Spin Mistress

So, I started a new spin class today. For those who don't know, this is an indoor cycling class. The instructor turns on some fast-paced music, sits on her cycle in front of us, then does her best to induce heart attacks by leading us all up never ending hills. For some reason, there's never any down hills in spin classes.

During one of the songs, she split the room into two teams. Now, I'm all about competition. The drive to win is one of the strongest drives within me, so I was geared up for whatever challenge she threw our way.

To my surprise, though, it wasn't a competition. Team one was the first to sprint for a full minute, while team two's responsibility was to cheer and holler for team one. Then we reversed roles. Now, I felt a little silly yelling and clapping for team one, a group of women pedaling for dear life on their stationary bikes. I mean, what was the point?

Then it was our turn to sprint. For one tremendously long minute. And those cheers and applause were the only thing that kept me going. Thanks, team one!

So, tomorrow I'm going to look for someone else to cheer for, even if I feel a bit silly.

Adding Parents to Our Family

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter began exhibiting very strange behavior; she made her bed every morning. Even while we were visiting family in Oklahoma, she neatly smoothed her blanket on her little blowup mattress every day.

I didn't know where she learned that kind of behavior. Certainly not from her dad or me. But, kids will be kids, so I decided to let it slide and didn't say anything about it.

Things finally came to a head, though, one morning when we were running behind schedule. After brushing her hair, I told her to grab her jacket so we could run out the door. She looked at me wide-eyed, and gasped, "But I haven't made my bed yet!"

"Honey," I said, with as much patience as I could muster, "you don't need to make your bed."

"But my Karate coach said I had to make my bed every morning," she explained, and ran into her room at top speed.

So there it is. In just two weeks of lessons, her Karate coach surpassed my influence over my daughter. This week, thanks to the coach's instruction, she has memorized her full address and telephone number, something I've been working on with her for months.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly grateful to the Karate coach. Actually, I'm thinking of sending him a list of suggestions: tell the students they must learn to cook dinner, give ribbons for learning to mow the lawn.

The thing is, I know that this is just the beginning of other influential people in her life. Actually, it's probably well beyond the beginning. So, I now know that one of my parental responsibilities is to carefully choose, as much as I can, who those influencers are.

First major decision: the Karate coach stays.