You’re  a gymnastics girl!

Grammy and I went to see you do your thing in Dover over the course of an hour and a half.  It was your second class.

You started out strong… running around with your group… a smile on your face..

After that, everyone picked up pieces of paper and threw them over a vinyl pad “wall.”  You had to jump high to get the paper over.  You did great.

Then you joined everyone in a straight line on the mat, moving and stretching in all kinds of impossible positions I have never been able to do one day in my life. Your Grammy?  Yeah, she could do that stuff.  But not me. Ever.

So I am very impressed my young friend, very impressed.

You had a brief tough spell when one of the gymnastics teachers tried to get you to do things a certain way.  She grabbed your legs and moved them… her style was different from the coach you liked the previous week… a little gruffer perhaps.  I think you might have been embarrassed because people were there…. maybe you felt they were watching you specifically. It might have been because Grammy & I were there.  Who knows.

You sat out for a little while, watching the other kids, sitting on the edge of the mat, fighting whatever little demons confront amazing six year old girls. You didn’t go home, you hung in there. You shook it off.

Soon another coach came over and worked with you in a more personal way. She brought you to the trampoline area, then onto the balance beam.

You beamed on the beam.  You loved it… walking confidently with your head held high.  You’re the perfect shape for gymnastics…long and slender, with a great sense of balance.  This served you well.

A few years ago, the vision of you on ANY balance beam in ANY gymnastics class would have been a pipe dream.  So this was yet another amazing moment.

When the going gets tough, or emotional, keep on going.  Push through it. Don’t give up.  Believe in yourself.  Remember what you did today on your second day of gymnastics, with girls you didn’t know, with strange people watching you doing things you had never, ever done.

Emma, I’ve never been prouder of you.