Baby Athletics

My son is going to be an athlete. I'm not really giving him much of a choice.

Okay, seriously, I'm not that demanding of a parent, but my husband and I both believe that sports and competition are important. Our son will participate in at least one individual and one team sport. For how long? We'll see how that goes, I guess. I'm thinking at least until high school. Which sports will be up to him, of course. I'm hoping for taekwondo and soccer, naturally, but it will be his choice.

Being the spazzy noob mom that I am, I'm already looking for ways to hone my son's athletic skills. I suppose it's a stroke of good luck that his current favorite toy is a ball. That little guy can throw!

A couple weeks ago, we tried out the "Birds" class at The Little Gym. It was cute, and TLB seemed to enjoy himself, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. It left me wishing I could have access to all that equipment without the class, the singing and clapping, the yuppy parents, and the other toddlers hitting my kid (Hey, Lulubell's Mom: When your daughter hits another child, she should, at the very least, hear the word "No" from you). On the other hand, that sort of environment is probably good for me, to temper my competitiveness and focus on what my son enjoys instead of what I want him to get out of the class.

Still, I think TLB could have used a little more time on the beam...

At any rate, with TLB's Mad Walking Skillz still in development, there's time to figure out how to approach the athletics thing. "Don't rush him," people tell me. "You'll miss these moments. You'll wish he would have stayed a baby longer." Yeah, yeah. Don't get me wrong, the stuff he does right now is cute and all, but each new thing he does is EXPONENTIALLY COOLER. Soon, he'll be walking. And after that, he'll be running. And when his balance is good enough: KICKING.

Last Saturday was the Gate River Run. Between my knee, my back and my overall Jabba-the-Huttness (and the effect of each on the others), I was in no condition to run. I miss running. I'm trying to get back into it, but it's a slow, slow process. As I was wistfully looking over the event webpage, however, something caught my eye. DIAPER DASH! There was a River Run for BABIES. If that isn't awesome, I don't know what is.

Saturday morning, we were at the Jacksonville Fairgrounds. Admittedly, TLB hadn't done much training for the event, but he's a good crawler and I felt he'd be competitive in the U12(months) division. I had a strategy: I would lure him to the finish line with his favorite beach ball. TLB had a different strategy: He'd play in the dirt. Okay, so it wasn't REALLY a race, or even a "dash," but all the babies and parents had fun, and TLB got a t-shirt and a medal and I got to feel like he'd accomplished something.

Next year, though, those toddlers had better watch out! TLB will be a 23-monther in the 13-24 month division, and we have a year to train!