Our Super Beast, Our Inspiration

When Joe goes to swimming, Clara goes to The Little Gym.  At The Little Gym, she (and Julie) are enrolled in the final parent-child class: Super Beasts.  One of Clara's fellow former Beasts made the transition with her--a girl named Pauline.  Clara and Pauline are two of four girls.  The rest of the Super Beasts are strapping young lads--and they are strapping.  But Our Birdie is no shrinking violet.

Case in point, this past Saturday, the first skill of the class was to sit on top of a bar that was perhaps three or four feet off the ground and, if comfortable, flip over it to return to sitting--with a spot.  Clara was all about it, until she got up on the bar and then she was like, "You get me off of this now."  But the first great thing was she tried!  She was all about it.

But the second great thing that happened was that after she got off, and after she and Julie had watched another Super Beastie sit up there, she marched herself back up to Teacher Stephanie to say she wanted to give it another go--!!!!!  Which she did.  And she sat, and she flipped.

All of this was after she had sat with Julie on the Air Trac* as it was inflated and then jumped and forward rolled (somersaulted--The Little Gym people use proper gymnastics terminology) her way down it like she was Mary Lou Retton in the making.  (The Air Trac looks like all kinds of fun to 30-plus-year-old eyes, but to even the Super Beasts set, it can look intimidating.)

Sometimes, it's tough to give things a go, to get back up again when they don't go the way you thought they would, and then give them another go.  Birdie already seems to know that this way is the only way, really, to roll.  She's kind of an inspiration.

*Imagine an slice of a track that you would run on, inflated, maybe two feet off the ground.