Norah doing stuff

We've always tried to balance Norah's organized activities with just letting her play, but one of the biggest problems with letting her play in that our neighborhood just doesn't have a lot of kids or even people who hang out with each other. So "just playing" for her means playing by herself or with one of her parents (usually Krys, but occasionally me). Mia isn't much fun for anyone to play with, because she usually loses interest pretty quickly. So we've been trying to get Norah into some more organized activities, but we still try to make sure that we don't overload her. She's been doing gymnastics or dancing at Little Gym for years, and she just stopped taking swimming lessons earlier this year because she just wasn't having fun anymore. She goes to yoga with Krys (yes, really), and this summer, we decided to let her try horseback riding and karate. Krys had a Groupon for horseback riding, so she's trying that for four weeks, and she seems interested in karate, so we figured that would be a good thing to try. I'm hoping she likes karate more than horseback riding, because Norah needs a bit of self-confidence around others, and I think karate might teach her that a bit more than riding horses. She started both recently, and Krys took pictures!

















It's nice and hot right now in the Basin (not as hot as it will be, of course, but still), so at the end of their horseback riding sessions, the teachers hose off ... the kids. Yes, they really do. Norah has been doing fine, but I think she probably enjoys getting hosed off.

We'll see if she's going to keep up with both or either, but so far, so good. I think she's a bit disappointed that, after one session of karate, she still doesn't know how to chop someone's head off (which is what she really wants to learn), but she'll have to live with that!