Open the Floodgates

Our first "thing"!

We are probably way behind on this category, but Evelyn joined her first extracurricular tonight!  We signed our jumping jimminey cricket up for gymnastics.  Absolute stroke of genius.  She could not have had more fun.  She started crying when we had to leave, and make it clear "Daddy I wanna come back here tomorrow.".

It was really surreal to drop her in the room, leave hesitantly, and find Evelyn didn't care at all.  I expected some tears or a long acclimation.  At least she remembered to wave to me a few times.

She jumped right in.

After some stretching of course.

Lydia spoke clearly for a change, "I want to go in."

Evelyn doing gymnastics in a closed door room, by herself, qualifies as a family event.  

So of course we all went.

 You can sense a little excitement here.

 Hi Lydia.

Evelyn nailed the floor exercises. You can see the focus, the drive, to be the best.

Or at least just have a good time.  Jump Evelyn Jump!

She was great at the balance beam.   "Not stepping on squares" exercise? BOOM!

A half point deduction on the walking backwards routine.

But a stunning balance beam somersault put her right back in it.

Then she shone on the uneven bars.  I knew she would.  "Evelyn's going to crush this part" I told Heidi.  And she did.  But mostly she crushed the good times out of this thing.

It was fun to watch, not nearly as heart wrenching as I thought it might be.  Though Heidi called me out as the "hovering dad at the glass", overall it was easy.  I've held this little girl in my arms, quite literally, for four years, but letting go wasn't hard.  It didn't feel that way at all.  My feeling is you hold your kids long enough and tight enough, they don't really leave your embrace.  So we let go a little bit, and see what they can do.

 Besides, teacher better hold her.  Or I'm coming right in there.

It was a little class, but felt huge.  This opens the floodgates.  The next 18 or so years will have some sort of extracurriculars for Merry, Joy and Hope.  Can't wait to try it all out, to see what sticks, what they love, what comes easily to them, what they stink at, and mostly just how much fun they can have.