Boot Camp

So a friend of mine is teaching a monthlong “boot camp” exercise class this month right down the street from my work. It’s her first time to do it, and she recruited people to join on facebook. So I thought, “Why not?” It’s close-by, I know the teacher so she can’t kill me, and I’ve been looking for that perfect jump-start to my weight loss (I’ve been using the “baby weight” excuse for far too long, as you know). A real no-brainer, right?

My friend, a former coworker, is someone who I would consider a “true” athlete. She doesn’t just hit the gym three days a week or walk in the neighborhood with the girls every now and then, she really gets down and dirty: triathlons, marathons, long-distance bike rides, you name it. She’s that adorable lady every woman wants to be: She eats perfectly, drinks her water, has zero body fat, is bubbly and always smiling, and actually loves working out. She is the woman all women want to be but very few have the drive to become. Give up sodas and cheese and bread and red meat and wine and actually have to eat our broccoli and squash? No way! For the past two years, I have been the “No Way!” woman: unwilling to give up the things I loved and seemed to depend upon to get through they day. Despite that, I figured I was ready to go. Who needs to build up to it? I was ready! So I signed up.

Did I know what I was getting into? I thought so. Did I realistically think I could do it? Why not, I’m an athlete (or used to be). Would I stick to it this time and not bug out? Of course. Am I ready to give up many of the things I love so that I can become that “perfect woman” who eats right, loves exercise, and is the picture of health? Yes? OK, yes.

My first class was this past Monday, and a group of us met on a tennis court in a local park. I scanned the group and immediately realized that I was not the only one who needed to get into shape. (Initially, I was worried everyone in the class would be world-class athletes just trying to fit in some extra workouts during training for whatever major race they had coming up.) We all have our own issues, and we’re all there to get healthy no matter what our shape. So I felt pretty good about it.

First, we began to warm up. To me, warming up means sitting on the ground stretching, maybe taking a short walk around the park chatting with the group and getting to know one another. In this class, warming up was more like the calisthenics you see in football training. Ten, then 20, then 30, then 40, then 50 jumping jacks was our warm-up. Then on to the workout: bicep lifting (two eight-pounders, not the normal 2.5- to five-pounders) followed by football feet as fast as you can followed by triceps lifting (again, eight-pounders) followed by left-right lunge plies followed by up-down, up-down, right knee, left knee, followed by . . . well, you get the drift. It was nonstop! (Only one person threw up.) The premise of this training (what my friend kept reminding us as she also reminded us how much we were “loving it!”) is that you can do anything for two minutes. Yeah, but two minutes followed by two minutes followed by two minutes followed by two minutes and on and on and on for more than an hour! Needless to say, I survived the first class.

The next day, I wasn’t too sore when I got up, and I was pumped! But as the day wore on, the pain crept up on me, and in places I didn’t realize I even had muscles! Walking stairs was next to impossible. Getting up and down out of my office chair required a grunt and then a sigh. Lifting my one-liter water bottle in an attempt to get in the half-body-weight amount of water required before class drew a sharp pain in my shoulder. But I made it through the day and headed to Class No. 2 pretty positive.

Ahhhh, Class No. 2. What can I say about Class No. 2? I have never, and I mean never, worked that hard in my entire life! Growing up I danced and played softball, and I played ball in leagues during college and later in life, as well. I once trained for a marathon but got pneumonia and wasn't able to do it. And, for the most part, I have always been an active person. So I really thought I might have a leg up in this “boot camp.” Oh how deluded one can be. Did I mention that this was only Class No. 2? We sprinted and did frog leaps and lunged and ran backward and ran with a bungee cord around our waists with a partner providing resistance and did push-ups and diamond push-ups and triceps dips and Pilate’s abs and rope-pulling abs and, well, some other “challenges.” I have never been so tired and sore in my life!

So, did I really know what I was getting into? Absolutely not. Am I glad I made this decision? Absolutely (I think). I just hope at 6 o’clock I’m able to get up from my desk (period, just get up from my desk), change my clothes without my coworkers hearing me scream in pain, walk down to my car without my legs collapsing, steer my car a mile down the road without my biceps twitching in pain, and get out of the car without bursting into tears at the thought of what lies ahead in Class No. 3.

It’s going to be a long month.

Potty of Gold

This past holiday weekend, I decided that Kensie and I were gonna hunker down and get this potty-training thing licked. I had an extra day off of work, and as advanced as she seems in so many other areas of her preschooler-dom, I was sure three days was plenty of time for Kensie to be up and running (or, should I say, down and peeing). Who needs outdoor barbecues with friends and football or fabulous days frolicking at the beach when you’ve got a naked toddler running through the house with a potty full of urine shouting, “Mommy, I tinkled! MOMMY, LOOK AT MY TINKLE!”

Kensie had shown interest in potty-training last December when visiting my brother’s family in Denver (my niece enjoyed showing K her “old” potty and how she now used the “big” potty as a grown-up three-year-old). So about six months or so ago, when the interest resurfaced, I bought two potties—one for upstairs, and one for downstairs (secretly thinking my kid was a genius not yet being two and already wanting to use the big-girl potty). And for the past three or four months, K’s been using them when it’s convenient and fun for her. When I introduced pull-ups a couple of months ago in preparation for potty training, she was at first excited but soon enough just treated them as diapers with a little bit of pink splashed on them for good measure. Pull-ups proved no help in our house.

So this past Friday, I prepared myself for a tough weekend of gentle coaxing, massive amounts of juice and popsicles, puddles of pee on the carpet and hardwoods, frustration, excitement, and finally, the brass ring—my sweet girl wearing cute little panties, running to the potty at her convenience, and, most importantly, NO MORE DIAPERS! All the money I would be saving; all the guilt about contributing to the degradation of our environment of which I would be letting go. Diaper rashes, poopy bottoms, dried-out wipes all over the house, saggy britches—all GONE! It sure sounded great at the time.

Friday evening went well enough. We hadn’t gotten the big-girl panties yet (the trip to Target was planned for early Saturday morning), so I just let Kensie run around naked for a few hours. She loved it! She went and used the potty when she needed to (and when I urged her to if it had been awhile), and not one accident. Saturday morning, I got Kensie all pumped up about the panties, she got to pick them out herself, she got a bunch of new PJs, to boot—she was a happy camper with a lot of new stuff (and you know how kids love new stuff). When we got home, K pulled all the panties out of their wrappers and paraded around with them (she preferred to show them off instead of actually putting them on, which might have been a sign) as if they were $100 bills she’d found lying in the street (and she actually knew how much they were worth). I finally got her to pick a pair, we put them on her, and not an hour later, I heard Kensie in the other room burst into tears. She came running into the kitchen, urine running down her legs, screaming, “Mommy, I tinkled on the flo-ah! MOMMY, I TINKLED ON THE FLO-AH!!” After much discussion: “Baby, accidents happen.” “But I peed on the flo-ah, Mommy!” “Honey, it happens to all little kids during potty training. See how Mommy cleaned it up? It’s OK if you have an accident.” “BUT MOMMY, I PEED ON THE FLO-AH!!!” Needless to say, I decided that pushing Kensie at this point was not the best idea.

One thing I’ve learned from both my niece (who’s extremely intelligent and quite tall, but who always seems at least two years older than she is) and Kensie (who is also quite advanced and tall for her age) is that I have to remember how old they really are, not how old they seem to be. Kensie just turned two in July. TWO!! Why in the world would I put that kind of pressure on a baby (yes, she is still a baby)? After much consideration (and a framed “words of wisdom” my mother pulled out of some random box in her office waxing poetic about not pressuring people into doing things that are uncomfortable for them), I decided now just wasn’t the right time to potty-train. Though my girl is pretty advanced in many areas of life (all two of her years), she is just not ready to get rid of the diaper. So I’ll keep changing, and wiping, and putting on diaper cream, and tossing dirty diapers, and waiting until the day my baby lets me know when the time is right for her. And when that day comes, I’ll mourn the loss of my adorable baby . . . then I’ll head out and buy that new Jeep I’ve been wanting or maybe even pay off my student loans with all the extra cash I’ll suddenly have at my disposal!

The State of Our States

Right now, there is an uproar in U.S. school systems about Barack
Obama’s (our president) plan to speak to children about education on
Tuesday. Apparently, instead of urging children to work hard and stay
in school, and explaining to them how important getting an education
is, some people believe he will use this opportunity to promote his
political agenda or, get this, to “brainwash” our children. Back up,
what?

"As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education—it gives the
appearance of creating a cult of personality," said Oklahoma
Republican state Sen. Steve Russell. "This is something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq." Cult of
Personality? Iraq? Are we talking 2009 United States or early-1900s
Russia? And this is only one quote I pulled out of the numerous news
stories generated from this “situation.”

Conservative media has been comparing Obama to Hitler. Hitler? Really? Come on!

Never mind that Bush, Sr., did the same thing in the early 90s and
Reagan during his tenure. Never mind that Obama stands for feeding the hungry, helping the sick, and promoting the general welfare of all
residents of this country. Never mind that he was elected by the
majority of United States citizens to lead this country during such a
dire time. Never mind that we live in a country of free speech where
our children are provided the education and have the right to make
educated decisions for themselves, whether shown this speech or not (though, if not shown, they are less educated and sheltered by parents who simply don’t like Obama in my opinion).

Many school systems across the country have already decided not to show this speech in their classrooms, and others are debating the
subject now. The decision those schools have made truly disappoints
me. I remember a time not so long ago when people respected their
elected leaders, Democrat or Republican. I remember a time when
schools let us watch things like, say, the space shuttle taking off
despite the possibility that it might, I don’t know, blow up right
before our young eyes. I remember a time when parents just let their
kids go to school and trusted teachers to make the right decisions. I
remember a country where politics was politics, and at the end of the
day, politicians could part as friends with a common goal—the
betterment of our country. What has happened to our country?

Yes, parents have the right to expose their children to what they feel
is appropriate and shelter them from what they feel is not. I’m a
parent, and I know how important that right is. But not allowing a
child to view the president of his country talk about the importance
of education and encourage him to stay in school just because you
didn’t vote for him and have different political views is going way
too far. That is what I think is going on in this situation, and,
frankly, it’s childish. Grow up America!

This is just my opinion.