Oliver started gymnastics today. I must say that watching a gymnastics class is highly, highly entertaining. I would recommend that all parents skip basketball, soccer, baseball (especially baseball), ballet, tap dance, or any other activity and just go with gymnastics. Here's why. There is only one massive room--kind of on the scale of a smallish football field--and the entire floor is covered in matting, trampolines, balancing beams, volts, spring boards, parallel bars, and other sundry items associated with the art of gymnastics. All classes train simultaneously. One kid is running at top speed one way toward a spring board, vault and flip, etc, while another kid goes in the opposite direction to perform the same. They almost seem like they'll collide.
The little tikes are going through rounds on balancing beams, another group is on the trampoline, the boys are on the parallel bars. This is one highly entertaining hour. I do believe I could sit there all day, in a rather comatose glazed over state, and be entertained. The best part is that the noise is so great that it is impossible to make phone calls.
Oliver LOVED it. He told me it was better than catching lizards, and we all know how high lizard catching ranks on the list of joys for Jollie Ollie. I signed him up for one hour classes every Wednesday and Friday. I figure since he has swim on Tuesday and Thursday, he'll be a more tired chap in general, and thus more pleasant to be around. Oliver is like a puppy. A tired Ollie is an obedient Ollie.
I just remembered a funny story. The other day Oliver and Gabriel were doing something together and Oliver said, "When I grow up, I'm going to say bad words." The babysitter was standing there and asked, "What kind of bad words are you going to say?" Oliver paused for a moment, hesitant to indulge, but then proceeded," I'm gonna say darn it (but it came out dawn it with a real southern twang)". Gabriel looked at Oliver in horror.
"Do not say that!" He objected. Oliver grinned. "Dawn it," he said again, and then, "Dawn it, dawn it, dawn it." Gabriel puffed up in indignation and said," If you don't stop saying that, I'm going to kick you in the butt."
When the story was repeated to Jon and me we were rather proud of Gabriel, that he stood up to his brother, though Oliver pounds him regularly.
I wonder if Oliver will be a little disappointed when he grows up and realizes saying bad words isn't quite as fulfilling as he anticipates.
