Gymnastics Party

Today Corinne went to her first classmate birthday party, which was held at a gymnastics place. We weren't sure how this was going to fly for her, especially when it became clear that the parents were supposed to watch from a separate room. Once again we were pleasantly surprised. Corinne followed her classmates into the gym and they started off with the parachute. This has traditionally been one of Corinne's bigger phobias, between the texture and the billowing. But she stood back and watched at first, then held on to it and shook it like everyone else. When everyone went underneath it she hesitated, but then someone took her hand and pulled her in. Pete and I watched, holding our breath. She emerged with everyone else a few minutes later smiling and clearly had enjoyed the experience.

She had trouble keeping up the pace of the obstacle course-like things (at any given time the whole class was backed up behind her), but she did her best to follow what "her new teachers" demonstrated, and she watched her peers as well, which was even more important. She was cautious, as always, but allowed the instructors to help her do somersaults and even rolled around on her own. She jumped on the trampoline, hung from the rings, walked on the balance beam and even got into "the pit", a hole filled with foam blocks. She seemed to have fun (in her squinky, marches to the beat of her own drum, Corinne kind of way) and when asked, said she would like to come back to do it again. She'll never be Mary Lou Rhetton (too much of her mother's uncoordination for that), but to see her joining in with her peers and having fun, even in a new and overstimulating environment... Well, that's something we weren't sure she'd ever be able to do. Another monumental day.