Monday, January 2, 2012

New Years Resolution

Every new year I make some sort of unofficial resolution and almost every year it involves working out more and eating healthier. Last year my resolution was to get my Etsy shop off the ground and it seems like that panned out pretty well. This year I want to try to focus on losing some of the 25+ pounds of baby weight that has been extremely stubborn and doesn't want to come off. I don't want to be skinny, I just want my waist back.

I decided that I should get up and do my exercises early in the morning so that it will be done and over with and I can get on with my day. Also, I was hoping to be able to get it done before my toddler wakes up, because working out with kids underfoot is about 1000 times harder.

It turned out to be an ill-fated attempt. Here's how it went this morning:

6:00-6:45 am: Woke up. Spent 45 minutes convincing myself to get out of bed.

6:45-6:50 am: Brush teeth, drink a glass of water in an attempt to get the morning breath taste out of my mouth. I cannot STAND panting and breathing hard and knowing that my breath smells like sheep guts that have been dead for a week. Am I the only one?

6:50-7:05 am: My todder wakes up. Usually he sleeps a little later. But, like a bear's instinct that tells it to come out of hibernation, my kid always knows when I'm about to work out.  I get him out of bed, change his soggy diaper, get him milk, after which he is still not happy so I decide to fix him breakfast. I get him settled in to his breakfast and start my 45 minute Zumba game on the Xbox 360.

7:05-7:20 am: Things are going pretty well up to this point. I was doing my workout and JC was behaving relatively well. Mostly he stood in front of me and stared at me. I don't blame him. Imagine a retarded manatee performing sexy Latin dance moves and that's basically what I look like. I know that I am a horrible dancer, that I have no rhythm, and that I have no business trying to, but that problem is outweighed by the far worse problem that I just find exercise and sports to be horrendously boring. Zumba is basically the only thing that doesn't have me crying/almost falling asleep/quitting early/making up stupid poems in my head to pass the time.

7:20-7:25 am: JC wants me to pick him up and dance with him. I sense that things are about to go wrong if I don't do something quick, so I send him in to the bedroom to play with my husband, who is still in bed asleep.  I know he won't mind being awoken from his blissful slumber by a screaming 2-year-old.

7:25-7:45 am: I hear my husband yell for me to come quick. I ignore it at first, hoping that he will be able to take care of whatever mini-emergency it is. Then he yells again and tells me to hurry and bring a wet washcloth. Maybe my husband is calling me for a good reason after all. I run into the bedroom and see my son sitting on the bed with my husband, blood drips all over the sheets. JC had cut a gouge in his foot somehow. We still can't figure out HOW in the world it happened but it looked pretty gross at first. I thought it might need stitches but in the end it turned out to be minor. I try to ask JC how he got his owie but he either can't or won't explain. He's more interested in ripping off his band-aid than telling me what he was doing when he hurt his foot. I go get him some socks and some more food to take his mind off the band-aid.

7:45-8:10 am: I go back to the workout but this time it is worse. Now that Josh is up I have an audience for my retarded manatee dance moves and so I try even harder to make my hips move to the beat which results in me mangling the choreography even more than usual. Basically for the next 20 minutes I just do a blend of random hip gyrations and elements of the macarena. JC really, really wants me to dance him and when I won't, he throws himself under my feet kicking and screaming. I ignore it and drag him out of the way. My husband tries to distract him while I finish my workout.

I was proud that I actually made it through but then I thought to all the times last year that I tried to work out and I remembered why I wasn't very consistent. Ever heard that saying, "Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree"? Yeah. That is what working out with a 2-year-old is like. Nailing Jell-O to a tree.

It will be a New Year's Miracle if I make it through this week doing a 45-minute workout every day, let alone the whole year.

So if anyone figures out a magic way to get a kid to be happy for 45 minutes without being entertained by me, needing food, medical care, or discipline, let me know.

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