Gymnastics

Allie has been doing flips around the house for years now.  It is almost a compulsion.  She gets up from the dinner table and does a few hand stands and cartwheels and when I ask her to sit back down, she is almost surprised to find herself flipping around instead of eating.  It's just something that she does without knowing she is doing it.

A few months ago, some of her friends started getting private lessons from a neighbor of ours who used to be a gymnast.  Allie begged and begged to be able to do it too, but I resisted.  She is in dance and we just started piano. With activity days, I just felt like she had enough on her plate to entertain her.  She let it go for a long time, but I could tell that she was sad about it.  She tried to teach herself all that she could and we even watched youtube videos on how to do a back handspring.  I guess I decided that it couldn't hurt anything to let her have a few private lessons so she could quit landing on her head and learn the right way to do a back handspring.  She was so excited.  She worked for an hour and learned new ways to position her body and she can do them by herself on the tramp now and can do them on the ground with a spotter.  Way to go Allie!