Lows, highs and magpies
Kate: C’mere. I’ve got a secret.
Evan: A SECRET!?!?!
(trips over sock feet, runs to me squealing)
Kate: Hurry up, close close close.
Evan: YES?!?! WHAT IS IT?
Kate: (whispers in ear) Tonight, a lion will be born in Africa.
Evan: (gasps)
This age is manic, lows and highs, both him and my degree of tolerance. Early-morning cuddles, tub-tinkling, family dance parties. Hearing him talk to himself. Watching his face light up in delighted surprise. Swelling with pride at how he swaggers through the world with all the easy confidence of Ferris Bueller.
Flash-forward thirty seconds.
He talks back and yells defiantly BECAUSE I WANT TO! and escalates without warning from that to floor-flailing, spectacle-making. I am an unending stream of threats and bribes, bribes and threats, alternating like mixing dry and wet for crazy cake. A hundred times a day I transform from pied piper to shushing, snapping, scowling, growling battleaxe.
"BWAAA HA HA! Ben is AWAKE!"
And presto-bingo, dammit.
But then in the rearview mirror he grins, and I am high.
++++++
These days, I’m drawn to FLAT BELLY FAST! 447 WAYS TO LOOK GREAT – INSTANTLY! 60-SECOND TOTAL HEALTH FIXES! SEE HOW YOUR SEX LIFE STACKS UP! BELLY-BUSTER BLOWOUT! like a magpie.
Aware distantly that it’s all insidious old-skool magazine bullshit but overcome with "OMG, like, I can EAT my way to washboard abs? WHERE DO I SIGN UP?"
So I did.
"Any history of heart disease?"
"No."
"Diabetes?"
"No."
"Seizures?"
"No"
"Okay, we’re almost done. Can you tell me the last time you felt happy?"
(silence)
"I mean, when was the last time you felt content, and slept well, and didn’t have anxiety issues like breathing difficulties or mood swings?"
(laughs)
I joined a gym.
And when I did the incessantly perky girl at the front desk smiled kindly and asked, "And what would the family of squirrels that lives in the fold of your c-section scar prefer? Step aerobics or freeweights?"
I'm just hoping it will feel so decadent to have time to myself that the fact that it's exercise will go unnoticed by my brain.
See, I was born in the Chinese Year of the Banana Slug. Me and exercise? Oil and water. But driving Evan to playschool three times a week brings me halfway there. And they look after Ben. And there are classes and workshops and extremely motivating packs of snarling rottweilers personal trainers.
Even if it takes effort thanks to the declined metabolism and gravity of 34 years and three mostly-gestated children, I just want to walk tall again.
Progress so far—
1) Noted: you can’t breathe and suck in your pooch at the same time.
(to be continued...)
sweetsalty kate
41 Comments
Reader Comments (41)
the attempt at a healthy body brings great satisfaction.
So don't let your goal to be to succeed. Just let it be to try. Maybe that's a good idea or mabye I'm not willing to admit that I too, have a pappa pooch that can't be explained by a C-anything. I kind of like my pooch, maybe you should welcome it's fold into the fold. So...with your exercise regimen you should add a little complacency...for it too can bring a little happiness.
You, your story, your words have really struck me today.
My goal with the gym is to wear myself out to exhaustion and then maybe I'll too sore and tired to care that I can't move.
I hope it works for you too.
I just walk-in from my 2nd Step class. I got my ass handed to me on a dinner plate today, unlike a silver plater, like last week. It's been 6 weeks at 3 times per week.I am feeling better.Go, go, go.
Hmmm, three year moods. Sometimes I feel like I'm three too, because of them.
Good luck at the gym. I did that for awhile, and it worked, until I dug in my heels at archaic fee increases and never went back. Now I work out at home, when I'm not distracted by shiny objects, pee on the floor and enticing blog posts, like this one.
And the age....I've got one that's been going between etheral sweetness and OMFG I'm going to SELL YOU!!!! all day. I feel ya.
;-)
And BTW - good for you!
(or so I'm told, obviously. Although perhaps I need to try the same thing.)
Beautiful writing, BTW. Yours has become a blog I visit regulary.
1. My 2 1/2 year old pushes every last one of my buttons. And just when I'm ready to pack him in a crate and ship him to Angelina Jolie, he says he loves me soooo much.
2. We must be the same age, I am also a Banana Slug. All these years I thought I was a Horse. Must be reading the wrong Chinese horoscope.
3. Have joined three gyms in the last ten years. Never stick with it more than a couple of months. They seem to want me to exercise, or some damn thing. Blah.
Good luck at the gym.....i need to do the same.
ashley
I went over to {my typography} based on Silver Fox's comment here. Both Christina's post and your comment were touching. I get the stuff accumulation her husband is stuck in. It seems to happen to men more than women. I wonder why? It also seems to wane with age and experience.
I always love reading your words.
I too had a c/s (with my first) but it was my 2nd birth that did me and my belly (and other things) in as well. Its so hard after being with the boys all day long to want to go sweat-it-up at the gym after they're in bed and the kitchen is cleaned up. I'm a member of a gym and I've been TWICE since I joined in November. My couch and I have become BFF.
I'm right there with ya, sister. It helps knowing I'm not the only one.
Enjoy, take it easy, and one day you too may be a freak ;-)
A huge bonus has been that I have made some lovely friends.
(You could get that printed on a Tshirt and wear it to the gym! Awesome.)
Yeah, Kate! Good luck.
...the only weight-loss activity I have engaged in over the past 3 weeks has been to get gastric flu and vomit a lot (and give up eating for 5 days) ...alas, I did not manage to lose 10 percent of my bodyweight like my underweight 16 month old (who had to be hospitalized)...
...maybe next week (when the H gets back from Africa) I'll finally find a way to get my pilates ball inflated...