Practice, Practice, Practice....

Maddie's working hard to compete at level 5 this year! Here she is doing handstands and cartwheels on the beam...

Maddie got her kip!

Maddie in a front support

Maddie finally got her kip! It is one of the key skills for level five this year and she's been working hard on it!

What is a kip (also known as a glide kip)? Well, I wanted to film Maddie doing it, but unfortunately, I haven't actually seen her do it yet--but the coaches and all of the parent spectators have told me they saw her do it. So for your viewing pleasure, here is Nastia Liuken. The kip is her mount onto the bar. She does the kip several times throughout the clip.




Note: The handstand Nastia does upon mounting is NOT part of the kip. The kip ends in a front support. As soon as I catch Maddie on film doing her kip, I will post it!

Maddie and the Tinky-Winkies

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons, Maddie goes straight from school to gymnastics practice. She has to have a ponytail when she works out, so in the morning, I always put her hair up before she goes to school.

I started brushing her hair back this morning to gather it into the ponytail and she protested.

"Mom! Don't brush my hair like that; the tinky-winkies will come out!"

"The what?" I asked .

"The tinky-winkies!"

"What are the tinky-winkies?"

"This!" And she held some wispy pieces of hair out from her head that never seem to behave when the rest of her hair is tamed into the pony.

In this picture, you can see the tinky-winkies really well!

However, a little gel, and a little hairspray and...

Ta-da! The tinky-winkies are all hiding!

The Energizer Bunny

The Energizer Bunny lives at our house. Her name is Madelyn (remember the Energizer Bunny is pink after all!) We gave her this nickname because well...she keeps going and going and going! If we call her from another part of the house, when she comes it is often a combination of skipping, somersaulting, cartwheels and front walkovers.

Gymnastics practice is Mon, Wed, Fri 9-12. 9am can come kind of early during the summer since it stays light in the evening until around 10:30. This morning, I awoke at 8:25 (Cut me some slack, I worked until 11:30 the night before!) with a start thinking of what it would take to get Maddie dressed, breakfast down and out the door within 20 minutes to get there on time. I leaped out of bed and ran to her bedroom.

The bed was empty.

I ran to the kitchen. There she was calmly eating a bowl of cereal, dressed in her leotard and warm-ups, ready to go.

"Hi, Mom," she called cheerily.

Watch out! The Energizer Bunny has been recharged!