Pay It Forward

Just a funny anecdote the other week courtesy of my precocious three-year-old.

I came home from work one evening and I was greeted by my boy enthusiastically even before I put my foot into the door. He told me about a particularly naughty boy he encountered in the playground earlier.

My son complained that the other boy pushed him around. In fact, he almost fell off the steps going to the slide, all because this boy was picking on him (who was, by the way, much bigger than my son). According to the grandma, my normally placid and tolerant toddler had one push too many. He turned around and, with arms akimbo, shouted at the other boy, at the top of his voice: "STOP PUSHING ME! YOU'RE A VERY, VERY BAD BOY!"

And - what do you know? - the little bully stopped and stayed away from my son.

After both my son and his grandma recounted the story, I told my baby that what he did was right. Though he should never pick a fight with others, neither should he be a pushover. He should learn to fight back, and what he did was a good thing.

My son paused for a while to consider my statement, then drew his own conclusion: "It's okay to fight back. You shouldn't fight forward, you just fight back!"

Epilogue: After that initial confrontation, my son and that other boy have since become playmates. I love the way children can completely forgive one another and move on with their lives.

photo from Getty Images

Weighing the Issue

Forgive me for being a girl today.

I never had a problem with weight. Except during my pregnancy, I never went above 48 kilograms (about 105lbs), which I think is ideal for a petite frame of 5’1”. I guess I am one of those women whom others would say is blessed with good genes. Most notably during my adolescent to early adult years, I could eat like a horse and still get away with it. Today, I am a 33-year-old mother of one, and the weighing scale tells me I am around 43.6 kilograms (96lbs). Not bad, I suppose.

Yet vanity is making itself felt today. I feel that my mere mortal body is succumbing to the force known as gravity, and everything is headed south.

I look in the mirror this morning as I am dressing up for work, and I turn a critical eye on myself. I find myself a bit wider in some places, a little loose in some, a tad sagging in a few areas. *cue in the cuss words*

I know, I know. Don’t give me grief for the fact that I weigh less than a hundred pounds, and here I am complaining. But I know now that having low weight doesn’t necessarily mean you’re exempted from all that excess baggage.

Disclaimer: I am not blaming my pregnancy for this. It’s the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me, so far be it for me to point my fingers on it. It’s just that I realised, during that phase, my skin stretched out far more than it was ever used to (I gained 35lbs then). Now that I couldn’t shrink back to my original form, those blasted fat cells took the opportunity to fill in all those nooks and crannies, thus giving me all this flab (and grief). It doesn’t help that I read up a bit and was reminded that fat actually weighs less than muscles, and so I therefore conclude that while I may weigh less now, I still damn well look pudgier than usual.

This should probably be my cue to dust off my old sneakers and start running for fitness again.



Now the problem is, I find too many excuses NOT to exercise.

First of all, it’s too friggin’ boring. I have an issue with routines/repetitiveness, and if there’s one thing I frequently see on exercise manuals, it’s the word repeat. Can’t I just do it once and everything will magically transform thereafter?

Second, I get sick when I overexert myself. Don’t laugh at me…it’s true! I’m such a lazy-ass that any form of physical exertion leaves me feverish for three days! Ask my husband. Back when we were still dating, he casually invited me for a game of lawn tennis. I was a bit rusty since I haven’t played in a long time, but – what the heck – it’s great bonding, right? Wrong. I had a 39-degree fever and body aches for a few days and sent my then-boyfriend into near panic, and that’s when I remembered that childhood malady: during the first few days of PE class, I’d be absent because of fever. I thought I outgrew it, but turns out I didn’t. Think that’s an isolated case? The first time I was here in Singapore and walked too much, I developed a fever. Pity my poor, unused muscles.

And thirdly – and most importantly – I don’t have time. I wake up early to go to work, and I come home with just a few hours to catch up with my family’s day. How can I sacrifice quality time with them for such vain shenanigans, right?

My husband is trying his best to help me. Recently, I’ve been on the receiving end of small tokens from my always-generous husband: an mp3 player and a good pair of cross trainers. Bless this man, he really knows how to handle whiny little me! Instead of telling me bluntly to go out and do something about my “problem” (which will almost certainly be met by an absolute refusal), he is gently coaxing me to take my new playthings out for a spin, i.e., go jogging or something. I actually told him good-naturedly that I recognise the tactic, to which he replied that, had I known how to ride a bike, he would’ve bought me my own so we can cycle every weekend.

Sigh. I really should stop making excuses and run a few laps this weekend.

On the other hand, brisk-walking from one mall to the next is still a form of cardio, right?




many thanks to Getty Images for the royalty-free photos