A day off with Rachel

I was lucky this year - my company was closed for President's Day. I'm not sure if I've ever had that day off. I get the usual holidays off, and a few bonuses like the day after Thanksgiving as well as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - and even one year I worked for a company that gave us Martin Luther King Day off as well as our birthday! WOW!

Rachel's day care was also closed that day - which normally would have been a problem except for the fact that I was also off. I wanted to do something fun and developmental with Rachel while we had the day together. So I signed us up for a Gymboree class.

We signed up for a 945AM class, which turned out to be a Family Music Class, with multiple age children, the youngest was probably 18 months. So Rachel was kind of out numbered. The other problem is that we have never been to the classes before, so we didn't know the songs or curriculum for the class. We muddled through, but the class was definitely too advanced for Rachel. The exercises they did were too advanced for Rachel, so the instructor recommended we stay for the 1130AM class which was a Music 1 class, better suited for children Rachel's age.

We had about an hour before the class, so I fed Rachel and changed her. Then we played for about 15 minutes in the big open play area. It's open from 10AM-12PM for Open Gym time. I found a quieter spot away from the bigger kids, and Rachel and I played with some balls and she did some rolling over on the mat.

Then it was time for the class. This one was much more suited for Rachel - the exercises were more age-appropriate and Rachel seemed to have a good time. There are still some things she wasn't able to do - like banging blocks together...she could hold the blocks but not bang them together. So I showed her how to do it, but she is very independent and wanted to do it herself.

All in all it was a great experience and just fun to do something different. I am not sure I would want to sign up for the classes on a monthly basis - Rachel does get a lot of stimulation at day care every day with toys and activities. There are two other companies I have researched that are local and have simiilar type of exercise classes. Most of them are offered during the week which we can't do since I work full-time, but when she is a little older there are some classes offered on the weekends. We'll try to register for some free classes from those companies as well to compare and see if it is worthwhile to sign up for on a monthly basis - it would be another activity for Rachel and some different things than she has atday care, plus a way for David and I to spend some quality time with her and maybe meet some other local parents.