Growing

I think it would surprise anyone who has seen the (very low) frequency of my posting here to know that I have been keeping a daily paper workout log for over a decade now. Maybe more like two decades. I am missing one important year in which a newfangled online training log was all I kept, and once I quit, it was erased. So how did I manage that best performance in Kona? I'll never remember, although it was truly short of outstanding anyway. I have skipped a few weeks here and there, for a week or so after Hunter and Josie were born before I returned to walking, or those 3 weeks of non-weight-bearing after hip surgery. I have gone from detailing the workout, how I felt, how many pounds of sweat I lost, the temperature, and who my company was, using two pages per week, to squeezing in two months on those same two pages, line by line.

These past two weeks I should just be skipping as well, although I can write "PT" in on certain days. After my ablated nerves decided to regrow so that they could finally get their pain signal back to my brain, like the doctor said was likely, I realized that I could go right back to the pain clinic or I could try to do something to restructure everything that's out of whack. This is a big job for my lucky physical therapist. He came so highly recommended that I drive half an hour each way before sunrise twice a week to have him tell me to stop picking up things like children, bending, sitting too long, riding my trainer and running, rolling my quads in a plank position, and most any chores around the house (sorry husband!). If I could just stop weight bearing, everything would heal a little faster. Problem is, I can't call in sick, nor can I stay off my feet. I'm winning to be on my feet without holding both kids at once.

Oh OK, I'll climb the tree with you.

If I'd had any plans to take my new age group by storm this year, now that I am officially a master's athlete, I could forget them now. Luckily I had no big aspirations to kill. I knew it was a long road back from all these structural defects, but I didn't plan on having to take up an entirely new sport, something a little more leisurely, quite yet. I can hear my mitochondria dying off. But at least my hunger has subsided. I cannot justify a daily half pint of Milk 'N' Cookies ice cream when I am instructed to sit on my rumpus all day. But then again, I do have milk to make for the baby... Justified!

While watching myself age, very up close when plucking gray hairs and using extra strength wrinkle cream, I also get to watch the little ones grow like weeds. (After looking at smooth young baby faces all day long, does anyone else kind of surprise themselves when they look in the mirror? No, just me?)

My big one is 5 today!  And he is turning into my little sidekick. Our latest adventures, besides sword fighting, climbing things, and getting dirty, include painting. Every once in a while I get on artsy kicks and whip out the old acrylics and canvases. Hunter has been showing me up and creating some quality abstracts. I'm too shy about mine to actually post them, so here is the real artist's work.

He named the first one Forest of the World.

He also cooks, decorates his own birthday cake, and builds incredibly complex lego jets much better than I do. My little dude is quite the imaginative, perceptive, determined boy. And still a favorite around here.