We Interrupt Your Health To Bring You Kids
Genuine | March 31
As I stood looking into the mirror, I had an out of body experience. My towel was wrapped around me and I started the process of my day with a shave. I can remember when it was okay to see myself in the mirror. I was quite the specimen of health and good health habits. I worked out regularly, ran a few miles everyday and got plenty of rest, fresh air and sunshine. I ate healthy meals and small portions the recipes of which I found in Men’s Health magazines and fitness magazines. I was the epitome of a healthy man in my 30’s.
That was 7 years ago when I had no children. In the span of those 7 years, I gained a wife, 4 kids, a king sized mortgage, another job, and pinch of stress. This recipe sets the table for the train wreck I have become in such a short period. I was thinking, as just about every other Mommy and Daddy blogger, about the post touched upon by our own BlogFather contributor in his post about a blogger code of conduct. Like any good parent, I am going to blame my kids for my downhill slide into my new Homer Simpson persona.
A typical day for me begins at about 3:00 a.m., as this is about the time that one of the children decides that a full night’s sleep is overrated. At 5:00 a.m., the alarm clock sounds revile and we scramble around trying to make it out the door for our 1/2 hour commute, forgoing the all important first meal of the day because one of the kids decided to redecorate the floor with a full glass of OJ and the toast that always seems to land butter side down.
As I get through the door to my office at 7:30 a.m., all hell breaks loose and the combination of a normal work day is spattered with calls about which child has a doctor appointment because he is pulling on that ear again, or a quick trip to Costco to spend your 401K on diapers and formula. All of the extra work created makes it difficult to leave the office anytime before 6:00 p.m., but you are back on the road for that 1/2 hour commute to the next job.
The next job begins as you hit the door, everyone is glad to see Daddy, and we have our ritual of high fives and kisses and of course the tattle tellers begin their manipulation of the facts to get the other child in big trouble. The first barrage is completed and I kiss my wife before sitting to answer the 148 emails I received during the day for business. Yes, that second job that is attempting to pay for that extra pair of tennis shoes that your daughter seems to have forgotten the location of, and this month, for some strange reason, your children have been invited to 17 birthday parties for other children and lavish gifts must be purchased.
Dinner now consists of Mac and Cheese and chicken nuggets, and the ever popular pizza or happy meal. Heaven forbid we try to have something that might be healthy or something resembling a green plant that grows out of the ground. It is all about quick and easy. Something that all of the children can agree on, which in itself is an improbability.
After dinner it’s back to the emails and phone calls trying to develop business, which of course is then interrupted again because it’s bath night and you somehow have lost the coin toss for the fifth straight bath night. By the time I have dressed in my riot gear and washed behind the ears and all the crooks and crannies, I am soaked to the skin and wrinkled like a prune wondering where and why we have the bath tablets that turn the water a weird color.
Meanwhile, as Mommy readies the jammies that are under that pile of laundry that seemed to get bigger as seconds on the clock ticked by, I spend my time trying to herd cats as we keep them together so as not to eliminate the results of the bath just given. Then congress meets to determine which book will be read, each child taking a different stand and filibustering the other causing Daddy to act as the UN and finally throwing my hands up and begging Mommy to intervene so as not to fall on the plastic sword on the floor along with the other ankle deep toys that somehow seem to have a life of their own, and seem to multiply exponentially before my eyes.
Back to business until 12:30 a.m. and I begin to dose off while being charming in that email to the client that needs something by morning. Sitting in my chair I look down at what used to be a body I was proud of and my temple that was in perfect shape. Today I am wondering why I’m losing what used to be a lap, and I can crack joints just by thinking about moving from the chair to the bedroom.
I remember then that I had a wife around here somewhere, but I seem to have misplaced her, only then realizing that she has fortified herself in a fort of towels, jammies, and many other clothes that somehow ended up in the laundry but were never worn. She has a pile for each child and I wonder what child this extra pile is for, remembering that the neighbors’ children were here and I then recognize the shirts and pants and that extra shoe. I wonder if the parents of that child have worked extra to replace the shoes that were lost somewhere.
We each carry a pile to its rightful place, but do not enter the room for fear of waking a child and eliminating that one moment of quiet. At just before 1:00 a.m. you think back to a time when you might have had passionate sex with the woman you love but instead opt for a more constructive use of the time and instead make love to your pillow for two hours when you hear that cry coming from the bedroom and pretend not to hear as you see which of you will be the weak one and go see what is the matter.
It’s 3:00 a.m. and the day starts again, anybody for a workout?
I’ve got to stop coming to this site; I’m seeing my future and it isn’t pretty!
My daughter, Squeak, was born six weeks ago. So it’s been about two months since I’ve gotten any really good exercise. In that time I’ve gained about 10 pounds and put a good inch of fat back on the belly that I had so happily trimmed down over the last year. Dammit, I was proud of myself! And now it’s all coming back… I NEED to get back into the dojo and work out again, or I’m going to be right back in FatLand where I started out a couple of years ago. But how do I find the time?
I’ve been telling myself that once she gets older, things will get better. And now you’ve shattered my illusion. That’s just craptastic.
Now multiply Squeak by four and the lb’s and inches and you have me!!
When I went in for my checkup pre-my-most-recent-baby, the nurse asked me about my exercise routine. “I chase after a 10 month old who walks,” I told her.
“We’ll put down ‘vigorous aerobic workouts’,” she said, smiling.
Now add kid number 2 and I weigh less than I did when I got married. Of course, I’m a SAHM and I’ve only got the two kids, and breastfeeding has burned calories along with the monstrously huge laundry detail that I’ve been assigned. Worrkout? HA!
Oh, and everyone knows that if you leave toys alone at night, they breed like rabbits on sugar.
When I went in for my checkup pre-my-most-recent-baby, the nurse asked me about my exercise routine. “I chase after a 10 month old who walks,” I told her.
“We’ll put down ‘vigorous aerobic workouts’,” she said, smiling.
Now add kid number 2 and I weigh less than I did when I got married. Of course, I’m a SAHM and I’ve only got the two kids, and breastfeeding has burned calories along with the monstrously huge laundry detail that I’ve been assigned. Workout? HA!
Oh, and everyone knows that if you leave toys alone at night, they breed like rabbits on sugar.
[…] I’m am sooooo healthy! I discussed this further on The BlogFathers site today. I need a vacation. Genuine | 10:16 am | The Genuine Life, Genuine Toddler « Just Another Car Wreck […]
OMG. And I thought we had it bad with one. Try to stay well!
[…] Fat boy on a diet, don’t try it We Interrupt Your Health To Bring You Kids […]
Ohhh sounds like hard work. Must be tough to stay with that demanding schedule. I must be spoileed. If I don’t get in four workouts a week and tons of free time I go nuts. And I still help out a lot at home and with our son. Of course I only have one child and another on the way so the situation is different. I value time off from work, free time, hobbies,time with my son, staying in shape, and time with the wife highly and I will try to keep it this way. If I will succeed is of course another story. I was thinking of having another child after addition number two this summer but perhaps I should think again…..
Best of luck and hope that you get some relaxing and personal (without work) time for yourself soon.
Have a nice weekend
AD
The image of falling on the sword is an oh-so-appropriate one, invoking (intentionally?) the classic metaphor of self-sacrifice by falling on one’s own sword, but kind of funny and sad being that the sword onto which you fall is the plastic one on the floor of your kid’s room.
It’s probably just a phase.
As Homer would say “It’s Funny Because it’s True… heh heh heh, D’oh”
I want mp3 player. What will advise?
Yeah, I am feeling it too. Just got back from vacation in sunny Fla. and saw the pictures… Yikes! I only have three kids, so I set the alarm for 5:30 this morning and took myself for my first jog in four years. It has to be done!
Yikes! You don’t really get two hours of sleep a night, do you?
And here I am whining about only getting five.