An Obsession Named Steve

 A couple of months ago one of my teenage daughters decided she needed an exercise boost.  I think she saw the third year hike and repelling coming up quickly at Girl's Camp and wanted to prepare.  She picked a walk video that is the equivalent of a 2 mile walk.


She has been dedicated!  Everyday Leslie would enthusiastically enter our living room with her cast of walkers and, peppy as can be, take everyone on a walk.  As she goes through the video - excitedly introducing one walker after another it become very apparent that there is only one guy walker, Steve. 

This caught the attention of Mary's two little brothers.  Both boys are young, to young to have the bulky fit build of a man.  They are still very much in the lean stage of life.  For some reason though, this man's build has caught their focus and all they have been able to talk about is Steve's big, well defined calve muscles.  They want them.  Never mind the fact that Steve is a grown man and they have yet to become teenagers.

Regardless, the obsession has picked itself and nothing can pull them away from the walk video or long conversations about someday having calves like Steve.  Steve, even gets conversation air time now when the video is not even running.  What does Steve eat to have calves like that?  What does he do in his spare time?  It has gotten a little, well creepy, innocent but creepy.

It became clear the other day that we had reached a whole new level of obsession.

We were running errands, having a very ADHD conversation.  You know the ones, it hopped, skipped, and jumped from subject to subject.  Those conversations are the norm for our house.  I am not sure where it started but the conversation jumped from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, to purple faces, to steroid use.

Steroid use is a concept that our young sons had never heard of so it took some explaining.  We were talking about how athletes use performance enhancing steroids can harm their bodies, how they can make you look purple, how people use them to bulk up and give them an edge physically in competition.

That was all they had to hear was the word "bulk" you could feel the despair from the back seat.  In shock and horror the voice of disappointment and concern rang out, "You mean...Steve, takes steroids?!"

My husband hadn't yet heard all about Steve and his perfectly defined, manly calves.  He was a little confused. We worked through it, talked the boys off ledge.  We explained that we didn't think that Steve took steroids.  Just because you have good, bulky, well defined calves doesn't mean that you take steroids.  Crisis averted.  Obsession intact.

Our daughter got off to Girl's Camp to hike the hike and repel down the side of rocks.  While she was gone this week the boys kept plugging away at the walk video.  Hunter even went so far as to put on ankle weights, the ones he usually used to help calm himself down when he gets over stimulated, to help bulk up his legs.

He was going to town, they were doing their thing, waiting for eventual reward of big bulky man calves when they noticed I was getting pictures of them doing the exercise video (for the blog of course).  One of them blurted out, "You're taking pictures?  Great! get a good picture of Steve's calves!"

Yep, definitely an obsession, an obsession named Steve.

* Steve walks on Leslie Sonsone's Walk at Home - The Big Burn 2 Miles of Intervals work out video