My 6-year-old thinks I'm buff

So this morning I'm lying in bed trying to bring my 6-year-old back into consciousness so he can get to school on time. He wakes up and we get in some good cuddle time (especially appreciated because two of my other kids aren't approachable even with a ten-foot pole). He looks up at me and says, "Mom, how did you get to be so buff?" I laughed (and those of you who know me are undoubtedly laughing even harder). My buff days have been over for about 16 years (age of oldest child), when I quickly realized that if I had a few moments for myself during the day they had better be spent in a sanity preserving catnap, not doling out my last drop of energy on a treadmill. (Which was fine, because we've never actually owned a treadmill.)

About 20 years ago I did manage to find two hours in the day to work out. Back then it was still all about me. I wasn't responsible for anyone else (or their tightly packed schedules). I could do whatever I wanted with my designated 24 hours per day--even spend some of them developing tightly packed abs. My roommate and I used to ride our bikes hard and uphill about 7 miles from Centennial Apartments in Provo to Spa Fitness Center in Orem for aerobics. Sometimes we'd even do a double session before riding home. In those days, I was definitely buff and I could do the "Maniac" dance with the best of the inside-out-sleeveless-sweatshirt-wearing crowd. But those days are long, long, gone.

Which brings me back to the wonderful question about why my six-year-old thinks I might be buff. First of all, where could he have heard the word? (Is one's degree of "buffness" a topic of conversation during first grade recess?) What does being "buff" look like in the mind of someone so young? And how could he possibly apply the term to me? I don't really know. And, frankly, I don't really care. I just hope he continues to think of me as such, so someday, at my funeral, he will get up and say, "The thing I loved about my mom is that she was really buff!" Revisionist history works for me. If someone believes it's true, won't that make it so?