In honor of moving up to the new class level, we bought her a cute little black leotard from Target.
My camera was having trouble with the lighting, so the flash was sometimes on, sometimes off during this photo session.
Cheesy cheese cheese!!
She decided to wear a beautiful yellow tutu skirt (that Grandma Jenni and Grandpa Dick sent her) over her leotard, and that inspired her to do some crazy dance moves.
Exactly 20 minutes after I snapped this last picture, Sonia was sitting in a heap on the gym floor, sobbing for Mommy. Whoops. I'm still not 100% sure what flipped her out, but I have a couple of guesses. She has historically felt a bit nervous around strange adult men, and when she realized that the warm-up stretches were going to be led by three male coaches, she might have gotten overwhelmed. Also, three different classes (about 20 kids in total) warm up together before breaking off into their separate groups, so perhaps the number of kids made her brain short-circuit. At any rate, I had to go out into the gym with her as we just sat on the sidelines and watched her class for the entire hour. ARGH!!!!
Things are looking up, though.... When I realized that the 10:10am classes were filled with kids she had never met while the 9:00am classes contained four kids that she knows (including her BFF/neighbor, Aanya), I switched her to the 9:00am slot. With a few familiar faces to buoy her confidence, week #2 went better: Sonia actually stayed in the gym with her class while I watched through the windows, and she even participated in about 10-15 minutes of the hour-long class. She had her third class today, and although she still refused to take part in the warm-up (why, Sonia, why?!?), she participated happily throughout the rest of the class. So, I'm sure by the end of this session, she's going to be back to her old happy gymnast self.
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