Monday evening, when I came home from work, Matt and the kids had already been home for a while. Penny was sitting at the dining room table. "Hi, sweetie," I said as I dropped my purse and keys and stuff by the door.
"No, Mommy, don't look! I'm making a surprise!"
"...Okay, I'm not looking." I went through the Green room into the kitchen, where Matt and Alex were, and was talking with Matt about our days when Penny came in and showed me a piece of red construction paper that had been folded in half. "It's a Valentimes card for you, Mommy!"
The front was covered with hearts, which had been meticulously colored in. Inside were flowers, drawn with a hand far neater than Penny's. "Did you draw these?"
"No. Miss Tasha drawed them, and I colored them in!"
"Well, that's really wonderful, sweetie. Thank you."
"Wait wait wait! Give it back!" She sprinted back to the table. "I have to write on it!" When she brought it back, it read, "PENNY LOVE MOMMY."
Sometimes, I worry that I'm doing everything wrong as a parent. And sometimes, I don't.
I've got an appointment to take my car to the shop for regular maintenance on Friday, which means we're dropping it off Thursday night and picking it up Friday afternoon. Which in turn means that I won't have a car for yoga on Thursday, and if I'm going to swim Friday, it'll have to be in the evening instead of after work.
So I went to yoga last night, because I'm trying to do that at least once a week. There were fewer people this time, which was nice, but the girl teaching the class went way too fast for me, and as a result, I spent a lot of time not doing anything and I didn't really feel like I got a very good workout. Oh, well. I'll remember to check the schedule and avoid her classes from now on.
And I kind of wish I'd thought to pack my things so I could swim today, but I've got book club tonight, so it's probably for the best.
I've been giving some thought to what I want to do about exercising in the fall. September brings a host of complications, starting with a shift in my work schedule to accommodate Penny's school schedule that will make it almost impossible for me to fit in anything immediately after work, so I'll be restricted to things I can do on my lunch break, or else going out after dinner. (Or, theoretically, early in the morning -- but I'd have to get up early enough to be back home by 6:15, and let's face it: I'm just not going to do that.) And once we get to late October, it'll start being cool enough in the evenings that I'm probably not going to want to be swimming, anyway.
I've already considered starting to walk on my lunch break, if my knee is improved enough. (I'm being pretty good right now about doing my rehab exercises every day, at least.) Walking is boring, but maybe I'll find some podcasts to listen to (as a rule, I don't like audiobooks, but podcasts are more conversational in tone) or randomly call people and chat (I've got 450 minutes per month on my iPhone's cell plan -- my typical usage is more like 10 minutes, so I have minutes to burn).
I might check out the Y's workout room and see how feasible it would be to prop up my iPod or my phone to watch movies while I'm on a bike or something. That's still an after-dinner proposition, but it wouldn't be quite as much of a schedule-buster since I could wait until I get home to change and shower. (Actually, come to think of it, I might occasionally be able to squeeze that between work and dinner, on hot-dog night, when dinner takes all of about 5 minutes to prepare.)
(Pundits who say things like, "People eat too much fast food/takeout! You can make a healthy homemade meal in only half an hour!" need a good smack upside the head. I consider half an hour a long time to spend on cooking -- especially if it's a half hour of active cooking, as opposed to half an hour that I can use to do other things while dinner is in the oven. These people have obviously not ever had to juggle kids, work, exercise, and social schedules. Hot dogs and prepackaged chicken nuggets are my lifesavers on bath nights. I swear, I ought to do a blog post about all the ridiculous and contradictory advice I encounter.)
Alex woke up at 4:30 this morning. That's after he woke up at 4:45 yesterday, and 5 the day before that. Enough is enough. I went into his room, changed his diaper (though it really didn't need it) and put him back in bed. Then I went back into our room, turned the monitor off, and climbed back under the covers. I didn't get back to sleep right away -- monitor or no, I heard him talking and squeaking and whining until around 5:15. But then either he went back to sleep or else I was too tired to let him keep me awake, and I managed to doze until Matt's alarm went off at 6.
Alex was squeaking, so I got up and went to get him. He was happy to see me, which makes me think he did manage to get some more sleep. And he was pretty happy for most of the rest of the morning, so I feel pretty good about that decision. We may have to push it for a few more days until it hits home, but -- for petesake, child. Six is more than early enough!
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