Are you ready to listen?

The girls started taking a gymnastics class once a week at the beginning of September. They love it! They start together to warm up, then Meredith and a couple other 5-6 year olds go off with one teacher, while Amanda, Claire and Melissa and a couple other 3-4 year olds go off with the other teacher. They've been walking on the balance beam, flipping around the low bar on the uneven bars, and running and jumping on the spring for the vault.

While they are having their class, the head coach has a group of about 6 or 7 "team" girls. They have been taking gymnasics for 3-4 years and are working towards competing soon. I think it's neat for the little ones to see the 'big' girls practice.

Last week at gymnastics, the coach came into the room where the moms sit and watch, and he was visibly frustrated. He started telling two of the 'team' moms about how the girls weren't listening, they were too busy giggling and didn't seem to want to do the lessons he had for them. He said he lectured them for a minute, and told them he was taking 5 minutes and they'd better think and be ready to listen and learn when he came back, or they could leave.

Well, apparently the little girls were listening to this... On Friday last week, Amanda and Claire were playing gymnastics with their barbies and polly pockets. They had the dolls doing flips and stretching. Then Amanda stands up and says, "You're not listening! I'm going to leave the room for 5 mintues." And she walked out. About a minute later she came back in and asked the dolls, "Are you ready to listen?" And she proceeded to have them do flips.