When a Two-Year-Old Stands You Up

We visited our grandchildren this past weekend, a pre-Christmas warm-up focused on our son Robb’s 34th birthday. Of course I was looking forward to some grandpa time with my favorite two-year-old, Christian. I was also really looking forward to further getting to know our seven-month-old granddaughter, Aubrey.

Our son, Robb, and daughter-in-law, Anne, went out to an event Friday night; Bonnie and I stayed with Christian and Aubrey, bathed them, and got them in bed. The next morning, Robb and Anne went out to breakfast so we again enjoyed the grandkids by ourselves for a few hours.

The Bucket List

I’m in a different Grandpa place than I was a number of weeks ago. I am now grandpa to TWO grandchildren. Aubrey was born three months ago. Her brother Christian is now a full two-and-a-half years old. By the time Aubrey is moving enough for more interactive play, I’ll have quite the spread of movement and activities to contend with when we visit. I’d better keep up those crawling skills!

During our most recent visit, Christian’s main new thing was slides. We went to the playground and he was fully willing and capable to climb up the curvy bars to the slide platform and slide down on his own, self-cheering, “I did that!” He also offered consistent encouragement of, “Grandpa, come! Grandpa, you do it!” One of the best parts of the experience was Christian’s mantra of, “climb, climb, climb, climb” as he moved his hands and feet from bar to bar to get up to the slide platform. Way to encourage yourself on, little man!

Waiting

I’ve been waiting a lot. In regards to this blog, I’ve been waiting until I figured out exactly how and why to continue writing. Sharing about my activity — movement, exercise — was starting to feel too much a combination of I had to “show off” a bit with a good dose of “who cares?” One can go on Instagram and into Facebook groups and see people of all ages and ilks demonstrating, sharing, celebrating (and showing off). There is enough fitness sound out there. I don’t want to add static noise into the mix. I more enjoy being inspired by updates from my diligently playful Instagram friend @kanti.chiba or watching the adventurous @ginnymaccoll than sharing whatever I’m doing (or not doing, as more days have been since late last year). (I like to check out the exploratory Darryl Edwards as well, by the way.)

A Grandpa End-of-Year Movement Assessment

Hey, sorry it’s been a while. I didn’t run out of gas; I ran into more life. I also ran into a revelation about this blog, courtesy of my wife. The “more life” largely means more work and more stress and more sleepless nights and no care to blog. The revelation was that my wife noted that this blog shouldn’t be about me and whatever it is I’m doing with movement and exercise (boooring); it’s about the being a grandpa part, about being a grandpa . . .who also moves! As it happens, all of that got a recent end of year assessment during some family time over the holidays.

Over the course of four days I underwent the “Grandson Physical Fitness Challenge” (v. 23 mo.). Below are the event descriptions and my scores. All events occurred multiple times per day over the four days. All challenges are scored Pass-Fail.

A Tale of Two Brians (Actually, a Brian and a Bryan)

I recently read a piece in a book by one of my favorite spiritual writers, Brian Doyle, God-rest-his-soul. The piece is called “Prayer in Celebration of  Brief Things, For Example, Church Services.” As Doyle moves through the prayer and mentions things such as mayflies, apologies, small cups of strong coffee, and emails, I thought of . . . moving!

Coming upon Doyle’s piece reinforced other reflections I’ve had recently about brevity or, more so, enough: viewing what I have, and what I am, as enough; desiring no more than enough; being grateful for what is enough. I was primed for a realization about one of my favorite things!

Acting Like an Adolescent

I was at a church event a couple of months ago. It was a social and activity event for youth in the process of preparing for, or considering, confirmation. One of the activities for the youth was to blow up a balloon and see who could get it the biggest in a certain amount of time.  Beyond the 13-year-old boys-with-13-year-old girls dynamic, it was interesting to watch each of their approaches to the balloon challenge.

Some kids blew up their balloon sort of big but didn’t want to pop it so they stopped early; they didn’t at all approach pushing the capacity of the balloon or using the time they had to work with; they blew air into it, tied it off, and then spent the rest of the time in awkward posturing the way 13-year-olds might do when in the presence of some of the opposite sex.

A couple of other kids went too far and too fast in blowing up their balloons; their balloons popped. And then there was The One Girl.

Rebalancing the Portfolio

Last post I talked about the different components of fitness that I integrate into my weekly movement account. Driven by the accountability of writing this blog, I know I have been pushing things a little bit hard; so this past week, I began to rebalance my portfolio of movement investments.

I previously explained that walking my dog twice a day (with some enhancements, such as running, skipping, or rock hopping) is my daily foundation; it’s going to happen and I give it significant time. Along with that is yoga, although yoga has not been daily this past while. That is because I’ve been doing two days a week of more traditional bodyweight strength training, and THAT has further resulted in needing some walk-only-days to recover. So, my week was looking like this:

So Many Activities!

As I considered this blog entry I thought the word “activities” and my mind immediately went to this scene from the movie Step Brothers. Brennan, played by Will Ferrell, seems as if his brain is temporarily seized up at the thought of all the possible activities.

That’s what fitness for me can seem like, in regards to all of the components that I try to integrate into my weekly routine. I sometimes feel a bit lost in the possibilities, and I know that I might be missing the main tree because of the forest. That main tree is keeping, or even gaining, if possible, muscle. Muscle mass, and how often we train for it, are really important for older people . . . and so are many of the other possible activity components. *sigh*

As I approached sixty years old, I became concerned about muscle. In my mind I saw my aging body shedding muscle faster than a hair band drummer shedding his curly locks at Army boot camp. I began to follow a three-day-a week muscle building-focused routine, which was largely the main activity beyond my dog walking. I stepped back the yoga, which I had started to practice more regularly again. My strength training was nothing crazy, a fairly simple initially-bodyweight-oriented routine; the intent was to be challenging enough to ensure progressive overload so as to stimulate muscle growth. I was very sensible . . . until things went nicely for too long and the 42-year-old-me (or even 52-year-old-me) came out and I starting pushing things a bit more than the 60-year-old-actually-me should. Sacroiliac joint injury ( think). It still lingers, months later.

For the love of a dog

See the stream?
It’s flowing and fresh.
If you drink the water,
it’s the best!
See the puddle?
It sits there still.
That stale water
will make you ill.

I learned a fighting principle from my Taekwondo Korean great-grand-master a decade and a half ago, which he expressed in this adage: “Flowing water is alive; it never gets rotten or dies.” Short explanation: keep moving, don’t just stand, or lay, there.

As I aged I began to apply that adage to fitness and life activity. Keep moving! Stop moving and I will get rotten or die. So how do I keep moving? As it happens, a lot of my moving is walking. I walk a lot in the scheme of things. Which keeps me moving and also gets in the way of moving in other ways.

What do you say when a three-year-old asks, “Why?”

I imagine my 16 month old grandson in about year or so, approaching age three, seeing me skip or pull up or frog hop. He likely will simply relish the play of it all and want to follow along. Or, he will do something silly and different than me and say, “Grandpa, do!” And, there is just as much chance he will look at me and ask that magic three-year-old question: “Why?”

In my blog introduction I implied that my reason for training has to do with my grandson. That’s true. And yet, it’s not totally true. Many a grandpa lives for their grandchildren, physical status aside. They enjoy their company, they are present to and immersed in them when they are together. They share joy and love them unconditionally. I could be inactive and also live for my grandson in that same way.

I strive for something different.