indoor exercise

Let's start off with a few pictures from Thomas' gymnastics class last night. Here are the kids warming up:

At the end of the warmup they do a little dance to the music from the Penguin movie Happy Feet. Here Tommy is turning in a circle doing a penguin walk. He takes this very seriously and is very good at it!

Here he is walking on a low soft balance beam. They would then go on to the next wedge and do a forward roll. Then...

Swing out over "the pit" and drop in!

I have been wondering/worrying about Henry's sensory needs and his lack of interest in most types of exercise (aside from swimming and wrestling). (We tried the above gymnastics class with him and he hated it.) About a year ago I had looked into getting some kind of jumping apparatus for inside, but they seemed too expensive and impractical.

A few weeks ago when I arrived to pick up Tommy from his sitter's home, I found the kids jumping in this thing in her basement. It's kept inflated by a fan (like those inflatable seasonal things people put out in front of their houses), and so collapses when not being used. I expressed my interest and asked how much it had cost (I guessed $200, but it was only $115). L said that she was disappointed in the size, and had found a larger one that she might order if I would like to buy this smaller one.

I said that I would discuss it with my husband first. I did, and he thought the idea was crazy, but I went ahead and bought it anyway. Saturday morning I cleared a spot in the basement between the furnace, water heater, stairs, and laundry room.

(I shouldn't even post these pictures because it shows our messy crowded basement to the whole world. This is the storage part of the basement. There is also a little corner room with the computer, a laundry room and another room with a couch and tv, etc.)

Henry HATED this thing. He hated the noise it makes and he hated having to get off the computer to jump in it. I picked him up (not easy when he is struggling) and threw him into it and tried to make him jump. He cried and scratched and clawed at me, leaving red scratch marks on my chest.

I know that my husband was thinking "Hello? This is your son, Henry. Maybe you have forgotten everything you've ever known about him, but he doesn't like any of the things you are doing right now. What the hell are you thinking?" But he didn't say any of those things to me, God love him.

Sunday morning Henry was doing the things that I interpret as revealing a need for sensory input: climbing on Bill; trying to put his fingers in Bill's mouth, ear and eye; tickling; just being rough.

So I tried again with the jumpy thing, this time with more success. We pretended that Henry was Darth Vader and I was Princess Leia and he was trying to "get" me/blast me. I would run around the jumpy thing and he would kind of chase me and then I would grab his arms and try to knock him down, throw him against the sides, etc. Henry didn't cry this time and he actually laughed and was proud when he could avoid being knocked down. "I am so strong!" he would shout.

Eventually Thomas got in too and they acted out some Star Wars scenes together.

Also Tommy would pretend to be injured, and then Henry would help him up. Since he's not allowed to pull Tommy up by the arm (see post back in November about nursemaid's elbow), Henry tried pulling Tommy up by the leg! Then I suggested that he grab him around the middle to pull him up.

Time will tell how much use we get out of this thing, but I am hopeful.