Category Archives: Parenting

Use it or lose it!

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Tuesday gray rainy day.
A gray rainy, stormy Tuesday.

I tried my first exercise class in years at the YMCA Monday. It was an hour-long class called “Barre Above.”

From the “Barre Above” website it says:

What is “barre”?

While many interpret barre workouts differently, most barre workouts are a fusion of yoga, Pilates, strength training, and ballet. Barre classes incorporate specific sequencing patterns and isometric movements that target specific muscle groups. This pattern of exercise helps to improve strength, balance, flexibility and posture.

https://www.barreabove.com/

I loved it. I caught myself smiling in the mirror even though getting through the class was a struggle. I took ballet as an adult from my 20s into my 50s. I stopped because the dance studio closed and the instructor moved. I didn’t find another studio that fit my schedule.

I love ballet. I began as a child and would never have stopped but my mom quit taking me. My ballet studio was close to an hour away from our small town. As I grew older, class went from once a week to two, then three and four. My mom stopped when I got my first pointe shoes and needed to be at rehearsal daily for a recital. One of my ballet slippers fell out of my ballet bag — and my mom grew impatient as I searched for it.

“You’re obviously not interested anymore,” Mom said. And that was that.

I don’t think parents in the 1970s were as obsessed with getting their kids to activities like many of us were in the 2000s and 2010s.

When I was a freshman at the University of Washington, I signed up for ballet my first quarter and fell in love with ballet again.

Back to Monday. I loved the class. I didn’t think I’d survive, but I made the entire hour. Then Tuesday morning hit. Yikes!

My husband gave me a hug as I struggled to get my legs underneath me. My shoulders were stuck around my ears. He heated up the lavendar-weighted shoulder wrap and I eventually got out of bed.

Tuesday, I had reserved a lane at the Y. Rain and thunder and lightening raged all night and morning. Then right before my lane time, the sun broke out. I checked my iphone and I had one hour until rain and thunder was supposed to return.

The sun hovered over the pool, while dark clouds circled like sharks. I had a “shake out” relaxing swim where my sore muscle pain eased. I got out early before the storm hit feeling quite proud of myself.

Since joining the YMCA, I learned that I am terribly out of shape. It’s time for me to use it or lose it!

The rain arrived after my sunny swim at the YMCA.

What sports or activities did you enjoy as a child that you continued into adulthood? Which ones did you stop? Did you take your kids to athletics or other activities while they were growing up? What was their favorite activity?

A New Low? Who Yells at Kids?

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man love people woman
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

I read an article yesterday about Girl Scout being harassed for selling cookies.

Seriously?

I wrote about being yelled at sitting at a booth registering voters HERE. If I was shaken up after being yelled at as an adult, can you imagine how a five or seven-year-old would feel?

The article was called “Girl Scout cookie sellers as young as 5 are being harassed for selling unhealthy food and a conspiracy theory about cookie money funding abortion” by Lela Moore on a website called Insider.

It turns out that young girls are being yelled at for selling cookies because “they make you fat” and they use “palm oil” that means forests are being destroyed. Then there are those who have linked Girl Scouts to Planned Parenthood because one local council had their Girl Scout logo on a Planned Parenthood brochure one time a decade ago.

Here’s an excerpt:

Girl Scout cookie season is upon us, and young saleswomen in uniform are everywhere: holding court in office boardrooms for an afternoon, manning booths outside the local grocery store, or posting cheery video messages on social media, offering door-to-door shipping. You may even have a Girl Scout under your own roof, filling your garage with cases of the chocolatey, caramelly, peanut-buttery goods. 

But Girl Scouts, and the women who lead their troops and volunteer with them during cookie season, say that the organization’s tradition of face-to-face sales is increasingly accompanied by customer harassment.

“I feel like in the last 10 years, and maybe especially since the pandemic, that people are getting even more aggressive with girls and the volunteers,” Oona Hanson, a Scouting parent in Los Angeles, said. 

https://www.insider.com/girl-scout-cookies-harassment-planned-parenthood-abortion-unhealthy-palm-oil-2022-2

Another thing the teen Girl Scouts have to endure is sexual harassment.

When I was in kindergarten, I joined Bluebirds, which was the youngest group of Camp Fire Girls. When it came time to sell the Camp Fire Mints — which were delicious by the way — my mom bought them all. She refused to let me go door to door selling mints. This was in the 1960’s. I was disappointed because it seemed fun to me. I’m sure Mom had her reasons, and she was very strict and overprotective.

What are your thoughts about Girl Scout Cookies? Has our society gone off the deep end with people yelling at the girls selling cookies outside grocery stores?

Day one of mom and grand-dog duties

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Waffles at the ER vet
Waffles the pug not feeling so good.

I made it to the Bay Area to help my daughter who has COVID. I’ve been wondering how much help I can be, since I can’t be with her? If I can’t do much, I’m looking forward to quiet time alone writing.

So far, it turns out — more time than I thought.

I didn’t arrive until evening to my airbnb which is .2 miles from her apartment. The problem is she’s on quarantine and can’t leave her apartment. I’m not sure what the protocol is these days, but I can guarantee she hasn’t hit it yet.

She texted me a list of groceries. I asked if I could go to the Berkeley Bowl to get the items on her list. It’s one of my favorite places to go to when I visit the kids. This running errands will be a treat if it includes the Berkeley Bowl! I blogged about it HERE.

I picked up clam chowder and a salad for my own dinner and a few groceries for my airbnb mini-fridge along with her list. When I dropped off her groceries at her doorstep, we waved at each other through her window.

I walked back to the airbnb and sat to savor the Berkeley Bowl clam chowder. It’s so delicious. I called my son and we were talking about plans for tomorrow’s dinner. He may be recovering from foot surgery, but he doesn’t have COVID. We can be together in person.

That’s when I got a call from daughter asking me to take Waffles the pug to the ER. He’s been having issues with his tummy. I wrote about it HERE a few days ago. Waffles has been throwing up and hasn’t recovered from chicken bones. The animal ER won’t let my daughter with COVID inside.

I sat for more than two hours with Waffles in the waiting room. My daughter texted me the recent details since I was traveling from Arizona and not totally up to date. We — the vet, the vet’s assistant and my daughter on the phone — decided not to hospitalize Waffles last night, but to bring him back in the morning if he doesn’t improve.

I’m wondering what tomorrow’s role as mom and dog grandma will bring? What’s driving me crazy is to be so close to my daughter, but not being able to give her a hug.

Have you traveled to help your kids away from home? How have you helped? How have you helped family members with COVID?

My First Book Club

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The Arctic Fury

Our neighborhood is opening up and getting back to normal. I was invited to join the book club by a neighbor.

Most of the women have been members for the length or our neighborhoods existence, which is 15 years. A couple of us are new and moved in during the shutdown.

The book I’m supposed to read is called “The Arctic Fury” by Greer MacAllister.

The copy on the back of the book says:

“Eccentric Lady Jane Franklin makes an outlandish offer to adventurer Virginia Reeve: take a dozen women, trek into the Arctic, and find her husband, Lord Franklin, and his lost expedition. Four parties have failed to find him, and Lady Franklin wants a radical new approach: put the women in charge.”

The book is based on a true story of Lady Jane Franklin’s tireless attempts to find her husband’s lost expedition.

Now here’s the problem. I have never been to book club before. I don’t know what to expect. I’m not getting into the book. I’m going to push through, but it’s not my cup of tea.

At least I know how to spell the word “Arctic.” Maybe it’s the title I don’t like, because when my son was in second grade he had to name the continents on a map. He didn’t get 100%. I talked to the teacher and wanted to know why she marked him wrong for “Artic.” Yes, I had him practice spelling the word wrong — and I argued with the teacher.

What do you do at book club exactly anyway?

Are you the member of a book club? How is it set up? Who selects the books? What do you do when you don’t like them?

Boomers: Don’t call your child’s boss!

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Brother and sister
My kids who are now in the workforce. No, I don’t call their offices.

I was looking back to March 2020 on my blog, right when we were getting worried about COVID. I found this blog post I wrote back then and thought it was a strange enough topic to post again:

This is an actual memo that went out to a company this week. I am not making this up. My daughter sent this to me and said “You boomers are wildin’!” She was shown this by one of her coworkers who said it was sent to one of his family members at work.

It has come to my attention that we have had over 10 calls from parents about various subjects as it relates to their kids.

You are adults now and your job is YOUR responsibility. If you have a concern or need more information about the Coronavirus, 401k, Benefits or anything else that relates to work you need to communicate with your manager. If you can’t or don’t feel comfortable talking to your manager then please talk with HR.

I DO NOT want to hear again that someone’s parent called in HR or anyone else at our company for that matter to ask a question. You need to step up and be the responsible one as this is your job and you are an adult.

If your parent calls in that will be your final day.

Isn’t that something? Who are these parents? I would never, ever call my children’s HR or workplace. Of course we all want to know how our children’s companies are handling the coronavirus but I rely on my kids to let me know. For example, my son’s company has everyone working remotely.

IMG_0279

What are your thoughts about a company having to issue a memo like this? Have you or do you know anyone that would call the company their child works for?

If You Can’t Say Anything Nice…

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USA Swimming Select Camp
My daughter at a Select Camp in Florida with USA Swimming. Yoga on the beach. 24 were selected from the US to attend via certain criteria. She’s on the left with long red hair looking down.

When my daughter was in high school she was bullied by a few girls on her swim team. It seemed to me the better she got, the worse these girls treated her.

Once, one of her friends overhead her teammates cursing and talking about my daughter in class. You can read more about that and earthquakes in “When Kids Talk Trash About Your Daughter and You’re in an Earthquake Kind of Mood.”

Should the close friend, who overheard this garbage, have shared it with my daughter? Maybe it would have been better for my daughter to not hear it.

Or, is it better for her to know the truth? Even if it hurts?

Were her friends being kind by telling her? Or were they just as mean as the one that originally said it?

Should the friend have kept her mouth shut?

And about those people who talk trash about others… If you’re tweeting, posting or saying something mean and unkind, it’s bullying. Knock it off. Find something useful to do. Remember the old adage, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

What are your thoughts?

(FYI, I found this in my drafts folder from years ago. I still don’t have the answers to my questions.)

 

 

Another week, another surgery

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Rainbow in Santa Barbara during Christmas week.
A rainbow over the Christmas week VRBO.

This week I’m back taking care of my son in the Bay Area. He had surgery a few days ago. He heard the garbage truck coming, realized he forgot to take out the bins and raced down the stairs, breaking his foot. The last time I was here taking care of him, he had shoulder surgery from overuse injuries caused by swimming and rowing. That was several months ago, but not long enough for him to be healed and to be able to use crutches.

At Christmas week in Santa Barbara in the VRBO, he stayed on the main floor with us (mom and dad) and scooted around the kitchen and living room on his knee scooter. The main floor had the master bedroom and a small second bedroom. The rest of the “kids” — ages 21 to 34 — were on the lower level and out by the pool. I can only imagine how frustrating it was for him to be stuck with mom and dad.

He made the best of it and hopped down the spiral staircase a couple of times so he could sit with everyone by the pool.

I’m not sure what this week will bring. I’m sitting in his living room while he sleeps on the sofa with a cast on his foot. He has to return to remote work so I may be sitting quietly by getting ice for the ice machine and filling his water glass.

I brought a book I thought I’d read while I hang out in his house this week. But I finished more than half of it during during the plane ride. (Chanel Cleeton’s “When We Left Cuba.”) The good news is he and his girlfriend were Literature majors and they have a nice supply of books. I don’t need to get worried about finding another book to read.

shelves full of books and a knee scooter
Books and the knee scooter in my son’s living room.

What are you reading now? Have you taken care of your adult kids after surgery? We went out to dinner with friends the night before I left and they said they’d never do it. That their kids are on their own. What are your thoughts about that?