Party at the Playground

Two quick things of the make a note in Penny's baby book variety and then a longer write up of recent events: I noticed yesterday that she's saying "Lindy" now instead of "yindy." That initial L sound actually sounds like an L instead of a Y. And I've noticed her sitting "indian style" - or cross-legged which I didn't know she knew how to do.

Penny attended her first birthday party this weekend. Ok, not really. She'd obviously been to birthday parties before, but the honorees have always either been relatives or the children of friends of ours. This was the first party she was invited to where we didn't even know the parents. Well, I kinda-sorta know the mother. The little girl is in dance class with Penny and we've spoken. Anyway. She had fun. There was some consternation when we first got there because I had perhaps talked up the birthday cake angle a bit too much and she wanted cake immediately upon arrival. She was miffed that I was trying to get her to go play on the playground instead of eat cake. But once we got that straightened out, we both had a nice time.

Dance class in general is a little weird though. Penny enjoys it a lot and she looooves to dance at home. She's very young for the class though. The class she's in is called "Creative Movement 1" and is supposed to be for children 18 months to 3 years. Well, most of the girls may have been 3 when the class started but many are now 4. I think there may be one other girl around Penny's age. They do a lot of sitting while each girl takes a turn doing whatever. I'm not a fan of that - or at least not the duration of the sitting required. I don't mean to imply that Penny can't sit still. She sits still way better than the other girls; I think she gets super bored though and would get so much more out of it if they spent more time with everyone to keep them moving. We keep thinking we are going to drop the class and just maybe forget to mention to her and maybe she'll forget, but she doesn't. While she doesn't yet have the ability to read a calendar and keep up with the day of the week, she knows that I teach on Tuesdays and when I get home it's dance class time, so even if we don't bring it up she will.

On the other side of things is gymnastics on Thursdays. We're still in the Parent and Tot class there which really means free-reign of the equipment. But - and this is really ironic considering how I used to worry about her coordination given how long it took her to learn to jump with both feet - they want to put her on into the 3 year old class because she's so good at stuff. According to them she "gets" the basic concept of a cartwheel and headstand better than the actual 3 year olds and has "excellent coordination" when doing forward rolls and whatnot. While I would ordinarily be proud of the praise for my daughter, moving her up to the 3 year old class means, again, an actual class with sitting and taking turns and not-free-reign of the equipment. Moving her up now makes me feel the same trepidation I feel about the dance class, like it's too much too soon - and why do I have to make decisions like this when she's 2 and a half? We've been semi-participating in the class while I get to stay with her, but if she gets bored with something she'll just run off and do something else, which she obviously won't be allowed to do in the class for real. The owner has said something to me about it for the last three or four weeks now, and then this week two of the other instructors each said something about it to me separately. So while I'd lean toward keeping her in the parent and tot class, I don't want to be that overbearing mom who can't see what everyone else is seeing. I mean, I see it, but I'm not sure she's ready emotionally you know? Or maybe I'm not?