Sure, you people in the northeast have been trapped under a dozen feet of snow for a whole month, but here in Georgia we had a teeny bit of freezing rain last night and now the world is ending. School is canceled! Trees are falling over! The power flickered on and off all night and we tried to sleep to the dulcet tones of distant transformers exploding! It was super fun.
And did my darling, charming, best-thing-that’s-ever-happened-to-me husband leap out of bed in the middle of the night, insisting that there was someone in the room with us? He sure did. And it had been quite a while since he last had a late-night freakout, plus I like him a lot, so I let him live. (Fascinating observation: Now that we have a house alarm, I was not worried in the slightest, and calmly talked him back into bed, knowing full well there was no one in the house who didn’t belong here. BUT! Once he put his head on the pillow and pulled the blankets back up, I exhaled and my body released a flood of adrenaline so overwhelming that I actually began to shake. Even though I knew everything was fine. BRAINS ARE WEIRD.)
In other, unrelated, news, I’m afraid I suck at raising healthy children. I wrote about our collective exercise and sports failures over at Alpha Mom because I’m pretty sure the Internet exists to solve my problems. (I read that on the Internet once, so it must be true.)
Let me tell a tale of Grandma comes to Visit only daughter and only grandchild after Christmas. Third visit in 7 years. She flipped out bc Grandson got an Xbox from Santa and – shocker – wanted to play games on it. Yelled at me that Grandson isn’t involved in team sports. I reminded her that he’s on the basketball team – and only in first grade. Not enough. He needs to be on the football and baseball teams as well. She was a jock. I was the nerd who toted her red wagon the the library, loaded it up with 30 books (the max we could borrow), wheeled it home, and devoured them. It so rattled her that Grandson is turning out to be like me that she insisted we go to Big Box Store *right then* so she could purchase for him All.The. Balls. She did. When we arrived home, he asked her to play with him. She flat-out refused. I tried to throw a football with him, and he wound up getting hit in the nose.
The visit ended with her saying that even though we are the only family members on our family tree, it’s best if we don’t see each other. She’s several states away, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
In sum: no idea how to get kids active, and given my sports-obsessed, batshit-crazy mother, I’m okay with that.
Holy crap. I’m so sorry!
My kids are a lot like yours, even similar ages…and had the similar experiences. Neither liked team sports, My daughter is currently not doing a sport and I am gently urging her to, but more than a year ago my sort of anti-social son found fencing, Fighting with swords!
Its very athletic judging from the sweat he works up! So, you never know..
I have one who likes sports and one who doesn’t. I didn’t like sports as a kid either so I empathize, but I would like him to be more active.
I have sporty 9-yr-old (soccer, baseball, cross country) and non-sporty teenager.
Non-sporty teenager will ride a bike and love it but you have to drag him out of the house first. He has many pollen allergies so I kind of understand. He is also a bandie and loves it, definitely a workout. In the offseason, he has just started drum and bugle corps…all band, no football. :-)
Both will agree to walk on the treadmill when it is cold out, but again, only if reminded/ suggested.
When I was around, oh, ages 8 through 12, the parents of my neighborhood friend, also named Mary, would push us out of the house with the goal of our getting some exercise. We would sneak off together, hide under a tree and read all day. Eventually, they sent us to the Y several times a week to “activities” where we were NOT the stars of the group – but at least we had each other.
My own kids? We have one athletic, joiner type kid – we have never been quite sure that we brought home the right baby from the hospital. But as time went on, she became more like the rest of us, so everything is OK.
I got to experience that NE Georgia ice storm first hand. Power out for 24 hours, tree through the roof, smashed nose after tripping on the 115 lb dog hiding in the bathroom. Fun day!
Daughter, now in her 20s, played basketball and softball into high school. She also played viola. She didn’t play active sports in college, but her knowledge of the games helped her develop her photojournalism skills. We won’t talk for too long about the time she traveled with the football team to a championship and got snowed in and I asked her if she was the only female on the trip….the pics she took were awesome.
Ice skating? No contact, works core muscles, and you can daydream about being an ice dancer!
However, it’s tricky to start, and ice is hard.