Speaking of booties, I took DS3 to a class at a gymnastics place today. In the last few years we have taken a gym class at the local community center. We always signed up for the same teacher, whom we both adored, and from the first class she remarked on his unusually good balance (at 1yo climbing stairs, walking on the balance beam) and he could do somersaults and other tumbling kinds of things easily.
Anyway, so the community center class for his age this year conflicted with his preschool class, so I started scouting around for something at a gym, and found one. Today we tried out a session to see how he liked it, and how I liked the facility.
Right away he started climbing on the equipment like a little monkey, swinging from a bar, climbing up on the parallels (I didn't know he could do that!) and doing two somersaults in a row on an incline. The teacher said, "Wow, he's really athletic!"
So they started out in a room full of mats and low equipment called the "preschool room", then moved into the huge gym where there were several classes with different age levels and abilities going on, rotating through the equipment.
The little guys did a little parallel and uneven bar work (mostly hanging, but also doing some sort of scissor-like kick), then got to move to... I'm not even sure I can explain this, but there's a strip of the floor that is like a rubber trampoline, very bouncy! First she had them bounce down the strip on their feet, and for DS3, he wasn't expecting the bounciness, so he was flying every whichway.
Once he got his direction under control, she had him try to bounce on his feet 3 times, then bounce on his bottom and bounce back to his feet. The other kids (who've been in this class since September) did pretty well with it, and by about the 4th or 5th pass, DS could almost bounce back to his feet. It was exciting for me to watch him develop!
Then there's another area of the floor that is a giant pit filled with pieces of foam. DS wanted to jump right in, but she had them somersault in. He was the first one, rolled right into the pit and began to giggle, but the other kids balked a bit. So she did let them just jump in after a bit.
He looked like he was having the time of his life, and I asked him afterward if he wanted to go back. He said, "Yes!" So I signed him up for a class that will go through December, I think. I'm eager to see how far he comes along in that time.
This is making me laugh!! 
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