Get Off My Lawn

Watching a toddler grow fascinates me.  Every day seems like it brings new developments, especially with physical skills.  Our son has two new favorites: the headbanger, and the butt-first stair slide.  Admittedly, these skills aren’t anywhere on the milestones provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics, but he has mastered them regardless.

Today, though, I don’t want to talk about my son’s newfound talents.  Instead, I want to talk about how watching him exercise those talents pains my aging body just by association.  I have never truly felt old until I started watching my son do things to his body that would put me in traction for a month.

Take the stair slide.  He enjoys sitting firmly at the top stair, shouting “Bum!” at the top of his voice, then slamming his butt down on the next stair with the force of a sledgehammer.  Rinse and repeat for the rest of the staircase.  My spine weeps watching him.   For the headbanger, he will repeatedly rear back his head as though crying out to the heavens for absolution before slamming it down onto a convenient pillow and/or stuffed animal like a starving hyena cracking open an elephant’s rib cage.  Just typing that made my neck cringe.

Let me really sink this home for you.  As I type this, I have a heat pad on my lower back to help it recover from an injury last week.  What did I do to hurt it, you ask? 

I attempted to put on a sock. 

I have spent years playing contact sports, lifted weights for decades, and have a deep respect for warm ups, foam rollers, and yoga.  My body has now decided that bending over while lifting one leg is an abhorrent practice that must be punished like sinners in the Old Testament—swiftly, severely, and without mercy.

Laid low by a sock.  Pack it in boys, we’re calling it.  It’s time to buy a bag of Werther’s, bust out the shuffleboard, and join the AARP.