Brag Alert! 

Every Saturday since December the girls have been going to conditioning work-outs at one of our local rec centers. As a result Gen has gained quite a bit of muscle mass (for a scrawny white girl) especially in her legs. In the past six months this kid has shot up! She is as tall as I am and she weighs what I did when I graduated high school.  As a woman who struggled with body issues throughout my entire young adult life from being TOO thin, I am SO relieved she won’t have to deal with that crap. 

The reason I mention this is because Tuesday was her birthday as well as her first official track meet of the season. Last year we determined she is not a sprinter; she’s more of a mid-distance runner. Tuesday she earned first place in the 400 meter run, third in the 800 meter run, and her 4x400 relay team took first. When we got in the car to go home she said, “Mom. I dominated that meet!” and I was like, “Yeaaaah ya did girl!” All that conditioning she growled about every Saturday morning had increased her speed significantly. 

She was so upset that this meet fell on her birthday and was convinced it would be an awful, uneventful day so for it to turn around was the cherry on her day. She laughed as she told me about her best friend singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her at lunch on the microphone while the librarian accompanied her on the piano. Then the entire lunchroom joined in. (I swear..., only in Lawrence). “I felt really loved today,” she said later as we rounded out the day with a late sushi dinner. That’s because you ARE loved child. Duuuh.