Bjarki’s First Gymnastics Meet
Bjarki started practicing gymnastics once per week with Gerpla late this fall, after hanging out on a wait-list for over a year. I think he’s only attended four sessions so far, but that was apparently enough to attend Gerpla’s “Advent Meet” – his first meet ever. His slot was between 10 am and 11:30 am this morning, so Finnur’s parents dropped the kids off by the sports center shortly before the hoopla was supposed to start. (Click on the link below the first picture to see more pics and videos).
This meet slot was apparently only for 5 year olds. There were three boy groups and five girl groups, and each group took turns performing a particular set of exercises.
A quick overview of Gerpla’s practice/competing space.
Bjarki was the first ‘competitor’ to start in his group due to his standing in the alphabet. He also happened to be the first kid to get started overall, so he got some extra applause. (And yes, the coach did a demonstration-handstand for every single boy in his group!)
Two ‘courses’ right next to each other. Bjarki’s group began on the right one, then moved left of this image, before returning to the left course shown here, and then finally ending way over on the right side of the hall. Each white-shirted judge followed one course.
The girls were mostly on the other side of the hall, and did some of the same exercises but not all.
Anna and Daycare-doggy.
The second ‘course’ was an exercise in using springboards (10 jumps) and trampolines (the big jump).
The second ‘course’ that Bjarki’s group completed. There were two adults with each group, one to help them ‘perform’ and the other to maintain order and get the next kid ready to go.
The third ‘course’ was all about controlling the weight distribution of the body, shifting left and right to traverse the bars.
Gymnastics people seem very fond of walking in lines… Here the boys are heading to the fourth and last ‘apparatus’.
There were a lot of people in attendance!
The last thing Bjarki’s group did was ‘sideways-shuffling-while-hanging’.
The girls got to walk on bars, but not the boys. I wonder why boys are considered unsuited for bars?
It’s apparently impossible for 5 year old boys to walk ‘properly’ in a straight line. They always end up monkeying around!! Here they are headed out of the hall to get a bit of water to drink from the drinking-fountain, before the ending ceremony.
It took a little while for the remainder of the groups to finish, some were slightly larger than others. But it was finally time for the kids to step up on the ‘podium’ and receive their participation-medal, and achievement certificate, with their star markings.
Bjarki with his very first medal. 🙂
After everybody had gotten their medal and certificate, we had about 30 minutes to horse around before the next group of kids were to arrive to ‘compete’.
Bjarki’s achievement certificate. I’m guessing two stars means ‘satisfactory’ and one star is ‘getting there but needs improvement’? There were kids who refused to do certain things, and I guess they just got blank spots?
Anna hanging out. She tried gymnastics last year (and the year before that, but with a different outfit), but decided she didn’t like it, so she quit. Which was fine by me because gymnastics for older kids scare me!
Later that day we were visited by my mom, my brothers Bjarni and Pétur, as well as Signý and Fannar. Here Bjarni is doing his math homework.
Granny Ásdís with her first knitting projects in years, if not decades! And it’s a very impressive one! 🙂
Salon Hrefna was opened for business, and had two customers: Fannar and his dad. This is Fannar post-shearing.
Here’s Pétur post-shearing, busy making fancy bread-somethings for dinner. (Focus, what focus?)
Pétur’s bread-somethings in the oven. There was pita-sauce involved.
The bread-somethings were to stretch the meal to be enough for eight people, because, um, I hadn’t exactly planned for that many! But thank goodness for large pasta supplies! 🙂 Also, yes, those brothers of mine really bring out the posh manners in each other…
Look, they can indeed be civil! 🙂
Here’s Bjarki, who sat down at the dinner table complaining of stomach aches. I thought he was just really really hungry (“Ooops, I think he’s just had a glass of milk to drink for the past six hours!!!”) but a few minutes later, he got very pale, and I just barely managed to fetch a bowl for him to vomit into. He spent the remainder of dinner sipping on Gatorade, which he then promptly vomited. He then went to bed, and I was hoping that would be the end of it, but no, this blog-entry has been put on hold three times while I’ve tended to more vomiting. So I guess this is a real stomach bug, and not just ‘Bjarki got really really hungry’… Oh fun!
Meanwhile, just to add insult to injury, my throat’s gone all raspy, I’ve got a dry cough going, and my pelvis didn’t enjoy all my active activeness today, or attend-quickly-to-vomiting-child this evening. Also, I can’t find my glasses anywhere. How long is it until Finnur arrives back again?!?!