Watching Billie at gymnastics is probably one of my most favorite things. The other kids sit quietly and watch the coach execute a trick and Billie is 15 feet behind them doing the trick in the background- adding an extra cartwheel or hand flourish for additional flair. 
While everyone stands in line for their turn at the bar, Billie is a flurry of motion- hands raised over her head, palms pressed toward the ceiling before slapping them to her thighs dramatically and throwing her head back. 
She’s never not moving, not thinking about the movement. I watch her get lost in the spins and the flips and, while her body contorts and slams into the floor, her eyes are still. Calm. Quiet. It is this chaos where she goes to find peace. It’s her Church, her sanctuary.
And she’s hard to teach because of this. How do you teach a child a movement when they can’t stop moving? How do you prep them for a fall they’re already smacking into the ground? How can you teach them a routine when they’ve already made up four routines of their own in the time it took you to explain the first eight count? It’s teaching a tornado to tap dance. 
And the teachers who get her? Who somehow penetrate the wall of wind and limbs and crazy and find the little human inside long enough to teach her how to tuck her chin to her chest or point her toes in that cartwheel? They warm me in the most complete way.  They show me that, yes, my child can be tough. She can crazy and unruly and intense. But she can be all those things and still learn. She can be all those things and still thrive. She can be all those things and still be loved more than she can handle at times. She can be all those things. She is my tap dancing tornado.