7-Quick Takes

Join Jen and the other Quicktakers over at the Conversion Diary

1. My daughter is beautiful. I know I am her mother, but she is really an essentially gorgeous creature with her thin frame, long legs, clear skin, bright eyes and long flowing hair. She inspires me to step up my own game, mainly because I want her to be proud of me and I want to be a good example to her.

What kills me right now is that she doesn’t understand how really exquisite she is. AND because her hair is so thick – (honest to God she has enough hair for four people) she doesn’t do a good job of brushing it out and making sure it is always tangle free. She is very happy to smooth down the front and top and then put it into some kind of furry ball on the back of her head. So we argue about that.

She would like to give some or her hair to Locks of Love.  I hope we can both last that long!  In the meantime, I try to keep it braided.  I love to braid her hair.

2. Noah has been running with a local high school running club. He missed the first week of Christmas break because he was sick. The second run of the second weak left him with a sore knee. I took him to the sports doctor and they told him that part of his problem was that he had weak glutes! That’s right – a weak butt was causing his sore knee! And when you think about it, running doesn’t really target the glutes for strength. So we got him some good support shoes to help align his feet better, and then I got him scheduled for some physical therapy to help strengthen his glutes and core. And while we are waiting for our first PT appointment, I had him try this oldie but a goodie!

3.  The day after the doctor’s visit I had him do the toning part of the Bunns of Steel video, and then Curl  by Kari Anderson.

Admittedly, both of those work outs are pretty intense, but this is a kid who can run 6 to 8 miles in a session, so he’s used to high intensity. I thought he could handle it.

I was wrong.

An hour after finishing he started complaining of being sore all over, which is understandable, but then he said he had a severe headache and chills.  Eventually had to go to bed and he ended up sleeping most of the day.  By the evening he was starting to feel better but had diarrhea. I thought he might be getting the flu, but by the next day he was feeling better and they day after that he was fine.

In retrospect, I think those workouts really took a lot out of him, especially the ab workout, and I think his body just rebelled!  So I guess the lesson to me is that even though Noah is an athlete, he’s still a kid and he needs to go a bit slower when trying new exercises!  The good part is that he wanted to do the ab work out again today so I let him, but I told him when he got tired to take a break and not feel that he has to finish every single minute of the 20 minute workout!

4.  My niece has a talk up on YouTube. She’s a good speaker and very comfortable in front of an audience.  Yet I profoundly disagreed with much of her message, which is that young people won’t listen to older people.

Maybe it’s my generation (I’m 18 years older than she is) but when I was her age, I was seeking out older women for their wisdom and knowledge – especially from my mother.

I can remember when I gave birth in the hospital for the first time, none of the younger nurses there had a clue about how to help with breastfeeding.  I ended up finding a nurses aid who was in her 70s and had nursed her own 8 kids.  She was very helpful throughout my hospital stay and I was very grateful.  I can’t imagine discounting the advice of my elders simply because they were older.

I’ll tell ya something else too – now that I am the older generation and my parents and mentors are dead or sick, I miss that font of wisdom more and more!

5.  Sometimes Mr. Pete just astounds me.  We had a piece of linoleum in the bathroom that ripped and so I told him we should replace it.  He went out to look for linoleum and the next thing I knew, he had the toilet, sink and the floor all torn out of the bathroom!

I guess next time I need to be more specific!

6.  I think my closest friends, the friends I had in high school and young adulthood who knew me when I was a liberal – have quit looking at my Facebook page! I have come to that conclusion because they never comment or click on “Like” for anything on my page including cute pictures of the kids, or funny sayings or things from Pinterest.  

E V E R!

During the election I shielded those folks from the very political things I posted and only allowed them to look at the lighter fare.  But still nothing. It’s as if  I’m not in their newsfeeds at all.  I find that very puzzling and a little hurtful, but I’m not sure I want to come out and ask, “Hey, how come you never comment on my Facebook page?”

Speaking of Facebook, one of my more prominent friends (i.e. someone I had 46 other friends in common with, but have never met in real life) corrected my grammar on my wall.  I wrote that this would be a nice project for “Izzy and I” to do together instead of “Izzy and me.”  Yea, I was wrong, but it just felt a little embarrassing to have it pointed out so publicly  ya know?  I’m pretty sure that should be a breech of Facebook etiquette or something.

The point of that post was this project.  Isn’t it lovely?

7.  Jennifer Fulwiler is still coping with her medical condition and her pregnancy – and as a result she is doing some great blogging about life, Catholicism and wisdom.  Prayers are still needed of course, but I think she is really blessing all of us!