Gymboree Level II

Ben and I have been continuing on our Gymboree adventure this season with the Level II class, which is designed for babies aged 6-10 months. We enrolled with a few of our friends from our first Gymboree class since Ben has a fun time with the other babies and I get along really well with the moms, so we all wanted to be in the same class again. Usually there is a mix of baby boys and girls in the class, but when we showed up this morning luck was on Ben's side since he was the only boy in a roomful of girls! He and his little girlfriends were quite the interactive bunch during our 45-minute class so I had to take a few photos.

Here is Benjamin with his little girlfriend, Julia. She's 9-1/2 months and is robbing the cradle with my little 6-1/2 month old. They were checking each other out and babbling away for about 5 minutes straight and really appeared to be having an animated conversation. Ben even tried a few classic pickup techniques like blowing raspberries in Julia's face, trying to put her hair in his mouth, and even trying to take her sock off and suck on her toes!!

Moving in for the kill. Here's Ben about to attack Julia's feet. Maybe he recognizes that she's wearing Old Navy socks and knows that as cute as they are, they are very easy to get off (since we have the blue and white versions of her pink socks at home)!

Daddy will have to have a talk with Ben about how to treat a lady on a date since my son tried to rip Julia's shirt off (hence her off-the-shoulder look) and then giggled and didn't look the least bit remorseful when I pulled him away and told him that that's not the way to make a good impression with the opposite sex!

Once class actually started, we practiced some activities to encourage crawling, pulling up, and standing. Ben isn't the least bit interested in standing when he could rather be on the floor mouthing his toys. He does, however give a valiant effort at crawling so we are expecting him to take off pretty soon!

Our closing activity is always a chance to play with bubbles on top of a parachute and seriously this ten-minute segment is like a drug for the babies - they all are absolutely mesmerized by the bubbles and stare at them glassy-eyed as they drift around. It's really cute! We were laughing today because all four babies who were there have thick heads of hair so seeing bubbles stuck to their locks made a good photo op! Here's Benjamin covered in bubbles and then there's Ben the Man with the three little girls - Emily, Caroline and Julia.