Mom's New 'do

MOM is sporting a new hairdo.

Mom's Workout

MOM has continued her efforts in circuit training. She did very well with a single circuit completion time of 6 minutes 12 seconds. She completed the circuit three times. Her goal is to complete five circuits in as little time as possible. Dad thinks she can do it in 20 minutes.

One circuit consists of 10 repetitions of each of the following:

1. Step Stool. Using one leg, Mom steps up onto a step stool set at a height of 17.5" and then, before locking her leg upright, she lets herself back down. After ten reps, she repeats this with the opposite leg. She does not bounce, but raises herself at half the speed she climbs stairs.



She is doing it right when she down low, like this.

2. Speed Skate. Standing with her feet nearly as wide apart as possible, with her toes pointed out at a 45 degree angle, she takes her right hand, bends over, and touches her left toe, bending her knee to get as low as possible. She then shifts her weight and takes her left hand and touches her right toe, again bending the other knee as deeply as possible. The opposing hand is thrust up behind her for balance. While "skating" back and forth, she never comes fully upright, but does look ahead as a speed skater needs to do while circling the track at 30 m.p.h. This maximizes time under tension.
3. Michale Jordan. This is a jump, straight up, from a squatting position where her rear is inches from the ground. When she lands, she immediately continues downward into the squatting position. The name comes from the story (myth?) that this is what MJ did while training with the Bulls basketball team.
4. Burpees. Mom does a modified version currently, but will soon add a push up while on the floor and an jumping jack while upright. The model at the video forgoes the jumping jack in favor of a simple jump. These are the best all body exercise Dad has found outside of the water. They engage the upper-body, lower-body and abdomen.
5. Elbow to Knee Crunches. Mom does this excercise but does not allow her self to support her head with her hands. Instead she "punches" her fists against her ears. Also, her head never touches the ground and neither do her feet.
6. Leg Crunches. Mom does not bring her legs to completely vertical like the model in the picture at the link. Instead, in order to keep tension on her torso, she only lifts them to about 45 degrees off of the ground, and then lowers them to the ground, but does not allow her feet to touch the ground. It is this time under tension that yields the best and fastest results. And really, who wants to spend more time doing this than they have to?
7. River Dance. So named after the Irish form of dancing made popular by Michael Flatly. This is similar to a jumping jack, but her arms are held rigidly to her sides. After 10 jumps with her legs splaying in and out from her at right angles, she does 10 more where she alternates thrusting one foot ahead and one foot behind her. Soon she will add actual Irish dance forms to this part of the routine.

She does all of this as fast as possible while maintaining good form. In between each exercise, instead of sitting down or standing around to re-oxygenate her blood, she jogs in place. She takes the phrase "train insane or stay the same," seriously.

On the day before the circuit, Mom works on her upper body strength. She curls free weights, does butterflies, pulls up overhand and underhand on the chin up bar, starts the lawnmower (with 10 lbs. in her hand!), pulls free weights into her armpits, and then pushes them up over her head.

Please congratulate her on her efforts and, if she declines to stand up for a few days, please understand why.

Babble

THE New Family Twins are babbling away at Mom and Dad and at each other too. They'll imitate what they see and hear. Some of the babble has meaning to them, though Dad does not know what. It may just mean "I want your attention." It could also mean "I want to laugh" or "I want to make you laugh," because that is what they will typically do after a brief dialogue.

They'll string together multiple syllables in unique ways and occasionally say something that resembles actual speech. Dad thinks he has heard "I love you" from Buddy on more than one occasion. He doesn't think Buddy said it with intent, but it was spoken so clearly that it took Dad aback.

As for their comprehension, they seem to associate Dad's phrase "One, two, three, hands up!" with raising their hands so Dad can lock their feeding tray into place. They don't always comply, and he does it more than her, but they do do it frequently enough that Dad believes they understand what he wants from them, even if they force Dad to raise their hands for them.

Buggy regularly reaches out to wave "bye bye" while opening and closing her hand. Buddy has not yet seen the need to do this.

And of course, Buggy loves to imitate Mom and Dad when they treat her to her favorite word, lahdle.

First Steps

"EJ took his first unaided steps today." Dad informed Mom upon her arrival home. "He took three steps."

Mom replied, "I've seen that before."

Dad bristled. The momentousness of the milestone was lost on Mom. Moreover, Dad lacked a compelling narrative to convince her of how these steps were different. He let it pass.

Minutes later Mom squealed at Dad, "He walked from the fence to couch all by himself!"

Mom had seen it for herself and Dad was happy that she understood what these first steps were and how they differed from previous drunken-sailor* attempts.

Before, his unaided steps were a controlled fall terminating in his coming to rest on the ground. The steps themselves were merely a postponement of the inevitable, a brief run forward to get his hips underneath his forward falling head to reestablish center mass over his legs, but mostly ending in failure and EJ again on the ground. On a few occasions, the brevity of the trip from handhold to handhold, three steps, was enough for him to catch himself from falling. However, this is not truly walking. Authentic locomotion involves his ability to walk unaided for distances and times he determines, not gravity.

Mom had seen that before and presumed that that is what Dad had seen.

This was different. Although EJ only took three steps under Dad's watch, when he came to the end of his journey, he remained standing - unaided. That is walking. That was the critical detail Dad did not relate to Mom when she arrived home.

When EJ demonstrated it for her, there were four and a fraction steps involved. Further, although his end place offered him a hand hold, Mom observed that his gate was sufficient to maintain his uprightness regardless of the handhold. His head was not falling in a gentle arc toward the ground faster than his legs could keep up.

Later Mom predicted he'll be running around the house by the end of summer.

*Thanks to Laurie for the allusion .

Republicrat and Democan

FOUND amongst the many shapes of cookies for the Twin's consumption were these two mascots of American politics.

Even in our food, there is politics.

Today's Op Ed: No. That is Incorrect.

THE New Family parents receive updates from Cadence Health. These are timely and informative e-mails discussing various issues, giving advice, and offering tips pertinent to the Twins age.

The most recent one had the teasing subject line "The best toy ever."

The e-mail claimed that the best toy at week 50 is building blocks.

It is not.

The best toy ever is Dad.

Congratulate the New Family Mom!

RECENTLY, the New Family Mom has taken up circuit training with Dad. She needs to be congratulated on her willingness to do it and her efforts while doing it.

Please drop her a note of encouragement. And over the coming six weeks, ask her about her progress.

Quote of the Day

"PLAY with your sister. That is why we had two." Dad's terse command to EJ recently.

Near constant demands from the Twins make it difficult to do much else (e.g. chores) other than interact with the kids. That occasionally frustrates Dad.

In EJ's defense, he only wants huggy-lovey when he gets up and before he goes down to bed.

And all of the time in between.

Parenting Styles

THE previous post prompted Dad to recall the four parenting styles he learned about while enrolled in Honors Psychology. This graph sum them up.

You can view a bigger picture at the link.
http://naylandpsych.weebly.com/parenting-styles.html





The authoritative style, of course, is the one involved and informed parents usually strive for. Often this style is confused by its adjacent style, authoritarian. But they are distinct. The authoritarian style imposes rigidity for its own sake and the parent shows little warmth. Think of Dwight Shrute's parents. To distinguish between the two, one needs sufficient information about the parent and his interactions with his kids. If one were to only observe a brief encounter of an authoritative parent and child one could easily presume that the parent is authoritarian. Seeing a parent discipline a child in public, for example, is not enough data to to categorize the parent as either authoritarian or authoritative.

Given this, it is better to reserve judgement than share one's opinion.