Gymnastics, Sort of

It really is pretty fascinating to watch as the world opens up in front of Gabe now that he's in school. I'm getting all kinds of interesting bits and bobs from him every day on the car ride home.

The other day he said, "I heard the best name ever today, dad! One of the kids in my class has the best name!" He was genuinely excited about this kid's name. I mean, excited. About a name. It was a little weird. "What was his name?" I asked. "Carl!" It is a kind of awesome name, really, especially since nobody uses it anymore. That hard K sound just doesn't come along often in American names, and add it to a sound that a drunk pirate might make and you've got naming gold.

Today I found out that there is a kid in the other kindergarten class that is shaping up to be Gabe's nemesis. I'm not sure what the kids name is--often Gabe is entirely unclear on the names of his classmates, changing them randomly as he tells me stories about the things they did in class--but Gabe has expressed a distinct dislike for him. I'm not sure what is going on, but it sounds like a bit of mild bullying of some sort.  I gave Gabe the standard Beta Male advice: If one of the kids is hurting you or one of the other students, be sure to tell a teacher or another adult. Probably I should have said, "If the kid is hurting you, hurt him back!" but I'd really rather put off visits to the principles office at least until grade school. Especially since the school is fifteen minutes or so away. Even if it does perpetuate the Beta Male line in our family. But, anyway, this is the first person I've ever heard Gabe express dislike about. He's generally a VERY friendly kid and rarely has a bad thing to say about anyone (a trait he obviously gets from me). So this kid must be a real d-bag.

But one of the more interesting things that is developing is his physicality. He's always been a physical kid, obviously. Running around and jumping all over the place pretty much non-stop. He's got ninja moves and lightsaber/jedi moves and army moves and power ranger moves and soccer moves and pretty much every other move he can think of. It's pretty remarkable, really. The kid is one big bruise. Just today, while running around the house jumping and kicking, he slipped on the pant legs of his army costume (they are too long, as are most of his pants, since he's 90% torso) and fell on the floor in ways that surely would have broken my hips at least three times. But he just gets back up and keeps going. Unless he slides into a wall or door or something. That usually phases him for a bit. But only a bit.

Anyway, I'm not sure if it's something they've been doing in recess or if it's just another aspect of his physicality that he hasn't really played out much here at home, but he's been exploring various gymnastic moves here at home recently. He's attempting cartwheels and backwards somersaults with a bit of regularity. The cartwheels mostly amount to him putting his hands on the ground and jumping his feet up into the air a foot or so. But the backwards somersaults . . . .  Well, just watch the video.