New Year Resolutions: In Progress

We have started working on our New Years Resolutions, and I must say, I am proud that I have been working on all three of them. This past week I took Ryan to try some classes at the Little Gym in Memorial and Gymboree Music & Play at the Galleria. Controlling my first resolution, which was to organize my work schedule better, allowed us to do this. I have been bad at wasting time when I am not working over the past few months, but now that I am getting the hang of it, I think I can most likely get it down to 3 days a week which will give me more time for Ryan and I to go do things. It can be hard when we have free time to make ourselves get out of the house, or if we do, it is usually for me to go run errands. Between 4 bottles a day, 3 meals, 2 naps, and 1 crazy boy, if the day is not already mapped out ahead of time, it can be 4 pm in the blink of an eye and I may not have accomplished much at that point!

So Tuesday, we went out to Little Gym and I really liked it. The pros were that the teachers were really big on refining motor skills as well more "gymnastic" type movements. They were really hands on and concerned with each child. The cons were, I was by far the youngest mom by 10 years, there was not a lot of music, not a whole lot of things to play on (more like balance beams and bars), and it is kind of far away. Ryan did so well standing by himself on the bars.

He was not too sure about this whole air mattress track that they blew up. He was just lazy and laid there the whole time, bouncing up and down.

 He did a forward roll on the balance beam, obviously with assistance from the coaches.

 Class would not be complete without bubbles, he was trying to eat them!

Then, this past Friday, I went to try the Gymboree Music & Play class. He had a lot of fun there as well. The pros were that there were lots of toys to climb on and play on, lots of music activities, like 5 min from my house, and some younger moms there. They also have open gym time 5-6 times a week where you can just come and play. The cons were that I would not consider it very "directed learning" (like 15 min of it is just kind of go roam around on your own and play), and probably not as focused on specific skills (probably if I started him when he was younger the class would have been based on those types of skills).

He played in tunnels and actually crawled through one to retrieve a ball! At the end, they play on the big colorful parachutes. All the kids lay in the middle, the parents hold it really tight, and walk it around in a circle. All of the parents were laughing at him because he was so lazy, he rolled on his tummy and laid his head down and just enjoyed being pulled around! I wish I had a pic of it. His crawling has improved greatly just from going to these two classes, I think.

This ball was enough motivation to get him to crawl all the way up the ramp. He has never done anything like it before!

It was pretty amusing because the class is for 10-16 month kids (most of them being at about 14 months), but he was by far bigger than all of the kids there (mainly in height). So it was funny watching all these kids running around or proficiently crawling, but the big kid being the least mobile of them all :)

After thinking about both classes, I have opted to enroll him in the Gymboree class, so if any of you moms out there have some free time or would be interested, let me know, I would love the company!! I think by holding myself accountable to be somewhere at least once a week, everything else will also fall into place (or so I hope :) ).