Show Me the Way

It is about to be "happy time" in my house. Mid-term finals are almost done.

For the last few days the black cloud of gloom and doom has hung over our house as my kids have been forced to study math, science, Spanish, English, and history.

Yesterday The Cutest Boy in the World (TCBITW)was studying for history. Bacchus, my wine god, is his teacher. Bacchus made a podcast and put it on his webpage for the kids to use as a study guide.

I was sitting across the house and suddenly I hear the booming voice of Bacchus, coming across the house like God himself talking to me...I hear this rambling stream of thought stuff as he lectures/informs the kids, via the podcast, what they need to know about the final.

It was pretty cool...even if it meant I had to hear Bacchus talking for like 10 minutes...

But then again, he likes to talk...a lot...

He likes to hear his own voice and fully admits to it.

He likes to talk...more...than...me...

That's saying a lot...

But what struck me, as I heard him going over the "need to know" stuff about various ancient empires, was how great technology is...and how lucky our kids are to live in this age.

That my son can hear a podcast and get a full lecture from his teacher.

He also has a smart board in every classroom. If you don't know what a smartboard is, let me tell you this...it is the coolest thing ever in a classroom. You touch it and it does things. It is a magic board!

I went to A&M in the dark ages when we still used computer punch cards to select our classes. My kids don't know what a punch card is...

Ke$ha Barbie didn't know what a vinyl record album was when she was little. Once, when I was driving her home from pre-school, she sang a song. I asked her where she learned it.

She told me that the music teacher taught it to her.

And now, I quote her, because this is good:

"Mrs. Fitzgerald put on a BIG BLACK CD and it played music and I could see the CD spinning around"

That is when it hit me that she didn't know what a record album was.

I drove straight home, sat her on the couch and grabbed my favorite album--"Frampton Comes Alive" and showed it to her. That was followed by "Edge of 17" and "Rumors" and "Hotel California".

I am proud to say that she now collects vinyl...and has a working turntable to play it on. It sounds like crap but she likes it...especially Led Zepplin's "Mothership".

It was a great teaching moment...brings a tear to the eye that she actually listened to me about something...even if she was only 4.

What I wouldn't give for one of those moments now...

oh well...

It does amaze me what my kids know how to do with technology. They both have showed me how to do things on the computer---excel spreadsheets, photo editing, iTunes libraries, Microsoft Word...

They are constantly teaching me how to do things...I'm not sure I ever taught my parents anything but to regret that they had more than one child once I hit the teenage years.

So Dimples made our football bowl game picks for me (us) and I have to say that I must have a lot of faith and trust in him because I agreed to not change the winner of the Cotton Bowl from LSU (his pick) to my alma mater, A&M.

I guess if I can put my faith and trust in him to train me and work me out, and to coach my son, I can certainly trust that he knows more about college football than I do.

Actually I think my cat knows more about college football than I do...but Dimples does know his stuff.

Today when he worked me out I presented him with a new toy...a weighted body bar. Yesterday he tried having me do some dead lifts using the large rubber band (the one I use to pull him up the hill endlessly). It was an epic fail. He almost fell over when he was showing me what to do and then when I tried it I kept falling over and then just completely lost it laughing until I was crying...I told him that I thought he was making that excercise up as a way to amuse himself. In fact I was wondering if I was being "punked" but he assured me it was a real exercise but I told him that there was no way, no how I was risking my face for a deadlift...maybe a facelift, but not a deadlift. So we quit that excercise.

That is why I bought the body bar...it was safer than pulling on a big rubberband.

But I am regretting it now as I am in grave pain because of all the little tricks he had up his sleeve to do with the bar. pain pain pain

But...he is showing me what to do and how to do it and the scale is inching down again and I see a little goal in sight...100 pounds lost by Christmas if I am a good girl. So even when he makes me do things that make me look pretty foolish, I know it is just to improve my body and health. Basically I am willing to look like a crazy person in order to lose weight...and I do it in front of a really good-looking man...I have no shame...

But when I slide into my mother's dress, it will all have been worth it...even if it meant that I did things that made me look like a deranged woman loose in the park.

I have faith in Coach Dimples...he knows what he is doing (Personal Trainer is his JOB...not just football coach) and he doesn't make me do these things just to laugh at me...but I'm sure it helps pass the time that I am pretty easy to laugh at.

He's showing me the way...and I am grateful.

Inspiration Song: "Show me the Way"...Peter Frampton...."Frampton Comes Alive".
Greatest. Album. Ever.

Bye darlings...let someone show you the way to a better you...