"You can smile in the picture, Bug."

That was said by Sandpaper after I took this picture:

Yup.  Now my sweet little Bug is a yellow belt.  Despite his expression, he was really very happy.  The adult class meets right after the child's class, so Bug does his homework while we practice, and then he plays on the iPad.  Anyway, usually he changes right out of his kempo clothes to do his homework in his normal clothes - but he didn't this time.  He stayed in his white dogi and new yellow belt. ^_^

I don't know if you can see close enough, but the colors are different.  The one that Sensei first gave him was a size 1 (the same size as his white belt), and as I put it on him, it was too long, so then he got the other one - a size 0, and the colors were a bit different.  And you guessed it, that's Sandpaper in the background.

When I showed Bug the picture of him posing in his yellow belt, he tried not to smile.  I thought it was great how happy he was.

After all this excitement, I had a different kind of excitement.  ...... well maybe excitement isn't the right word.  I think I may have mentioned before, that I did 100 push-ups during kempo one time, but the first time I actually accomplished that, near the end I bent my elbows... not really enough to call it much of a push-up.  This time, however, I actually tried to move my torso at least midway the whole time.  I admit... I missed one in the last batch of 10, but I did an extra one after Sensei stopped counting.  And I did all 100 twists, though I hate them so.  Saying that I did all the 100 squats doesn't say a whole lot because I've done that from the beginning.

I can't remember if I mentioned how we do our warm up... first we do some preliminary stretches, and just shaking out the joints.  Then we move onto the push-ups.  40 of them, all in a row.  Then 40 twists (or bicycle crunches).  Then 40 squats.  Back to push-ups - 30 of them... repeat until we have done the last 10 of them all.  And then we stretch again.  Stretching is my favorite.  It comes from being in dance for 13 years, I'm sure. ^_^

So yes.  I did all 100 of all those things, and now I'm sore... pretty much everywhere.  But push-ups I have never been all that good at.  I've never really had the upper body or core muscle strength to be able to do it (keep in mind, though, that my knees stay safe and secure on the ground throughout the process), so being able to do 100 in one day - is quite an accomplishment for me.  The baby fat is still stubbornly clinging to me, but I can see and feel muscle growing underneath.  Hopefully some day the fat will just drip off and leave me be, but maybe in a less disgusting manner.