The highs and lows of Natalie's Saturday

Natalie is two weeks into her gymnastics class! I signed her up for the pre-school class, which is for 3-5 year olds. They had to be three years old by 2/6/17, and when I registered there was just one spot left in the class, which I took to be a sign. It was maybe not the greatest decision, but the other option was the Parent and Tot class for 2-3 year olds, and while I would love the chance to run around with my leotard and leggings on, the point was to get her doing something independently. Our first week was touch and go at first, because she was surprisingly scared of joining in at the start. We eventually got her jumping and swinging, but she refused to do the warm ups, and just sat there giving everyone angry looks. Remember back in 2012 when McKayla Maroney made her "not impressed" face at the Olympics medal ceremony? Natalie has it mastered. She is clearly the teensiest tiniest student in the class, and is so small that she can't even reach some of the equipment and has to be helped a lot. When we left the first class, she immediately asked me to text Andy and tell him how much she loved going to gymnastics.
I had trouble taking too many photos the first class- they just didn't come out well using my phone, and I didn't want to be the dorky mom pulling out her DSLR during a three-year old's tumbling class. Yesterday I brought my little Canon and tried to get a few more.

Their warm up chat and stretches.

Discussing the plan for the bar course. As they finished up, Natalie said something to her teacher, who nodded and then Natalie came running over to me. I was thinking it was to report a potty accident, but Natalie just shouted, "I just want to give you a hug and a kiss!" and once she got her hug and kiss back she turned and scurried back to the class. I was all sorts of bewildered.

I know her underwear hangs out of her leotard. That's because the smallest leotard I could Prime is too big on her. Let's just be grateful she is wearing underwear.

About to do a cute little somersault

Assuming they work, here are some videos. You can really see how itty bitty she is, but lukcily the rest of her classmates have more experience and can do their exercises without needing much attention from the teacher. Because Natalie makes sure that she gets the most attention.

So we left class on Saturday and Andy had texted me that they were making sandwiches to take to the park and could meet us there. I said yes, but started to question that decision as we got closer to home because Natalie was turning on the whine. I really should have just taken her home to eat and nap, but went to the park instead. Foreshadowing....

The park was fine, typical picnic in the park, the kids ran around and then got pouty when we told them it was time to leave. We came home, put the twins to nap and then I thought I would have a few hours to go out running before it was all-hands on deck time again. So I peaced out and went to the trails. 

Towards the end of my run I could see through the trees to the house, but only saw my car. I figured that meant Andy had taken everyone either out to Kroger to buy the bread we needed or back to the park or something, and thought, "well, no rush for me to get home now," and kept running until I hit 18.5 miles and my legs said it was time to stop. I took a leisurely cool down, pulling my phone out to log my run, read about Cool Aunt Steph's new car, checked my email, and vaguely noticed that I had a voicemail, which I assumed was Andy telling me they were out somewhere, reminding me that he had stashed a spare key for me somewhere outside.

Eventually I noticed that there was also a text message waiting for me, saying that they were all at Urgent Care because Theo had a "bad cut," which got me moving a little quicker, driving like a crazy person at a perfectly reasonable pace to Urgent Care, where Natalie was sulking and Theo was bloodied and bandaged. 

It seems that after I left there was NO napping, only whining and craziness, and eventually the twins both RAN into the bathroom for some reason, and as they got in there Natalie pushed Theo who then tripped over the rug and fell chin first into the tub. The saving grace is that it was not a fighting push per se just an I'm-a-toddler-and-think-pushing-is-playing type push. 

Since I looked and smelled like someone who had just run 18 miles, I took Chad and Natalie home, which was probably a relief to everyone else in the waiting room. Since we had no dinner ready, and Natalie was "acting a fool", we headed to the Wendy's drive-thru for some fine cuisine. Three Frosty's were purchased, for the parents and Theo. 

During the car ride, Chad said, "I feel so bad for Theo. Everytime I looked at him I felt sad inside. And, thanks, Natalie, because now I'm going to have bad dreams about him because I'm so worried. Why did you push him like that?" To which Natalie defended herself by saying "But I said I was sorry!" She ate her Kids Meal, then went straight upstairs to sleep. Chad and I watched the Lego Movie to pass the time.
Meanwhile, Theo was lucky enough to be seen by the good Urgent Care doctor, not the idiot one, but after two hours of waiting they were told that  he was too young to get stitches there- he would have to go to the ER to be wrapped in one of those papoose things. Not sure why that wasn't conveyed to them earlier in the process. Instead, the doctor used some sort of skin glue and two butterfly bandages to hold it together, and since it was difficult to clean it out, we got an oral antibiotic prescription as well. Which kind of surprised me, but I guess creating a super bug is worth it if it keeps Theo's chin safe from bugs and thugs.

We decided that Natalie's punishment would be to take her own piggy bank funds to Target to buy Theo another Hexbug for his growing collection. If I had known that my copay for prescriptions had gone up, I would have made her buy him his antibiotics too, but I guess I'm not one for reading the small print in our insurance updates.

Theo is doing great, and assures me that his chin doesn't hurt. He happily sucks down his strawberry flavored medicine. Tomorrow will be interesting because he's supposed to be very careful not to bump his chin, and I'm not sure how that will go at school if his classmates start getting rambunctious. I will have to tell his teachers not to let him run, but I don't see them enforcing that very well.

Here are some pictures I took of Theo at the park before the calamity went down. He was pretending to be a wolf on top of the rock climbing cave. They may be his last chin scar-free pictures.