Beat camp

I joined a stupid boot camp class and had my first stupid work out sesh last night. It was so hard and I even crammed for it! I knew it was going to be difficult, so in preparation, I started a little bit of weight training a couple of weeks before, which I now see as a mere pittance. I thought it might help me ease into the weights or whatever was in store for me at boot camp. I mean, I had a rough idea of what I'd get. I have seen a couple of boot camps in my life, but never participated. You know, the random boot camps you see at parks or whatever. There are people doing their crunches or jumping jacks and I have seen these sweating, breathless people and thought to myself, "Psssht. I have done a lot of bike riding and 30 Day Shreds. I could totally jump into this boot camp and own it." I was so very, very wrong.

The work out started mild enough with two minutes of squats. At this point, I'm thinking, I will be the star student. My quads bulked up pretty nice when I was bike riding and I still have some strong muscles there. Squats are my best party trick. I did them. I was great! Yes, and not so humble about it. No, don't worry. I was humbled so hard by this class in the end. Suddenly, after my squats victory I was then pummeled by push ups, knocked out by kettle bells and fatigued by a very cruel and torturous thing they called the finisher. The finisher was several short bursts of really terrible things that I only see my Crossfit-obsessed friends post about on Facebook. I won't bore you with those details because we all have a Crossfit friend in our news feed and you don't want to hear any more about burpies and power jacks more than I do right now.

I finished it (poorly) and immediately felt like I was going to throw up. I have never felt like this after exercising and I thought I have done some fitness in my days. Having been so exhausted from those push ups (I was the last one done by over two minutes), my arms turned to jelly and I could not lift them. I stood staring at my water bottle trying to remember what it was like 45 minutes ago when I could lift the bottle to my lips without it feeling like it weighed 25 lbs. After I got home, I began peeling my work out clothes off but got stuck trying to wiggle out of my shirts. I completely lacked the strength to take them off at all. I was nearly in tears trying to not only figure out a way to get out of my clothes properly, but how I would even be able to wash my hair. To make a pretty boring story short, I got out of my clothes and my hair got washed.

Today I'm in the office sitting at my desk, carefully weighing and selecting my actions. I dropped a pen, but if I reach to get it, I will collapse in a sore pile of bones. I want to put my hair in a bun, but if I reach for my head I will cry in agony. Nah. Not worth it. I'll just sit here and try not to feel too bad for myself.


I'm totally going back there tonight.

I don't like to cut people...

Last night Ira asked to help me pack his lunch.

Ira: "Can I cut this cucumber?"

Me: "Sure, but wait for me and let's be really careful." [I do let him cut veggies or fruit from time to time, under strict supervision of course.]

Ira: "Don't worry mom, I'm careful. And I don't like to cut people."

Me: Leaning in close to him at eye-level I say lowly: "I don't like to cut people either, BUT I WILL IF I HAVE TO."

Ira: Takes a beat or two to understand what I said and smiled at me slyly.


Speaking of cutting, I was surprised to find that this kid very quietly cut all four permanent molars as we found out at his last dental appointment. What a tough guy. My baby is practically all grown up.

And more about tough guys - here's a picture of me and my cousin, who is now an MMA fighter. I'm really excited about his upcoming fight at Thunder Valley! As you can see I taught him everything he knows about choke holds.

Slice of life

Small happenings from my phone.

From the trenches

I'm guilty of waxing over my parenting challenges here and on my various social media accounts. This isn't because I want you all (hi, you five or eight readers!) to think I've got it all figured out and mothering my rascally boy is all laughs and sunshine. It's because I really don't want to bum you out with every negative thing that goes down in life. That there is the preamble.

This is the official statement: This stuff is hard, dude! My kid is a firecracker, but that's why I love him. He's energetic, funny, wildly creative and honestly, he's never given us a dull moment. All of that comes with a little bit of stubbornness, willfulness and a strong sense of self (he's never going to have an identity crisis). We sometimes butt heads over things and neither of us likes to give in (even though I am always right...come on, he's only six - give me this for a few more years). Yesterday we had a dust up over something trivial that escalated quickly (it was stupid and I'm waxing over it anyway). At any rate, Ira was angry, I was angry. We both went to sleep apologetic, but still knowing we disappointed one another. Don't worry, there's a happy ending. This morning it was all but forgotten and by the time he was off to school, I got about 20 silly kisses.

While I say it's all better now, I always have a hard time shaking that feeling that I've failed to control my child's behavior. It could take a few days where I'm not thinking back on this and post-gaming it from start to finish. That's a nice way of saying that I remain so anxious about my parenting problems that it takes me days of replaying them in my head until I work through that anxiety or find something else to worry about. The act of working myself into a froth over non-issues is one of my specialties and not only is it great at making me feel totally isolated ("I'm the only parent in history with a child that sometimes misbehaves and I don't always handle it correctly!") it's completely exhausting. Plus, it's not even a good party trick. I need to figure out a better way to do this.


It's a good thing this kid's got such an adorable face.