When it comes to gymnastics, those Eastern Europeans are serious as fuck!  I can say that, because I am Hungarian.  On Saturday, I was invited to bring The Munch to a gymnastics class in New Ipswich New Hampshire where there for some reason is a huge population of Eastern Europeans.  I usually bring Munch to baby Gymnastics in my area where she does such complicated moves as running under a rainbow sheet, chasing foam balls, and crawling through a tunnel, so I figured she would be up to par.  It never occurred to me I would be entering into Olympic Training grounds.

When I first entered the facility the first thing I noticed was the overwhelming smell.  It was like I was nuzzling my face into a jock strap and deeply inhaling the scent of sweaty balls.  Yet the offenders of this odor were tiny little girls.  Flipping across the room, swinging from bars, and flying from rings.

I ushered The Munch to the back of the room, dodging the airborne limbs of 30-pound nine year olds.  The sound of coaches yelling at their little prodigies in their native tongue was deafening.  All the little gymnasts were in their leotards with ponytails so tight their eyes were tilted vertical, and then here was The Munch, in a party dress with her mullet blowing in the wind.

The Munch started off on the trampoline, which I thought she was quite good at until a kid half her size but with the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger circa 1986 did a front flip and landed on his feet.  I then brought her over the pit of foam blocks and encouraged her to jump in.  It was about a two-foot jump, but she did it quite happily holding onto my hands.  I was impressed by her bravery until a mother and her daughter came over and this little girl jumped from a 6-foot platform barely holding on to one of her mom’s pinkies.   She went to do it again, but mini Arnold scaled up like Spiderman and did a perfect swan dive with flawless form.

I couldn’t help it.  My competitive nature, my ego, my pride, I wanted my kid to jump this death defying leap.

Toni: “Munch, do you want to try?”

Munch: “Okay.”

So I lifted her up and she looked over the edge.

Munch: “I want to hold your hands.”

Toni: “Munch, you can’t hold both hands because my arms aren’t long enough.  You can hold one hand, but you have to let go in the air because I don’t have Go-Go-Gadget arms okay?”

Munch: “I want to hold two hands.”

Toni: “Munch it won’t work that way, you have to only hold one.”

Munch: “I want to get down.”

It is not even that I want my child to spend her entire life at the gym working out, but when you are in that environment it is hard not to get swept away.  Everywhere I looked there were pictures of Gold Medal champions and here was my kid carefully doing a crooked somersault.  I started to feel that even though she is only 2 ½ The Munch is getting a really late start on her athletic career!

We got in the car and I was decided to give her a pep talk to start emotionally preparing her for her life as a competitor.

Toni: “Did you like gymnastics class?”

Munch: “Yeah!!! It was so fun. I jumped on the trampoline. And I ran so fast.  And I wasn’t shy.”

Toni: “Munch, you know, you didn’t have to hold my hands every time you jumped into the foam blocks. You saw that other little boy and he didn’t hold Mamma’s hand.”

Munch: “He jumped from so high all by himself!”

Toni: “Munch did you want to jump by yourself?”

Munch: “No I wanted to hold your hands.”

Toni: “So maybe next time you will try jumping by yourself?”

Munch: “No.  Maybe next time you try jumping by yourself.”

Toni: “Touché my friend…. Touché.”