Where I've Been

I've been working on a sketch every morning for weeks now which would explain pictorially where I've been for the last, um, season. Infuriatingly, even if you put pants or triangle dresses on stick figures, it's really tricky to bring them to life and tell the true story of a mom who went to Babies-R-Us and bought four baby gates, enclosed herself inside with 45 consecutive issues of the New Yorker, and let her kids spend the winter poking at her with a stick.

The other day I was reading one of those child development wheels--you know the ones that are supposed to tell you whether or not your children are acting normal at any given age from birth to three--and Thing One asked me what I was reading.

"Oh, just a card that tells me some things that Thing Two can do now, like take off her shoes without mom and dad's help, or say a bunch of words..."

"Or climb on the table with no one's help again and again and never get down ever?"

"Yup, that's about right."

So that has taken up some time. Also, we joined the YMCA. I've always been a sort of ten days on eight months off kind of gal when it comes to exercise, but the Y has worked out really well for us. You see, the Y offers free child care while you are working out, up to two hours a day. TWO HOURS A DAY, PEOPLE!!!! As Thing One would say, "That feels me really happy."

My intention was to drop the kids off and go sleep in the sauna without actually lifting a finger, but there was a draft in there that kind of stressed me out. So I went to the front desk and asked for directions to the cafeteria. Nothin. Then I tried just sitting in the lobby chairs with the old guys, but I couldn't stand the "are-you-seriously-just-going-to-sit-there?" looks.

So now I work out. "You look great," a friend said the other day, "Are you working out?"

"Well, sort of. I think it's more that I'm dumping my kids on someone else at the most stressful time of the day several times a week, though."

And lifting a giggling, wiggling, 25 pounds of snaggle-toothed girl off the dining room table two thousand times a day. 100 sets of 20. You know, for my core.