Growing Up So Fast

Nia started taking gymnastics lessons at the Y about 5 weeks ago and tonight she got to show her stuff with all the other little gymnasts during a “meet.”  It was so adorable and I’m so excited we got to experience it.  When she first started she was a chicken liver – now, she hardly hesitates to jump from one thing to the next.  She even walked across the balance beam all by herself for two steps!  It makes me sad to see her growing up so fast but then I’m also happy about it – she’s a lot of fun and it’s neat to see the little person she’s becoming.  Also, the more she learns about growing up, the more I learn about parenting (which is actually kind of scary).

In fact, this event gave me my first real taste of worrying about my child being left out of something.  At the end of the “meet” they passed out trophies to all the kids. Well, I had noticed that they left several of the gymnasts’ names out of the programs (Nia’s was one of them), so I was already bummed that they did that (I was suffering from the whole “how dare they forget my daughter?!?!” attitude).  Because of that, I automatically started stressing that she wouldn’t get a trophy.  They went in alphabetical order so that didn’t help the situation.  I just kept watching her stare at all the other kids whose last names fell between A and U – I wondered what she was thinking…”Wow, look at their shiny trophies…I hope I get a shiny trophy too…I wonder why I haven’t yet?”  Finally, her name was called – Andrew and I relaxed and she beamed.  She was so quick to jump up and run over to collect her shiny trophy that she didn’t even pose at the top of the mat like all the other kids did.  She just grabbed it, turned around and ran to sit down and inspect it.

It just feels good to see her so happy.  She loves “bynastics” (as she calls it) and I love watching her have a blast.