I'm not that flexible

When I wrote about Annalee's birthday I mentioned that we were giving her tumbling lessons for a gift. The same day she started preschool I took her over to I.F. Training Center for a free lesson.

I had a hard time finding the gym. It is located on Yellowstone Highway near the corner of Sunnyside. I drove past it twice before I finally saw the small sign nailed to a fence that indicated the gym was down a driveway (the building wasn't visible from the road.) The gym was fairly big inside but the entrance was difficult to navigate with a stroller. They had several heavy glass doors to go through and random steps-up and steps-down to get from the front door, through the lobby, through the office, into the gym. Even so, the lady at the front desk was nice and she directed us into the gym where Annalee's class had already started.

The three girls got to do a lot of things like bouncing on a long trampoline (pictured, Annalee in black) walk on a balance beam, jump into a pit of foam blocks, and do a floor routine of somersaults. The other two girls had obviously done it many times before but Annalee needed a lot of direction on what to do next. She threw herself into the activities with gusto; I was so impressed when she started doing somersaults!

One thing that did not impress me was the teacher's attitude. She seemed impatient and exasperated with Annalee. She had that false kind of cheeriness you paste on when you're just about at the end of your patience. Because I really wanted Annalee to take tumbling lessons I tried to justify the teacher's attitude. I thought, maybe she is just frustrated that we showed up after the lesson had started and now she has to try to include someone who doesn't know the routine. Maybe, once Annalee has come a few times and knows what to do she will be more patient with her. But as the lesson progressed I discovered that was unlikely. One of the other girls got scared on the balance beam and froze, refusing to move. In great annoyance, the teacher cried, "What's wrong with you? You know how to do this! What's the matter with you today?" Not exactly mean, I know. But the more I thought about it, why would I pay a ton of money for someone to treat my daughter like I do when I'm stressed to the max, at the end of my rope? And, come on, the girls were 3 years old!

I checked at the front desk to see if the other class times for her level had a different teacher. Nope, same one. And she also taught the next level up.

Even though Annalee had a good time I decided I didn't want to pay to have her treated that way. I'm glad they let us have a free lesson to try it out and that I didn't just pay for it all up front!