Brutal
I need someone to come and carry me up the stairs. My poor muscles feel like they are made of jelly, thanks to a brutal BodyPump class. It’s always bad when I miss a week and it’s always bad when they have a new release, so guess what happened? I missed a week due to my beach vacation and when I came back it was time for the new release, so it was a double whammy.
BodyPump is a group weight lifting class set to music and based on endurance. Every twelve weeks they have completely new choreography that the instructors must use for a few weeks. After awhile the instructors can use any choreography that they choose from the current or past release. The new release is always tough b/c you don’t have the muscle memory to go with the songs, so it feels like you are working harder.
The chest track is usually just straight up chest presses, sometimes with some push-ups thrown in for giggles. I started doing the program during release 54 I think and it’s now at release 89, and I’m always surprised that they can come up with new things when it feels like it is just the same thing over and over. This release has a few new things, one of which was the fly for the chest.
Holy crap!
The presses? They burn out my shoulders, but I’ve never felt anything in my chest. I didn’t really believe I had muscles under my boobs.
Today? Today I thought I was having a heart attack! I had a deep burn under my left boob and was wondering if I should call 911. I finally figured out it was my chest muscle. Learn something new every day! I have a muscle under there!
In other news, Erik is off at a sleep over. I am so thankful that he has grown into a good kid. He was such a pill as a toddler and preschooler that I never thought we’d get to the point where he is polite, kind, thoughtful and just all around pretty terrific even if he does drive me crazy on occasion.
It is so much easier parenting Elsa because I look at Erik and see that all this typical three year old business will go away someday. Right now she is in the “saying awful things” stage where she regularly tells us she hates us, she doesn’t like us, we aren’t her best friend, etc.
When Erik went through this stage it made me crazy and really bothered me. I thought I was a horrible mother, that my son would tell me he hated me. I thought he was some kind of psychopath that he would say such horrible things. I stressed and worried and spent all my time trying to control the uncontrollable. No one can control the things that come out of a 3 year olds mouth*.
Now I just shrug it off, make sure to tell her it isn’t nice and hurts our feelings and don’t let the words of a three year old send me off the rails. I have proof positive that she will not be like this forever. I am not raising crazed hyenas. Three year olds become seven year olds and one day we’ll have a reasonable conversation.
Speaking of conversations, here’s Erik’s latest. “So, mom, how did the first two people ever figure out how to make a baby? Why would they ever think to try that, thing? That’s just so gross. How did they know it would make a baby if they did it?”
I tried to tell him that they saw animals doing it and thought they should try it, but he didn’t think that was a very good answer. Then I told him I didn’t really know, so maybe he should ask his dad.
*Obviously you can and should try to keep them from cursing, but there are only so many battles I am willing to fight.