The Road So Far
(To anyone now singing "Carry On Wayward Sons", you're welcome.)
The kids and I have one Make Something Monday and Take a Trip Tuesday under our belt. They were good days. The weather was gorgeous, the kids were (mostly) well behaved, missions were accomplished. Cue my evil genius laugh and steepled-finger tapping.
Well. Except. You know how I have all these plans? Do you know what happens to plans in the movies? THE SAME EXACT THING AS REAL LIFE.
I can't get into a whole lot of detail about the thing we made on Monday, but it involved me needing my camera to make a movie. My camera, in turn, needs a memory card. I, in turn, need a lobotomy to remember to check that my memory card is actually in my camera. What with me being lobotomy-less, I loaded my children into the car and drove 20 minutes to this gorgeous, perfect-light filled location on top of a mountain overlooking a valley on a cloudless day...for no @&%$ing reason.
But I was cool about it. I was all, "We've got plenty of time, no big deal. We'll just soak in the view, ease on back home, get the card, find a nice location around our house that won't be as visually stunning but also doesn't involve me strapping and unstrapping a five-point harness again. Whatev. No big."
We load back in the car and as we pull into the driveway, the 6-year-old yelps, "MY CAMERA CASE. I LEFT IT ON THE MOUNTAIN." We are now feeling a sense of urgency. I make him check all around the car just in case, to no avail, so I try yet again to be cool. I'll have to load and unload children again and tolerate 20 solid minutes of interrogation about how I can forget things if I'm a grown up, but it'll be okay because I'll have the memory card this time and we'll have that nice location after all. I run in, we do the whole everyone-taking-a-half-life-to-pee-and-refill-cups-and-pick-a-new-toy-for-the-same-effing-ride dance, then AFTER I get the 4-year-old strapped back in, the 6-year-old, who has up until this point been trying to figure out the best way to climb into the car with a 50 pound backpack full of books for a 20 minute car ride, cries out, "Oh, hey! Here it is!" You know. In the car. Where I told him to look.
Of. Course.
So I unstrap the 4-year-old yet again and we stick with plan B, which is to hike up the little mountain behind our house and do our project at the top of the field. As we're hiking, and above the 4-year-old's insistence that walking is SO HARD and when were we going to take a breeeeeeeeeeak and by break I should probably be clear he meant lying down in the dirt to play Hot Wheels for no less than half an hour, I suddenly realize I can hear the construction crew at the neighbor's house building the new garage. Like, really clearly. This obviously was not going to work too well with the whole audio part of the movie we were making, so I made an executive decision that we should go all the way around the top of the field so some of the mountain would be between us and the construction. Total distance is maybe half a mile. I feel like I don't need to go into a lot of detail about how impressed the 4-year-old was about this.
We did make it to a good location within this century, however, and I had the kids sit so I can check the lighting. So they did. About a foot in front of a deer who called BS on the whole affair and took off like she'd been shot out of a rocket launcher.
After that, however, it was smooth sailing, project complete, all children survived the physical exertion, and I got bonus three thousand something steps on my FitBit for climbing up and down the hill for all this crap.
AND SPEAKING OF MY FITBIT AND STEPS AND CRAP.
Do you know what you should never do when you're going full-time SAHM? Diet. And I'm not dieting. Well. I'm not calling it a diet. Me and LL Cool J know how it is. I'm calling it "portion reduction with boredom-induced snacking elimination". I also signed a blood oath into the cult of fitness tracking wearers and got a FitBit One (which is about the size of a thumb drive and hooks to my bra, so I get to forget about it except for the parts where I check the app for info on my activity like an obsessed hyena, as though I've checked out of my body entirely and didn't know I just walked from the bathroom to the kitchen).
ANYWAY. I've been don't-call-it-a-dieting and increasing my exercise for a little over a month and it's worked really well. I'm chuffed and have lost weight (mostly in my boobs and fingers, neither of which really needed weight loss, so I'm going to have to have a long discussion with my thighs about how it's okay if they cut in line) and have more energy and blah blah blah, positivity.
Until today. I took the kids to an aviary and conservatory and we did somewhere around four and a half hours of walking. (Sidebar: the 4-year-old had ZERO problems whatsoever walking for four-plus hours, but 10 minutes up the damn hill and he was writing up his last will and testament. JUST FOR THE RECORD.) For half of that, I was wearing a bag with an across-the-chest strap because we carried our lunches into the aviary for a picnic. I was trying to be healthy and financially responsible. I WAS BEING GOOD.
FitBit did not care about my goodness. It only knew it was being smothered by the stupid bag strap and refused, refused, to log my steps as a result. So when we get into the car to head home at the end of all this, I'm already planning how many cheesecakes I can eat for dinner. I'm all smug and confident and I know I've surpassed, like, 20,000 steps.
Nope. I hadn't even hit my regular goal (which is not high, by the way; it's the absolute least I can get away with setting as a goal without being totally shamefaced). Lack of caloric intake up to that point (stupid effing healthy packed lunch) and walking for four and a half hours with two kids who are not physically capable of occupying a vector on the same plane, let alone in the same direction, added to the overwhelming disappointment over being cheesecake-blocked sent me over the edge. Never mind a more rational person would understand she could just eat a decent meal anyway, clearly there was much walking and health-consiencing up to that point. NEVER MIND THAT AT ALL.
I will go ahead and apologize deeply to the good people of Pittsburgh for the horrible things I said about those of you who were on the roadways around 4:00 p.m. It wasn't your fault. It was my thighs. And the tiny computer on my chest. And my questionable emotional stability. I love your city. You're good people. I just need to readdress my my charts upon charts of planning for this summer to include NOT forgetting necessary equipment and add reminders to always carry an emergency Snickers.
The kids and I have one Make Something Monday and Take a Trip Tuesday under our belt. They were good days. The weather was gorgeous, the kids were (mostly) well behaved, missions were accomplished. Cue my evil genius laugh and steepled-finger tapping.
Well. Except. You know how I have all these plans? Do you know what happens to plans in the movies? THE SAME EXACT THING AS REAL LIFE.
I can't get into a whole lot of detail about the thing we made on Monday, but it involved me needing my camera to make a movie. My camera, in turn, needs a memory card. I, in turn, need a lobotomy to remember to check that my memory card is actually in my camera. What with me being lobotomy-less, I loaded my children into the car and drove 20 minutes to this gorgeous, perfect-light filled location on top of a mountain overlooking a valley on a cloudless day...for no @&%$ing reason.
But I was cool about it. I was all, "We've got plenty of time, no big deal. We'll just soak in the view, ease on back home, get the card, find a nice location around our house that won't be as visually stunning but also doesn't involve me strapping and unstrapping a five-point harness again. Whatev. No big."
We load back in the car and as we pull into the driveway, the 6-year-old yelps, "MY CAMERA CASE. I LEFT IT ON THE MOUNTAIN." We are now feeling a sense of urgency. I make him check all around the car just in case, to no avail, so I try yet again to be cool. I'll have to load and unload children again and tolerate 20 solid minutes of interrogation about how I can forget things if I'm a grown up, but it'll be okay because I'll have the memory card this time and we'll have that nice location after all. I run in, we do the whole everyone-taking-a-half-life-to-pee-and-refill-cups-and-pick-a-new-toy-for-the-same-effing-ride dance, then AFTER I get the 4-year-old strapped back in, the 6-year-old, who has up until this point been trying to figure out the best way to climb into the car with a 50 pound backpack full of books for a 20 minute car ride, cries out, "Oh, hey! Here it is!" You know. In the car. Where I told him to look.
Of. Course.
So I unstrap the 4-year-old yet again and we stick with plan B, which is to hike up the little mountain behind our house and do our project at the top of the field. As we're hiking, and above the 4-year-old's insistence that walking is SO HARD and when were we going to take a breeeeeeeeeeak and by break I should probably be clear he meant lying down in the dirt to play Hot Wheels for no less than half an hour, I suddenly realize I can hear the construction crew at the neighbor's house building the new garage. Like, really clearly. This obviously was not going to work too well with the whole audio part of the movie we were making, so I made an executive decision that we should go all the way around the top of the field so some of the mountain would be between us and the construction. Total distance is maybe half a mile. I feel like I don't need to go into a lot of detail about how impressed the 4-year-old was about this.
We did make it to a good location within this century, however, and I had the kids sit so I can check the lighting. So they did. About a foot in front of a deer who called BS on the whole affair and took off like she'd been shot out of a rocket launcher.
 |
| Please note that my kids cannot even find a deer THEY ALMOST SAT ON. |
After that, however, it was smooth sailing, project complete, all children survived the physical exertion, and I got bonus three thousand something steps on my FitBit for climbing up and down the hill for all this crap.
AND SPEAKING OF MY FITBIT AND STEPS AND CRAP.
Do you know what you should never do when you're going full-time SAHM? Diet. And I'm not dieting. Well. I'm not calling it a diet. Me and LL Cool J know how it is. I'm calling it "portion reduction with boredom-induced snacking elimination". I also signed a blood oath into the cult of fitness tracking wearers and got a FitBit One (which is about the size of a thumb drive and hooks to my bra, so I get to forget about it except for the parts where I check the app for info on my activity like an obsessed hyena, as though I've checked out of my body entirely and didn't know I just walked from the bathroom to the kitchen).
ANYWAY. I've been don't-call-it-a-dieting and increasing my exercise for a little over a month and it's worked really well. I'm chuffed and have lost weight (mostly in my boobs and fingers, neither of which really needed weight loss, so I'm going to have to have a long discussion with my thighs about how it's okay if they cut in line) and have more energy and blah blah blah, positivity.
Until today. I took the kids to an aviary and conservatory and we did somewhere around four and a half hours of walking. (Sidebar: the 4-year-old had ZERO problems whatsoever walking for four-plus hours, but 10 minutes up the damn hill and he was writing up his last will and testament. JUST FOR THE RECORD.) For half of that, I was wearing a bag with an across-the-chest strap because we carried our lunches into the aviary for a picnic. I was trying to be healthy and financially responsible. I WAS BEING GOOD.
FitBit did not care about my goodness. It only knew it was being smothered by the stupid bag strap and refused, refused, to log my steps as a result. So when we get into the car to head home at the end of all this, I'm already planning how many cheesecakes I can eat for dinner. I'm all smug and confident and I know I've surpassed, like, 20,000 steps.
Nope. I hadn't even hit my regular goal (which is not high, by the way; it's the absolute least I can get away with setting as a goal without being totally shamefaced). Lack of caloric intake up to that point (stupid effing healthy packed lunch) and walking for four and a half hours with two kids who are not physically capable of occupying a vector on the same plane, let alone in the same direction, added to the overwhelming disappointment over being cheesecake-blocked sent me over the edge. Never mind a more rational person would understand she could just eat a decent meal anyway, clearly there was much walking and health-consiencing up to that point. NEVER MIND THAT AT ALL.
I will go ahead and apologize deeply to the good people of Pittsburgh for the horrible things I said about those of you who were on the roadways around 4:00 p.m. It wasn't your fault. It was my thighs. And the tiny computer on my chest. And my questionable emotional stability. I love your city. You're good people. I just need to readdress my my charts upon charts of planning for this summer to include NOT forgetting necessary equipment and add reminders to always carry an emergency Snickers.
 |
| Do you know what this butterfly is eating? ANYTHING IT WANTS. It is my hero. |
Did the kids like the aviary? I LOVE Pittsburgh.
ReplyDeleteThe 6-year-old walked in the door, saw the Stellar's Sea Eagle, sucked all the oxygen out of the room and threw his arms around me, yelling, "THANK YOU!" So I think so?
DeleteI feel like you may be completely off base. Pittsburgh makes Mos Eisley look appealing. One of my dad's biggest regrets is that we did not write down the lyrics to our excellent song, circa 1992, about how much we hate Pittsburgh.I say blame them for fit bit not working, as well as for their hideous driving.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I had my GPS crap out the time Heath led us on a gentle hike into a canyon that turned into a 4.5 nightmare trying to climb back out. So I totally feel you on being cheated out of activit y points.
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