Air Mattresses Do Not Make Good Trampolines/High Chair Resistance Training

Sorry for the long title. This post includes two experiences that have contributed to my now thrown-out, and incredibly painful back.

Air mattresses do not make good trampolines. Plain and simple.

The other night, my husband was lying on the air mattress in the living room, which I had pulled out for Activity Days. As I was sitting above him on the couch, I had a funny thought. Wouldn't it be so awesome if I jumped off the couch, onto the air mattress, knees first, and bounced my husband?! We could then laugh hysterically at my ridiculous antics. Great plan right? Well, the idea was a little too enticing to resist, so I went ahead and took the plunge. WHACK! POP! Moan... As I hit the air mattress, my knees sank right to the ground, producing a hideous popping noise, and bright red marks on my knee caps. My husband, instead of laughing, proceeds to ask me if I'm alright. I manage to move my aching self back onto the couch and while mumbling ouch, confirm that there is no serious damage. My knee has not been the same since. I speculate that this was the first blow that contributed to my back pain.

High chair resistance training, and not on purpose!

A very generous and kind friend of mine, bought us a high chair the other day. As we were trying to assemble it, we were having a very hard time putting two of the pieces together. I had to literally step on the two pieces, to get them in place. Once I got them into place, I figured out that the reason we were having so much trouble, was because the base of the seat was crooked! I looked at the instructions again and realized we had put the pieces together out of order. By the time I had realized this, however, my friend had left, and so I was on my own. Me versus high chair. Again, we had put the pieces together out of order, so naturally my thought process is, pull the parts apart again, fix the crookedness, and put it back together! Genius! One problem: the high chair was ridiculously hard to get together in the first place. How much harder would it be to get apart? Especially now that it was in crooked?

Well, I put my feet on either side of the base, my hands on the back of the chair, and pulled. I pulled and pushed, pushed and pulled, and nothing happened. I put oil in the space where the two parts connected, and still nothing. I even tried putting scissors into the little holes where the buttons that hold the seat back and the base together were, and still NOTHING! I was sooooo frustrated. As I was pulling on the back of the high chair, I started to feel some pain in my lower back, but I would not be defeated! I kept trying and trying to no avail, until I finally gave up. I then realized that I could pull on the lever at the back of the seat and it would adjust the crooked part of the chair. After doing that a couple of times, the chair was perfectly normal, and I had pulled or thrown out my back, trying to fix it for nothing. Needless to say, Friday night the pain started, hitting a peak yesterday morning, and making sitting in church pews today unbearable.

What did I learn from all of this? You guessed it. Air mattresses are not for jumping onto, no matter how funny you might think it could be, and high chairs will always win the battle. Everytime.