Jack has a double header baseball game midday, then an afternoon piano recital, and then we have made arrangements to go watch a movie in the park tonight. It’s a busy day! The Professor is spending the first part of it in his work-state with a Saturday class, but will be back midday to help shepherd children to their various places. God help us next year when Liam starts his own stuff. I find myself already dreaming of the day, 9 years from now, when Jack can start driving his little brothers to their various activities.
We did nothin’ fancy for dinners this past week – I pulled some leftovers out of the freezer, and did Blue Apron two nights (turkey meatloaf and mashed potatoes one night, and star anise cod plus gai lan and brown rice another night. The latter sounds weird but it’s basically fish in a tasty sauce, plus wilted greens cooked in ginger and garlic. Yum.). I’m on a health-accountability kick with my sister – I basically snookered her into holding me accountable for my own health, which has deteriorated as my job needs have heated up. A 31 year old friend of mine (not really a current friendship, more a “we were buddies for about a year at our shared job ten years ago and we keep in touch by facebook” type relationships) just died of a heart attack. He was a lawyer (GO FIGURE) and now he’s gone and his baby girls are fatherless. Not to make his family’s tragedy all about me, but it really got me thinking about how I have gone jogging at a minimum weekly (and during some periods of life, daily) for twenty years, except since I added a third kid to my life I’ve let it totally fall off the radar. I’ve been sitting 12 hours a day for 3 years now, quit exercise, and reward myself after a hard day at work by pounding down convenience foods and soda. None of this is good.
So I’m sort of doing the amalah thing (I will link to that later, right now amalah’s website is down, but basically it involves a grownup behavior sticker chart), only instead of a chalkboard we have a google doc. It already got me to do more cardio than I normally would – one night I took the dog and all three kids on a jog/bike ride, which was not the 7 mile run and sprints I would have done back in my childless twenties, but it was something. Another night, I asked the Professor to put the kids to bed while I ran the fastest mile I could manage. It was 10:10, which is a terrible mile time, but I laced up my very old running shoes and got out there and did it! The last three days of the week were less healthy, partly due to work day-trips (no hotel gym, just long drives to the Middle of Nowhere, Alabama), and partly due to a teething Craigsy keeping me up at night. And partly due to job stress just wearing me down as the week goes on. But I made healthy Blue Apron dinners, at least, and we are back to Saturday, rest day. I am leaving laundry and grocery shopping til tomorrow, and spending this day running Jack all over town but also resting from work/domestic chores, and hopefully will be back in the game Sunday. Maybe I’ll even squeeze a short run into all this socializing. *There will be no BEFORE and AFTER pictures, folks. Just know this – during our run/bike ride the other night, some lady asked me when #4 was due, and said she has a daughter with 4 kids under 6 so she knows my pain. I pointedly said that we were stopping with 3 kids, and hadn’t planned any more, and she blanched and moved along. So, yeah. I look fat enough right now that people are certain I’m having a fourth baby. That’s your BEFORE picture, right there.
I hope you enjoyed this scintillating check-in. I’m off to single-mom it a few more hours til the Professor gets home. Wish me luck!