My Gym

Last night Tyree and I took Ariella for a free trial class at My Gym in Chesterfield. She had soooo much fun. I was surprised that all the little babies in the class had both parents attend with them. It wasn't just mommies. Ariella was the youngest in the class. The next youngest was 9 months old, and then the rest were 12 months or a little older. So, she was the only non-crawler there. But, she was still able to interact with everyone, and she did pretty much everything. She loved the social aspect of it all. The class was 30 minutes, and it flew by.

We started out with circle time (sitting around in a circle), and we did some stretches (more like moving arms up and down, twisting from side to side, etc) with music and songs led by one of the instructors. It seemed like the 2 instructors were a married couple who might have been the owners.

Then, we branched out for some free play - they had a trampoline that I sat on and bounced Ariella on. There was a ball pit, which she enjoyed - especially when some of the other babies were in there with her. There were rocking horses and swings, which she had fun with.

There was this giant hollow barrel made out of padding that we put Ariella inside. I rolled it along, and she rolled inside of it. That was big fun. It was maybe 3 1/2 feet tall, so I couldn't really see her while I was rolling her, but Tyree kept telling me that she was liking it. In fact, her told me to roll it faster. Lol!

We also did some things with the instructors. The lady taught us how to help Ariella do a forward roll. As part of that, the lady played with Ariella, grabbing her feet and such. She had Ariella laughing and squealing! Several of the other parents looked and smiled at us, and some commented on how happy a baby Ariella is. Then, they had us put Ariella on her tummy on this big teeter totter like thing. The other babies crawled across it, but Ariella still had fun doing what she did.

The most surprising thing was that Ariella had her first trapeze lesson! I thought for sure that was only going to be for the older babies, but the instructor said that she could do it. We watched one of the other babies, and the instructor held her hands to the bar and swang the trapeze back and forth. It was quite impressive. I was a little scared to let her do it, thinking it was going to hurt her shoulders. The instructor held his hands over hers on the bar, while Tyree and I held her (yes, we both held onto her - Tyree under her arms and me under her butt - lol, I was a bit scared of this one). Then, we lowered her down slowly and gently and then let go. So, she was actually hanging (with the instructor holding on top of her hands)! Then, the instructor moved the bar slowly back and forth. I'm still not sure how it didn't hurt her, but she seemed to enjoy it. She had her wonderous look, like she was taking it all in.

Then, the lady instructor did a song with puppets and counting, in which Ariella was quite enthralled. It was definitely a successful night. We were able to talk with some of the parents. It was just the first time, so I'm sure that we'll get to know them better as the weeks go on. So, Monday nights will be the My Gym class, and then they have free play on Tuesday nights. We're going to that tonight, so we'll see how it goes.

There's one other interesting thing. We were talking with the mom of the 9 month old. She had quite a number of teeth! The mom said she had gotten them all in the last month or 2 and that it seemed like the teeth came emerged in pairs, and they seemed to pop in overnight. There were no teeth the night before, and then there were teeth the next morning. Well, last night I dreamed that when I woke up this morning, Ariella had a mouthful of teeth! They looked a little strange, too. Luckily, she's still toothless, though. But, that was a funny dream.