Dancing Without Rhythm

I haven't been able to go to the gym for a week. I'm not the kind of girl who's very soul depends on the physical exertion of a good workout. I know those kind of people---I'm not one of them. I am the kind of girl who's very gut depends on it.

I know myself though. I know that if I don't go to the gym, it's highly unlikely to near impossible that I will work out on my own initiative in my own home, with my own resources. I just know that. I know, exercise fiends will roll their eyes and say something about wills and ways, and other such nonsense that doesn't exist in my world.

And there are skinny people who's paths have crossed mine who say things like, "Oh, I used to just throw Skinny Jr and Naturallyhighmetabolismina into the stroller and walk and walk and the baby fat just melted off me." First of all---the ONLY thing that melts off this body is the periodic glop of ice cream that falls off my spoon enroute to the mouth. And second of all, I think we are beyond calling it baby fat here.

The weather has been incredible here lately. Every morning Benja steps outside in his skivvies and exclaims "It's a beautiful day with a nice bweeze!" And he's right. It's lovely. I take back any mean thing I have ever said about the horrible Texas heat. Unless it comes back.

Well, after today's exclamation about the day's beauty, (which was about 9 am, incidentally) I decided I would take the kids for a walk. It would serve as exercise for me and good medicine for their ailing poxed bodies. From the moment I made that decision (9:02 to be exact), I was working fairly aggressively toward getting us out the door for a walk. Breakfast, diaper, clothes, shoes, shoes, shoes, snack, phone call, no TV!, phone call, wrestling, shoes again, time out, phone call, unloading of pantry cupboards, reloading of pantry cupboards....I PROMISE I was working toward getting out the door this entire time.

11:53 it was. Kids were appropriately attired, I had a sippy cup full of ice and water, two granola bars, two individual bags of Fruit Loops, my piece of junk camera that makes me swear at least twice a day, my freshly-made protein shake (that was UH-MAZING, btw), and my own lukewarm bottle of water.

Benja on his purple and red bike, Avee in her grey and black stroller. We set out on a bike trail just behind our house. The day was even more beautiful than we thought. Benja books it on his little big wheel and is like a well-trained dog who stops at corners without crossing. Unfortunately, he gets way ahead of me, and passersby can't be sure he'll stop, especially given how fast he's going. A kind man ran toward him as he was fast approaching the cross walk with no appearance of slowing. Benja never saw him, but stopped suddenly at just the right place. As I approached the man I said, "He knows to stop, but I wasn't sure he would---thank you for your help!" He smiled and kept walking and my sweet boy yelled back over his shoulder as he was racing off again, "Thanks for trying to keep me safe!" I can guar-own-tee, that kind Mexican man had never seen a gringa guffaw as loudly as I did. I love that little boy!

So, the walk, because I wasn't in the lead, got detoured to the park. That's what I get for being slow. So I let the kids play. On the slides that ended in puddles and on stairs that gave me heart failure every time Avee traipsed down them like she's fully grown. And then I put my little angels in swings. And they were cute, and enjoying themselves immensely. Benja was instructing me to swing him like "Unko Garrett did" and Avee was demanding that I pick up her dropped Fruit Loop. I did neither. But I did start working on gently coercing them to go home and what an excellent idea that was. Benja wasn't buying it.

Then, suddenly, without warning, a speck of dirt flew into Benja's eye and savagedly attacked his cornea. Oh my gosh! The drama rivaled Avee's when I accidentally put her sippy cup in the wrong cupholder. He was genuinely distraught that a speck of dirt would do that to him when he was just sitting there. "Why did the wind have to blow and get that fpeck of dirt in my eeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyeeeeeeee? Why does the breeze have to wusso up debweeeeeeee?" The first 12 times, it was kind of funny, and I was very sympathetic and had all the patience in the world to talk him through it. He couldn't get past it, and it wouldn't stop hurting him. I escorted him, he blind, I hauling Avee, to the water fountain where I pretended to have a clue about how to treat fpeck-infested cornea trauma. Interestingly, one of the "toys" of choice that Benja had smuggled out of the house, tucked into the waistband of his shorts, was none other than, a wet washcloth. I tried to make it a teaching moment about being divinely inspired in his toy selection but he wasn't interested.

He just kept asking why. And after 12 times at the park, 1/2 mile's walk worth of asking, and 4 more times on the couch with a wet paper towel over his eye, I lost my patience. "THE FPECK CAME FLYING OUT OF THE WIND AND INTO YOUR EYE BECAUSE IT HEARD YOU WHINING. IT KNEW YOU DON'T EAT YOUR VEGETABLES AT DINNER AND IT GOES AFTER LITTLE BOYS WHO DON'T TAKE NAPS AND PUSH THEIR SISTERS OVER--THAT'S WHY!!!!!!!!!!!"
He quit asking why.
That didn't really happen. Well, it really happened in my head, but I'm sure that doesn't count.
I still don't actually know what happened. But his eye is quite red. Either from whatever attacked him, or the rubbing, or from being punched to stop the whining.

So here it is. You get the picture AND the 1000 words it's worth. The real reason why this mama doesn't just throw her kids in the stroller and walk off the baby fat.

Posted by Angela on Monday, September 18, 2006 at 9/18/2006 | Permalink