Future Olympian

Anna's gymnastics center held its quarterly awards day Saturday. Anna racked up another ribbon! (Everybody gets one — even if it's your first class that day, which was the case on Anna's first day of gymnastics!) Actually, she can do a lot more than I thought she could. I was impressed. These pictures and very short video clip speak for themselves.

I took Alexander (here he is eating a cheese stick) with me and we hung out on the bleachers inside the big gym while her class actually had class in the special room for young gymnasts. Michael came after his racquetball game and met us for the awards ceremony.

In other news, we're phasing out the afternoon naps in favor of quiet reading time in their rooms. Or at least, I'm giving them the option. Alexander was rarely napping anyway (though Anna still likes her sleep). And at nighttime it was sometimes taking them too long to fall asleep. Last week, Anna even announced to me that the reason she was tired in the day was because it took her too long to go to sleep the night before because she'd had a nap that afternoon! So far, on about three of the six days or so that we've been doing this Anna actually stayed awake for a while in her room doing educational things (reading or writing or puzzles) and then decided she was tired. So she closed her blinds, drew her drapes, turned off the light and put herself to sleep for a nap anyway.

Speaking of educational things, Anna's reading! Some words, anyway. Yea! She can pick out words on a page of a book by sounding them out. Some she now automatically recognizes. And she came home the other day and wrote her school friend's name on a drawing that said friend had given her. Her name is Dee Dee, and she spelled it exactly right. Two words with the space in between and capital Ds and everything! So exciting!

And for your delight: We were talking about Heaven the other day. Anna wondered if you can get to Heaven by climbing a ladder. Alexander thought a spaceship could take you there.