The "Look"

Today has been a whirlwind; there is so much I want to share. However I'm still processing thoughts. First this weekend we connected with another family that adopted one of DS2's friends from the orphanage, amazing! Then this morning DS1 fell down the stairs at school and had to go to the emergency room (he is fine, just another "personality/character" scar) where he shouted certain things at the doctors that I've been teaching him to use for bullies. Tonight I have to explain this to DH. But, I need to process the thoughts a bit and write about them tomorrow, or the next day.

But in the midst of calling the school, the doctor, DH, the sitter, and getting everyone where they needed to be, specifically the Emergency Room, I missed my usual Monday work out. Totally not an issue. But, not wanting to give up on the "new me", I chose to go to a different class rather than skip the work out today. My option was a jump rope cardio class.

I haven't jumped a rope since I was ten. Actually now that I think about it I did win a 3rd place ribbon in a jump rope contest at a bi-centennial celebration in 1976. And if I remember right, I'm not making this up, there were only 3 kids in the contest and I pretty much gave up shortly into the contest. I've always felt bad about that. I wasn't quite the fighter then, that I am now, but maybe this is part of the turning point. Hey, I wasn't even 10 years old yet in 1976!

Anyway, I really enjoyed the class, but Wow! what a work out. It started with a 5 minute general warm up, then on to the first 10 minute cardio jump, then 5 minutes strength training (i.e., squats with a body bar, push ups, or other self inflicted torture) then 10 more minutes with the jump rope, repeat. When I walked in to the class I noticed it was fewer people than all the others I take, and these people were really in shape.

I made it through the first 20 minutes, but when we hit the second cardio jumping session, it was clear to me I did not have the skills to keep my heart rate up while trying to jump a rope that was mostly just hitting my head. But, I was having fun. I put the rope on the side of the room, and just faked it. I did everything everyone else was doing, but I wasn't holding a rope. I was happy. I was sweating! The instructor was calling things out, "jog, now feet together, moguls, cross country scissors feet, jumping jacks, heel jacks" etc. He was walking around the room watching people's feet to make sure they were doing the steps correctly. When he got to me, he watched my feet for a second, then I saw "the Look". The glimpse of a smile, a laugh and quick swallow of the expression. He recognized I wasn't using a rope, but wasn't going to call me on it. He just kept walking. My hero.

I saw the Look this weekend too. I was at a grocery store with DS2 and he was clutching hot dogs and wasn't about to give them to the cashier to be rung up. There was a lady behind me that gave me the Look. I thought it was just over our little fight on paying for the hot dogs, but then her 8 year old daughter walked up that was a Asian (not sure if Chinese or Korean, but didn't look a thing like the blond mommie)!

Prior to today, I had interpreted the look to mean, "you are crazy", or "leave that poor woman alone". Maybe I'm feeling better today because now it seems to me the Look is really saying something more along the lines of, "I see that you are faking it, and so am I, and we are get along just fine!"