Exercise

I have no idea how it has taken me so long to cover this jewel in the crown of beloved motherhood experiences. I know, you're probably already giggling (or crying - sorry) at recounting all your own Crazy Town experiences while you try to dance away the unpleasantly redistributed materials left over from giving birth.  Josh and I have recently re-stepped up our workout game; we have started an intense at-home fitness regimen with crazy 40 minute videos to follow. As you know, completing this at top notch is not easy with at least two out of the three ragamuffins coaching me on to success. The guy on the video shouts instructions as to how to properly perform each exercise: "Move to where you're uncomfortable!" Well, Mr. Beachbody, while I'm muddling through these 74,000 pushups, I've got one poopy-diapered child trying to sit on my face while the other attempts to steamroll her sister with an enormous stability ball. I may not be great at most of the stuff in this workout, but I'm pretty sure I've got the market cornered on uncomfortable.
From time to time, I will mix things up and teach workouts at my church for fellow sailors on the Moms Who Are Trying to Figure Out How to Get Anything Besides Poop Done ship. We do this in the morning, which means our children are with us, which means this is ever an exciting event. There are rare beautiful days where I go teach these classes and everything is smooth and wonderful and we are all sweaty and happy and then we ride our unicorns home. More often than not, however, things go as they did today. We swing into the parking lot at least 10 minutes late, because digging through the clean but perpetually unfolded laundry basket to find something half decent for the offspring to wear and then tossing them granola-bar-faced and raggedy-headed into the car with hopefully a right and a left shoe of any sort on their feet, always takes longer than I imagine. I get the kids out of the car and let them run around on the sidewalk while I gather my belongings. They really like this because, of course, there are sprinklers running, sprinkling my wrinkly children with happy drops. I am beginning to get concerned at this point, because I cannot find the cord to my speaker system, which was right in the car only a few hours earlier. The other class participants are ever patient and kind (bless them) and come out to help herd my orphans into the building. Now I am really sort of worried, because underneath the crunchy cookies, old water bottles, and thirty five jackets that seem to be our car's emergency storage, there is absolutely no sign of this wretched cord. I cannot find it. It is just nowhere.
I enter the church to break the bad news and the other ladies come to the rescue, jerry-rigging a system that is at least passable, so we can still get our now-25-minutes-late workout in. We begin and my kids unleash an impressive showing of their truly terrible Elliss power. JJ is riding on a cute little push-along car. Felicity decides to help her and smashes her sister into a tower of stacking chairs. I help up JJ, reprimand Felicity and go back to it. Felicity then knocks JJ completely off the car, face-splatting the poor one-year old onto the gym floor. Still trying to properly maintain the Zumba sexy and take care of all this, we relegate the car to the stage, where hopefully no one can reach it. Felicity (who was really on a roll) climbs on the stage and makes a solid attempt at driving that car right off the edge. If it wasn't for some fleet-footed ladies at the class today who caught her on her way down, she would have done the same face-splat her sister had barely completed. Oh my heck.
So the workout goes on, with the kids emptying out my entire purse off the stage and on to the floor, running the halls, and attempting to start a basketball game in the middle of our dance area. JJ is crying, runny-nosed, and so tired. She's trying to run underneath my legs like some terrible version of London Bridge. I leaped gracefully over her a time or two, but the morning caught up to me and as I tried to the next time, I nearly scalped her with the inside of my leg. She didn't like that very much, so I spent the entire cool down song with her curled in my arms. Cute, right?
They're not always full-on naughty. Sometimes they're just them. Both girls love to come dance in the exact spot on the floor that I am dancing. JJ, without fail, will hijack the step I am using and begin tap dancing on it. She doesn't want another one, immediately to the side; only mine will do. Felicity comes out to sing the song's words and do the arm movements. Judsen will run up from time to time to ask if he can have fruit snacks or if we can listen to his favorite rock star song five more times in a row. Two of JJ's great firsts came while trying to lead these poor, wonderful ladies in a workout. The first time she ever pulled herself to standing was on a step that I was currently using to teach a variation of hamstring curls. The first time she ever walked was chasing a push-toy around that church gym and through my legs while I attempted to execute a shuffle mamba pivot.
Oy. At home, they sit on Josh as he does pushups, turning his exercise session into a bull-riding rodeo. They perch on his chest, feet, and face (remember, there are three of them) as he does abdominal work. JJ will just randomly lay down flat right under his feet, increasing the plyometric demand of any workout because he has to watch for her and then jump at the exact right moment to avoid trampling his impish, giggling daughter.
I call this workout philosophy Body by Baby. Your body has babies and then its most consistent form of exercise is babies. And you end up with a few extra lumps and curves but also happy kids and the opportunity to decide that giving up your six-pack for a few years is probably worth it.