Little Gym Little Clicks

We have gym class at The Little Gym and just love it. The teachers there are great, and they are very good at reading her body language and nonverbal cues and respecting her. They don't grab at her without permission, or get in her face to talk, or keep talking after she's shown discomfort or disinterest. So she feels secure and safe there, and adapts quickly to new teachers. It took her 8 months to be willing to let her first teacher speak to her and occasionally touch her to show skills. Now she'll let a teacher talk to her after just a few weeks, but lately has not been interested in letting anyone touch her to help her or use her for a demo. Sometimes not even her dad or me!
Her favorite activities are the parachute and the "air track." The air track is like an inflatable trampoline, like one of those party bouncer things. Each week they rotate through a different activity, so it's often months in between times with the parachute or air track. This week's class had the air track out, and she bounced along. When she reached the end of it, instead of jumping off, she jumped out, and body-slammed into the wall. So we went out into the lobby area to calm down.
I got her to make funny faces, and then took a picture to show her (she's really into herself right now. We had to quit ballet because she'd just do whatever she felt like while watching herself in the mirror! I got tired of trying to keep her from disrupting the class.) Once she saw herself on the camera, she wanted to take her own pictures!

She was pulling down her lower lids and
pulling out her mouth - taken by me

Z's eye-view

Self-portrait - Extreme Close Edition

Mommy's hand

Shot through the window of the dance/stamp area
through the lobby and into the gym class

Another self-portrait

I got her to go back into class with the promise that she could hide behind me and take photos.

The grey blocking the left is my sweater.
The teacher is the adult on the far left.

Sitting in mommy's lap during bubble time

Popping bubbles with toes

Bubbles!

Check out the other budding photographers this week!