Gymnastics

One of the things about Troy (and really Alabama in general) is the lack of public space. As a geographer, this is interesting to me. As a mom, it's annoying. In Tallahassee there were lots of parks and playgrounds and public activities like concerts and outdoor movies. I was a member of a meetup group that had regular play dates and was even getting a homeschooling preschool co-op going. In Troy, not so much. There's one playground built adjacent to a housing project which means the "kids" playing there do stuff like hang out on the equipment shooting bottle rockets. Or we took Penny there last weekend early one morning and there was a grandmother there with her 4 year old and 13 month old granddaughters. She was holding the 13 month old while helping the older one play - and chain smoking the whole time. While HOLDING the baby. I have this theory that small towns in Alabama don't have public parks for the same reason that they don't have public transportation - because white people would have to interact with black people. So the only park Troy has was obviously built with grant money next to the projects and that's the only reason there is one at all. All of this is stuff I did not miss about Alabama - although it may be more of a city/town thing. But.
In trying to find something for Penny to do activity-wise, I found out that there is a parent and tot gymnastic class at the recreation center. It meets on Thursday afternoons and is very unstructured. The little ones just run around on the equipment, and the "instructor" stops by periodically to encourage them to try something or another but doesn't stay long before moving on to the next kid. It's very laid back. In addition to getting Penny some interaction with other kids, it's always nice as a mom to be around other kids to compare/contrast (in a good way) to make sure we're on track with things. The class Penny and I are in is for kids up to 36 months. There was a 3 and 4 year old class going on at the same time and they were much more structured. None of the little ones in our group were interested in each other much at all whereas the 3 and 4 years olds had no problem being part of a "group." Anyway, I was glad to see that this seems to be normal childhood development and not something particular to Penny.
So, the one thing that I was worried about physically with P is that she hasn't jumped yet. I know there is a range of time when kids do stuff like that, but I couldn't help but notice that all the other kids, some much younger than she, could jump in the trampolines and loved to bounce around. She'd maybe bend her knees if I asked her, but her idea of bouncing was to high step one leg at a time. The instructor got her up on one of the small trampolines and held her arms, but Penny just sat down. But, she is awesome on the thing where they climb up the wall on the rope net and slide down the other side into the ball pit and she was great at the balance beam. You just have to barely hold her hand and she can walk all the way across with little effort or concentration. AND, the next day at home she "jumped" outside in our yard. She didn't really get off the ground much, but she's clearly working on it in her head and I bet when we go back on Thursday, she'll be trying to jump on the trampolines and other equipment.