the 2nd lesson of Tiny Tots is of course when you let your children hang from the regulation height gymnastics rings. So not kidding...2nd lesson and we're already dangling from the rings. Guess that means the 3rd lesson they'll break out the palmal horse. Now you know I've always got pictures, but there's just no way I can whip out a camera while I'm waiting to catch my children that are suspended 18.86 feet above the ground. (I looked it up.) But, never fear! I have completely reenacted the scene for you in illustration (except for the teacher, but she's not a main character in my story, so I left her out).
Now, as you can clearly see, I had to stand on the giant blue mat and hoist my kids up to the rings. (I'm so short I could barely get them up there.) I then had to wait for Ring Swinger to let go and make sure he didn't land on Other Brother who was crying at my leg wanting it to be his turn. (Kyle could hang on longer, but Reed could pull his legs up by his face.) And you'd think that would have filled up their hanging quota of the day, but I actually had to pull them off the door handle as we were leaving the building.
And if you're wondering when I had time to create this little portrayal...Well, I actually did it while Kyle and Reed were busy "drawing" their own little masterpieces. Note to self: colored pencils are now about 15 minutes worth of entertainment.

Hang On, Just One More Day!

The babies start tiny tots gymnastics tomorrow, and as you'll see, it can't come a second too soon:

"Hanging out" at Intercontinental Airport in Houston



Scaling the fridge at home


And "hangin' at the bar"


They also hang from the grocery cart at WalMart. Yes, we're a site to be seen everywhere we go.