Parental Failure

A few weeks ago, I was excited about a planned 3-day weekend with the family. We wanted to take our son, Spencer, snow tubing (note mistake #1, he is 2 ½ years old). After the last snowstorm and sledding around the neighborhood, Spencer had a great time speeding down the hills!

I started looking at the weather forecast the day after we booked the dates. They were calling for the coldest weekend of the year so far. Awesome, I thought. Throughout the week, we kept showing Spencer tubing videos, and he was getting so excited (and we were too). I was looking forward to disconnecting from technology (one of my 2021 goals) and spending time outside with the family.

We bought tickets for Friday and Saturday morning, thinking we would be tubing, eating, sleeping, dinner and going to bed—the perfect 72-hour weekend.

We woke up Friday, excited to head to the mountain (a 30-minute drive to where we stayed in Jim Thorpe). We got there, and damn, it was cold. I was freezing as I tried to get Spencer all bundled up.

These may be smiling faces in Jim Thorpe, but truthfully we were a bit annoyed/frustrated/angry as we decided to head home early.

We got to the bottom of the mountain (or ½ mountain for tubing), grabbed our tubes, and went up the tubing escalator (I guess that is what you call it). As we walked towards the top to begin our descent down, Spencer freaks out. We're talking full-blown temper tantrum and refusal to go down. He runs the opposite way and says, "Walk down, walk down!" Crap! As we try and talk him through it, tell him everything we can to calm him down, but it doesn't work. This little man knows what he wants. (The guys at the top of the mountain tried to help us calm our teary-eyed, snotty-nosed little man with no luck). After about 20 minutes of trying to convince him that the only way down was to tube, the workers told us we could walk down and carry him. Sweet, I thought—precisely the way I planned to get back down. I scooped Spencer up and began my walk down the hill. Carrying all 35 pounds of him and the wind whipping at my eyes, I was frustrated and upset. More upset with ourselves that we thought a 2 ½-year-old would be ready to tube at a real mountain.

But then I thought about how thankful I am that I could walk down and carry him without any issues. To know that the days, months, and years that I have put in the work with strength training has put me in a position where I don’t ever have to think about what I am capable of doing outside of the gym and that I literally feel like I can conquer anything that is thrown my way. This is WHY I created ANCHOR. I want everyone else to feel the same way, regardless of age or current health and fitness levels. Consistency over time really does work and makes it worth it. Getting people stronger is my absolute favorite thing to do. I love seeing people do things they never thought were imaginable. I love hearing stories of my clients going on vacation and hiking, and they weren’t out of breath or too exhausted to do it. This is what drives me. This is my love and passion.

Until next week…

Remember: Heavier is always better, except for when it is not ;)

In Strength,

Charlene