First meet jitters

Kaiya's competitive gymnastics season is back in full swing now. She worked really hard over the summer to learn new skills and now that the season is here, she is training 3 days a week. Between school, piano lessons and gym, she is a very busy girl. The fall season is much different than what she did in the spring--the judges and scoring are much harder and everyone is trying to qualify for the state meet in December.

Her coach had to inform her on Monday that her new team leotard and sweatsuit weren't going to make it on time for the first meet today and she was pretty bummed. She is the ony new kid on the team this year and she wasn't too happy about having to look different, but I'm proud of how she handled it. There was some initial pouting, but no tears. :) And, one of her teammates let her borrow their old similar team leo, so it all worked out OK.

The meet today was, of all places, it was at my old gym in Ft. Collins. Very, very strange to be there as a parent. Walked in and there was my old coach getting the gym ready. We had a good laugh together. I have so much sympathy for my parents after sitting through these long meets as a mom now. They are so long (and yet both my parents, stepdad, brother and sister-in-law all came)!! She absolutely loves having her own cheering section.

She swears she wasn't that nervous, but the look on her face said otherwise. She was happiest with her bars and vault and just had a couple goofs on beam and floor. She ended up sixth place in the all-around--not too shabby for her first one! She gets to be in a Labor Day parade on Monday for her gym, so she is looking forward to doing cartwheels down the street. She is trying to figure out if she can throw candy to the spectators in mid air. Stay tuned!