Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The Broccoli Challenge


Ada loves gymnastics. She has been attending weekly classes every Tuesday at 6:30PM for a year and a half now, still excited every time we head out the door. The class has been great, and the time works well for us. Other girls have signed up and dropped out, but Ada has remained a constant, every Tuesday, week in, week out.

Recently a couple of the other girls dropped out, and a few were promoted to the blue side of the room (where the BIG kids practice), and all of a sudden there was just Ada in the class. Her instructor, Ms. Amanda, put her through all the skill drills and decided Ada had the chops to move up a level and join the big kids on the blue side, but dang it, she just wasn't big enough.

Quick background - it took Ada about 30 seconds from the start of her first gymnastics class to start pining for the blue side. She LOVES hanging with the big kids, and if the big kids were on the blue side, that's where she wanted to be too. So for Ms. Amanda to tell her she was good enough for the blue side but not big enough - well that's going to stick in her craw.

On our way out of our most recent Tuesday class, the gym manager apologized to Ada about not being able to move her to the blue side, citing weight and age restrictions for the equipment, and ending with "tell you what, if you have a big growth spurt we can move you over, but you'll need to eat a lot of broccoli so you can grow!"

Ada replied with a quiet "okay" and was lost in thought for a moment. I turned to the manager and told her, "you know, she's going to take you up on that." Sure enough, the moment we set foot outside of the gym Ada turns to me and asks if she can have broccoli for dinner.

"Sorry honey, we don't have any broccoli at home. But we do have spinach, which is also very healthy and helps you grow."

"Okay, I'll have spinach for dinner."

Pause...

"Can I have spinach with my breakfast, lunch, and snack, too?"

Hard to turn down a request like that. For the moment, Ada is happily chomping down spinach with every meal, and may well have the healthiest 5-year-old diet on the planet. But so far, no signs of rapid growth.