Tumbling Class

At fifteen months old, Gavin is now enrolled in his first class. We've got him attending a weekly tumbling class at a local gym. Part of me still thinks he's a bit too young for structure like this. But another part of me wishes we'd done this months ago.

Gavin is growing into an incredibly active kid. Ever since he started walking, he's been unstoppable. He runs and bounces, and worst of all he climbs. He can get up on most couches and chairs at this point, and he loves climbing up and then jumping. Or just standing close to the edge. He's completely fearless, so I'm carrying around double my share to make up for it.

We enrolled him in the class in the hopes that it would give him a safe space to burn off some of this energy and start providing structure so he's less likely to injure himself. It's been somewhat successful, though I probably shouldn't hope for results after only two weeks.

The class is a good mix of structure and free play. Gavin absolutely hates the structured parts, and he often goes running off to climb on the mats when he's supposed to be walking in a circle or singing a song. But that's to be expected with toddlers, and even if he's the worst at paying attention the instructor never seems too put out by it. I hope that in a few more weeks he'll get more into the rhythm of the class and have fun doing things with the other kids.

He loves the free play part. There are mats to climb on, rings to hang from, and a whole big room to run around in. The instructor brings out balls or bubbles or other things for a few minutes at a time. Last week Gavin loved running around under the parachute, which brought me right back to my elementary school days.

Gavin also loves the various flips and rolls we're learning to do. And even better, some of them are safe to do at home. It's a nice ace to have up my sleeve when he's on the verge of melting down.

We're only a couple of weeks into the class, but so far it seems like a success. I don't know how long this will last - if Gavin will ultimately become interested in gymnastics or not. But it's nice to have a thing to do with him and a place where I'm lass worried about him cracking his head open every time the urge to climb takes him.