Leif turns 14

My youngest son is now a 14 year-old high school student with a job application in his backpack (he will do anything to avoid signing up for sports, and at least pushing a mop counts as exercise in my books). 

Love this kid. He got all his genes from his great-grandfathers and somehow has zero of my features, but I’m taking all the credit anyway.

The kids managed to bring home a non-covid travel bug, and spent the first week of school passing it between each other before it finally got me on the morning of his birthday. Threw down some Tylenol and made it happen anyway. 

The boy’s requests: cosmic bowling, homemade cheesecake, and dinner at the outdoor sports bar that serves good hamburgers (and where people smoke weed publicly despite it not actually being legal in our state, which at least means it’s less rowdy, as sports bars go). Leif is still a Lego fanatic, and while I was not willing to splash out $300 for the Stranger Things kit, I was willing to splash out $80 for the Strange Matter kit on aliexpress, and it was WORTH IT. 

He had a fantastic day, even though his brother broke his brain with a triangle-pieced Rubik’s cube (he can solve the regular ones in 10 seconds because he’s a cheater who memorized the algorithm instead of struggling and getting mad and throwing them like the rest of us).

Now I can lay in bed with a box of tissues while this 24 hour bug finishes with me.

How’s the fitness cult coming along?

Sticking to the program, stubbornly, even with a head cold. I've been cramming my workouts into the early and late hours, and faithfully following the meal plan (birthdays notwithstanding). Upping the volume of veg for 5 people has the fridge absolutely packed with produce, it’s ridiculous. 

My body is going through the deflated-bread-dough phase, and I’m feeling kind of bad about it. Trusting that it’ll adjust and I’ll look like a pro wrestler by Thanksgiving.