March 14th, 2012

oh the places he’ll go

When we first started going to the baby gym class, the Peanut stuck close to us. He sat in our laps during the warm up and the introduction; we carried him willingly to do the group activity and during free play, he usually stayed wherever we set him down. These days he’s off like a rocket the minute the door opens. He’s uninterested in staying on the big red mat, choosing instead to walk and crawl up and down the gym equipment (he loves the wedges). The warm up and introduction go as usual, with the teacher pointing to him and waving. He smiles and watches, but stays where he is. There’s obviously way too much for him to explore to waste time with us.

Today his teacher (whom he just adores) set up an obstacle course on the mat. Several hula hoops and rings to crawl through, all while on top of big blocks. As the other toddlers milled around, some banging on the blocks, others refusing to move once placed on top, we grabbed the Peanut and placed him at the beginning. He looked at us, turned and proceeded to crawl perfectly through the entire obstacle course, before jumping down and going back to his wedges.

We were shocked, but clapping, and we grabbed him again. Like a mouse to cheese, back through he went, not once veering off course or getting distracted. His teacher was impressed, and the Porkchop and I smiled a little and shrugged, noting that it must be all the playground time he gets.

Granted, once we left we talked about it nonstop and gave ourselves high fives. Whoop, whoop, parental pride baby!