Encouraging our Little Athlete

For anyone who has spent even five minutes with our Meilani, you know that she is full of joy and very active. People make sure to tell me this often. Sometimes I take it as a compliment. Sometimes I wonder if it's an insult. My husband astutely reminded me the other day that we need to take pride in the fact that our daughter is active (not hyper from sugar highs) because she has parents who role model an active lifestyle. What a great perspective!
From an early age we knew Meilani was going to be strong. At three to four months, she could support her own weight standing. At five months, she could do a perfect squat. Daddy says, "Many of my high school athletes can't even do that!" At six months, Meilani was crawling and climbing out of her crib. She would pull herself up with her arms, put her leg over the bar and fall down into the crawl position. Starting in the early weeks, we took her on plenty of runs in our jogging stroller, which is paying off now. On Sunday, we bundled her up and Meilani accompanied us on an 8-mile run. We are training for the Trail of 2 Cities Half Marathon in November. She smiled and shouted, "Go! Go! Go!" to Mama with glee as I ran alongside her.
Now Meilani is into running around the house and through the grass. At 16 months, she's definitely fast, especially with her new Nikes from Nana and Papa. She's like our little Dash from the Incredibles. Sometimes she likes trying on Mama's running shoes, but they're still a little big. (We can't share shoes quite yet.) Meilani's newest athletic feat is doing pullups on our pull-out cutting boards in the kitchen. I have to be careful not to put anything dangerous on top because she runs up and swings and does a perfect pullup to check things out. Yikes!

On Sunday, we hung out with some of our other "athletic girl friends." Chris Schultz, Ericlee's best man and fellow basketball coach, is pictured here with his oldest daughter, Kamryn. It's hard to believe Kamryn was the little blond baby at our wedding. Now she's a tall, athletic 6-year-old. Chris and Jen Schultz hosted Kamryn's birthday party Sunday afternoon at the Fresno Christian School gym. The theme was sports and they led the kids in all kinds of games and creative activities.
Meilani loved being active with the older kids. She chased the kids playing soccer and ran with the basketballs. The party was mostly 6-year-olds but there were a few younger ones like Ty and Tessa. The three little ones loved the Dancing Game. They didn't really stop when the music was over but they sure enjoyed shaking their stuff.

And, of course, a birthday party would not be complete without pizza. Addison and Emma show off their pizza-eating skills in this picture. Meilani enjoyed her cheese pizza for a special treat. And our little athlete was definitely tuckered out by the end of such an active day.