I’m sitting at the public pool. It’s 109 out and the water looks sooooo refreshing. But I’m in my work clothes and the flip flops I tossed on as I left the house in the three minutes I had between dinner (which I made in my work clothes) and the time I had to get my 11-year-old daughter to dive practice.
My world is a fun mix of my oldest daughter’s diving, my son’s golf, family life and work.
But there’s another very important piece in there! And I’m wondering if she is getting left out.
My youngest daughter is an independent, self-proclaimed artist who hasn’t taken a single, outside-of-school sports class in her 6 years (I don’t count swimming lessons because that’s a required life skill).
Nope. None. While her sister had played on at least three soccer teams by this point and her brother did on-and-off again soccer, football, baseball and karate, she’s happily sat on the sidelines.
Until now.
Darn those gymnasts at National championships and diving Olympians we watched! Cursed those cousin dance recitals we’ve attended. Now my daughter is doing (dangerous looking) flips and somersaults in the living room and dressing up in ballet clothes daily. She is jumping off the stairs and landing a little too unstable for my taste. And I still haven’t figured out the purpose of the small chairs she wanted to put on the pool step at home. Honestly, I don’t want to know.
My little one is certainly not lacking for activity or attention in the house. She is dearly loved by us all and we jump with excitement with every new piece of art or performance she wants to put on.
So, I don’t know if we just got busy with life or realized there was not the need for organized athletics in her early years. Regardless, here we are with a “Classless” 6 year old.
I fret about it now because her older sister is so into sports and I don’t want her to miss out. Plus, those flips are looking mighty scary and I wonder if she could benefit from some instruction.
Then again, we did join in a one-hour family fitness class last weekend and while all the other parents and kids were doing yoga poses or ball tosses, my little one was hanging from the instructor’s arms and legs trying to use him as parallel bars.
Maybe one more year of waiting isn’t a bad idea, after all.
