Gymnastics

Wow... what a busy summer. I haven't posted in about 2-1/2 months! We went to Toronto in the summer (my Dad turned 60 and retired!), my SIL and family came for a visit... Emma just had her 17th birthday on Tuesday. Nicolas is now a Red Belt Decided in Karate... next is black belt recommended! He's almost there!!

Speaking of Karate... karate takes a lot of strength, balance, and flexibility. None of which Nicolas really has. His body is lean and muscular, but he doesn't have the upper body strength he needs for sparring. So I put him in gymnastics. His balance and flexibility have improved immensely, and his upper body strength is improving.

So, thinking about the future... I put Max is gymnastics too (Max actually started before Nicolas). Max, for his size, has more upper body strength than Nicolas. So this should give Max an edge when he starts karate in about a year and a half.

In karate, they have balance beams, a trampoline, a rope for climbing, rings, a parachute, and bars. They do hand stands by walking their feet up the wall, then stay there for the length of time it takes them (or the teacher) to sing the ABC's.

So... this leads me to a cute Max story. Max loves singing, and sings the songs he has learned in gymnastics (Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row Row Row Your Boat, ABC's, Wheels on the Bus, etc). So we were eating dinner one night and I told Max to show Daddy how he can sing his ABC's. So Max climbs down from his chair, goes over to the wall and does a handstand, and sings to Daddy his ABC's. It was so cute!!

Another cute thing from this morning...
Max - Emma is at school
Me - Yes she is. Are you going to go to school?
Max - No
Me - Why
Max - I'm not a big kid!

He's at such a fun age!

Here's some pictures from gymnastics

And, in case you missed it on FaceBook, here's the video of Max singing (viewable only from the blog, not email)