Big Red Ball, or Not Counting

I hate to count. A big part of physical therapy is counting how many times you do something, like lift your leg. I find this depressing and demoralizing.  I am fine with the first few, but by time I get to 27, I am ready to kill myself. It have to have this super force of will to complete 28, 29 and 30.  My leg throbs, my hip hurts and I think I never want to raise my leg ever again.

Also, I lose count. When I am on the ground doing my exercises, my family and dog think this is free time.  They see me as a captive audience, unaware and unconcerned that my main goal is to count how many times I do something. 

I don't mind the distraction of my daughter telling me about her day. She only talks to me when she thinks I am not paying attention. This is the best way to get my teenager to talk about her life: pretend I'm not listening. Sometimes, it is hard to pay attention when I am on my third round of thirty leg lifts, but then I am done and she keeps talking. My son spent ten minutes yesterday discussing what his user name should be on a STEAM website. He wanted something clever and witty and not tacky.  I suggested "Dr. Whom" but it was already taken. He settled on Sriracha Rocket. Could I have had great conversations if I had been counting? No.

Fox is my other exercise companion, but he tries to distract me.  Here he is trying to prevent me from unrolling my yoga mat. Sometimes he is nice and will sit by my head. Other times, he will sit directly under the leg I am trying to lift. I don't see the point in that, but he is a dog, so there probably isn't a point.

I use a yoga mat because my floor is covered in dog hair and whatnot.

Instead of counting, I turn on music and time my workouts based on the length of the songs. This solves both the boredom of counting and being distracted my kids and dog. I figure if I do one leg lift in three seconds, then I can do ten in thirty seconds, or thirty in ninety seconds which is about half of a song. Instead of wanting to die by leg lift 28, I am happily jamming to "Put a Ring on It" and don't even notice I've been lifting my leg for three minutes.

Here is my new big, red ball. My son is 12 and my daughter is 15. The way they act around the ball, you would think they grew up in some barren, desolate, war torn place and have never seen a ball before. As soon as I bring it out, they think it is time to play. They throw it, jump on it, and bounce it around as if this was the first ball they have ever seen. We have a small house, so I am not so cool with this ball taking up a lot of space. The occupies more space when it is moving. I am glad my kids are kids, but I am also annoyed that they are having so much fun as a result of my injury. 

The Big Red Ball