Lately, my back has been aching to the point where it really interfered with my life. By about dinner time each night, I didn’t want to do anything but lie down. I went to see a chiropractor and an orthopedic doctor. Both of them diagnosed me as spending too much time sitting down and not getting enough exercise. Apparently, it’s a very common problem among people my age (late thirties). I was handed a piece of paper off the orthopedic doctor’s shelf, which basically described about ten exercises I could do. I took a look at the exercises and figured they basically targeted the same muscles used in climbing. I’m not much good with exercise regiments or anything involving discipline, so last week, I decided it was just easier if I started visiting the climbing gym again.
I knew I was really out of shape so I tried to take it easy. It was quite difficult to judge what I could or couldn’t do. The good news is that I still remembered how to do it. My balance was more than a bit off, and my muscles were weak from two years of sloth, but I knew, generally, which hand went where, and what to do with my feet. I was getting quite comfortable with the moves when I came into this one part where I needed to swing my body in a slow controlled way to reach a far hold. Even though my mind remembered the move, it forgot that it accomplished it with a younger, fitter body two years ago. It was at this point that my body decided to send it a friendly reminder in the form of a cramp all up one side of my torso, which put an end to the climbing nonsense for that day.
Today, I went to the climbing gym again. I haven’t done anything special to keep fit or get better at climbing since the last visit. I haven’t been watching my diet. I haven’t done any stretching. I haven’t done any exercise apart from the casual bicycle ride with my wife and son. Surprisingly, everything felt much easier this week. I think my balance is slowly returning to me. As always, the fingers are the weak point, so I try not to work them too hard. I thought that since I’m starting almost from scratch, I’d do it right this time and build finger and upper body strength as slowly as possible, so that my feet have time to learn to balance properly. Strength comes eventually, but bad habits are hard to break.
The climbing session passed almost without any drama this time. My fingers were getting too tired so I decided to just climb the slab (a wall that leans away from you, which is easy on the hands, but you still need to use your feet and legs). My wife and son came into the gym about that time. I took a short break to give the boy some attention and show him around the place and then went back to finishing up on the slab. It was then that my boy made the decision that he was going to be a climber after all.
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The world must seem like such a warped place for a toddler. My boy has been trying to follow, with varying degrees of success, some 'rules' we first thought were pretty simple. If I put myself in his shoes, this is probably what he makes of the whole situation.
The Rule For Throwing Things
“I’m encouraged to throw and kick my ball around the house, but otherwise, I’m not supposed to throw things. Not all balls are for throwing, as well. That orange fruit thing is a no-no if my dad’s reaction is anything to go by. Oh wait, if I pick something off the floor and it’s something that fits in my mouth, I’m supposed to throw that away immediately too.”
The Rules For Hitting
“I’m not supposed to hit people and animals, although my dad encourages me to hit mosquitoes. I gather it’s a good fun thing to bang on toy drums, and if one is not available, a restaurant table is also good, except sometimes when there are other people at the table.”
The Rules for Drinking
“My daddy and mommy has been trying to get me to drink water from a cup, but they don’t like it one bit when I drink out of the toilet brush holder.”
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I did it. I finished up the Japan pages almost 3 years after the trip.
Check them out.
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My wife’s been wanting to eat this fish ball noodle in KL for some time now so this morning, we were on a mission to have that for breakfast. I got up at 7am to clear out the morning chores while the wife was still in bed. The noodle stall is about half an hour away from our house when there’s no traffic but we had to make it through rush hour traffic, which makes it about a two-hour round trip.
After cleaning up the kitchen (which I neglected to do last night), and throwing out the rubbish, I was feeling my backache a little earlier than usual this morning and it made me feel very uncomfortable and even short of breath, so I laid down for five minutes. My wife got worried that we were falling behind the fish ball noodle schedule, so she responded by asking if I was angry at her. I could barely talk but after a few short minutes, I felt much better so we were still on track for our mission.
We changed the boy, and got dressed and ready to get out the door but since he was skipping breakfast for a couple of hours, I thought I should at least give him a few sips of water. Since I was taking time to do that, my wife took the opportunity to feed him some bread. It became a bit of a contest because we both had our own beliefs regarding his needs in the morning. I always feel he needs to drink while my wife feels he needs to eat. After a few minutes, he was choking on a mixture of water and soggy bread, so I got the blame for feeding him too much water. Anyway, we were getting in danger of “no more fish ball noodles,” so we had to hurry.
We all packed into the car. It was the usual multiple trip effort – load the baby in the car seat, come back and get the rest of the stuff (laundry, work bag), and then finally, go back and lock the house door. Since I was taking so long, my wife had time to complain about how late we were and warn of the danger of “no more fish ball noodles”. She also insisted it hadn’t been necessary for me to feed him water because she was going to feed him in the car anyway. I know (and I think my wife knows deep in her heart) that he doesn’t drink from his sippy cup. We’ve not managed to get him to drink from his sippy cup or any sippy cups since birth and not from a lack of trying, so I don’t think I was too skeptical about our chances with it this morning. My wife tried anyway. I felt smug and asked her how much she managed to get in. She said he didn’t want to drink because I’d already fed him water. My fault again.
Out of nowhere, the subject of our nanny was brought up. I’d asked her last night if she thought we needed to rehire the nanny because I thought it would give her some free time for her other interests. Now she’s saying that I really hurt her for suggesting it. So, officially this subject is taboo now, along with the subject of her weight, her health, her milk supply and anything remotely related to anything else that might possibly be related to something that could maybe raise the faintest shadow of a doubt in anybody’s mind about her abilities as a mother.
In short, it is always my fault.
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We’ve very happy to have this chunky little boy. We think his chubby cheeks and his little round arms are just adorable. He’ll naturally lose some of this fat as he gets older, but we honestly don’t want him to. My wife and I haven’t talked about it much, but I suspect we’re on a mission to fatten him up as much as possible.
I don’t really understand this fascination with blubber. I certainly didn’t think it was particularly cute before becoming a parent. Before we had our baby, I remember meeting our friends’ fat babies, and sure I think they’re cute now, but back then, I really had to stop myself from asking, “Isn’t he a bit fat? Is this normal? This won’t be a problem later? Did the doctor say anything?”
When a proud parent introduces you to his or her fat toddler, what are you supposed to say? All these are correct answers: She’s cute, She’s bright, She’s so well-behaved, She has a lovely smile, She looks just like their mom. If it’s a boy, you could maybe say he’s going to make a great rugby player.
I always say something nice, even though the thought going through my head often went, “How’d a fitness freak like you end up with a little fat kid?” I just didn’t understand it. You really couldn’t blame me. I just wasn’t a parent.
And then we had our baby and all of a sudden, fat was in. We couldn’t get enough of it. The fatter he got, the more adorable he looked. Not only him, but all babies. I pitied the parents of skinny babies. I thought every parent deserved a fat little bundle of joy. The doctor monitored our baby's weight, height and head circumference. I never remembered how tall he was or how big his head got, but I could always remember his weight. We found ourselves happily announcing. “He was a little skinny the first two months but he’s put on four kilos by now.” The lactation consultant mentioned that formula-fed babies started really putting on weight at about six months, so I half-joked about the possibility of switching to formula at that point. That earned me some cold stares.
As long as we’re talking about babies, fat is desirable. I mention this because nobody ever told me these things and from all my previous experience as an adult, fat is not good. People go to great lengths not to gain it. Whole industries are built around helping people lose it. But that kind of thinking has no place in the world of babies. If someone came up and said, “What a chubby boy!” – that’s a compliment. If they were Chinese, they might even go a step further and compliment your child-raising abilities.
And if you thought parents were obsessed with fat, you should meet some grandparents. One friend told us that her in-laws were complaining that their grandson had lost a little weight. I really didn’t know what to say. The boy was playing in front of us and his arms looked like they were made of jelly rolls. Another friend wanted to borrow our boy to show her mom that fully breast-fed babies could still be fat, which worked like a charm. From that moment on, her mom was all for breastfeeding.
When our boy started crawling, we were heartbroken with his weight loss. Well, he hadn’t lost any actual weight, but he did get a little leaner. He’s still a chubby baby by all accounts. He’ll lose even more fat when he starts walking. We haven’t given up the battle yet. We might be able to fatten him up a little more before that happens.
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