Cinderella, Dressed in Yellow....

We’ve all made our quarantine purchases, right? Toilet paper,  craft supplies, bleach, Clorox wipes (yeah right, I wish).  At the Healy House, we bought jump ropes....two extra long jump ropes.  I so often feel like in today’s society kids are on the go for 110% of their waking hours.  With soccer practice, ballet, martial arts, baseball, scouts, youth group, and more, calendars fill up so quickly.  This quarantine has been a blessing in that way.  Every morning. Every afternoon.  Every evening.  We are free.  We’ve finally been forced to slow down enough to enjoy some simple fun. 

With so many girls in the house, I can’t believe we haven’t “jumped” on this bandwagon before.  A month ago, I had one pretty decent jumper, one capable but not confident jumper, and two who ended up completely frustrated every time they tried.  Truth be told, jump ropes in our house were more often used as lassos and horse reins or in a bucket and rope pulley system.  I decided this would be a perfect adventure for this slow and easy time summer.  And it seemed it would be easier to learn the rhythm of jumping if they didn’t have the pressure of also figuring out how to twirl the rope at the same time.  That’s a lot to think about when you’re 5.  Or 43. 

I found this great rope online and decided if one is good, two must be better.  In my mind were visions of a family of Double Dutch jumpers.  Added bonus (as pointed out by Grandma): when going back to school, Double Dutch jumping is kind of naturally socially distanced.  

So we started on cool mornings, learning to twirl.

We learned the rhythm of jumping.

Cinderella,

Dressed in yellow,

Went upstairs

To kiss her fellow...

I was amazed that they got pretty good pretty fast.

It wasn’t very long before we started in on the Double Dutch.

We watched a few videos, spent some days practicing, and tried again, and again (and again) to get it right.  Twirling Double Dutch is tricky.  Jumping Double Dutch is tough.  Entering and exiting the twirling double ropes gives us the most grief. It is definitely something that will take time to master.  Luckily, our summer calendar is pretty wide open.

I love that we’ve been able to figure this out and enjoy it together. We’ve had a lot of surprises...HF turned out to be one of our best twirlers. Dad can (and will!) jump rope too.  We even got D out there, and thanks to 5 years of Tae Kwon Do, he has a sky high jump...knees to his chest.  Even our super fun and eternally young aunt had a go and jumped in like she’d been doing it on the play ground last week.

So, yeah, lots of successes in that $16 purchase. We’re keeping active.  We’re spending time together.  We’re learning and we’re overcoming.  Plus, these ropes make extra long rope & bucket pulleys. 😉