I happily spent the summer working out with my daughter. I’ve been lifting weights for years. I started when I was in business school, and it was an easy choice. Study or go to the gym? An easy, easy choice.
I’ve been lifting for years, but my daughter got me to do things I never imagined I could do. Like bench-press my weight. Which, when you’re as small as me isn’t really that much weight I guess. But proportionally it was a lot. And I was stoked.
We have so much fun at the gym. We laugh so hard. Like the time one of us attempted a clap push-up (I think her) and nearly face-planted into the floor. Or the time I lay across a stability ball and rolled forward to get into position to work my abs, and did face-plant into the floor. Or when she stood above me on a not-big-enough ledge so I could throw medicine balls up to her while I lay on the floor…and she nearly fell on me. Or when I reach up for the lat pulldown bar that I can’t reach (back to the being small thing), so I stand on the seat, grab the bar, and take a brief ride down. Or, or, or… You get the picture.
And we look so funny. We joke that she’s the bigger, taller, paler version of me. Or I’m the shorter, squatter, tanner version of her. We look hilarious when we stand in front of the mirror – actually she stands behind me – and we lift the same weights at the same time.
One of my favorite funny memories is my daughter teasing me. Because she loves to tease me. About many, many things. One of her favorite things to tease me about, related to my nearly twenty-five years of lifting weights, is the size of my arms. She thinks they’re pretty big. (I did get caught trying to take off a short-sleeve jacket once…in front of a client. Actually a potential client. I had washed the jacket and I guess shrunk the sleeves, and the room we were in was warm so I asked if they minded if I took off my jacket. They said “No,” and I proceeded to do so. And got stuck. With my arms behind my back. I couldn’t get it off, and I couldn’t get it back on.)
But anyway, she likes to tease me about my arms. I forget exactly what was going on one day, but she looked at me and said, “You’re the opposite of a T. rex!!” You know, instead of a big body and little arms, I have a little body and big arms.
So, I’m the opposite of a T. rex. And I like to work out with my daughter.
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