Queen of Rambles

All those hours spent on the elliptical, fake jogging my ass off, going absolutely no where, have finally paid off. I have endurance. I can run! My boobs may flop and my Birkies may skid around on my feet, but I can manage to go more than ten feet without dying an embarrassing fat lady death. I don’t want to die a fat lady. I don’t want the morgue guys making fun of me.

Tonight Erik got excited about swim time, but then he refused to swim. Instead, he wanted to run around with his ball tucked into his baby stroller. It had to be tucked in just so, with the sun blocker wrapped down and around the ball. He didn’t want to play with the ball, just push it around.

He was content to do this for what felt like hours. I had enough time to go in and take a shower while Mike supervised, then I came back out for my turn at supervision duties.

Things fell to pieces when he decided to get adventurous and carry the stroller down a flight of stairs and into the parking lot. Suddenly pushing the stroller was no longer good enough for him. Nothing would do put to throw the ball into the parking lot. Fun times!

We do not allow him to play in the parking lot, though I can already foresee the day when I’ll encourage him to go play in the street (joking!). I’d try to distract him by kicking the ball into the grassy areas, but he is a stubborn little thing, just like his father, and refuses to be distracted.

I was getting fed up, so gave the ball a power kick intended to launch it up a hill and waaaaaaaaaaay back into the safe zone. My shoe flew off, the ball hit a tree, and Erik laughed in glee. Instead of landing in the safe zone, the ball zooooooooomed off the tree, back into the parking lot, hit the sloped section, and took off for the end of the road. It was picking up speed, Erik was soaking wet in his swim clothes, and I had to make a decision. Let the ball go all the way to the end? Chase after it? Leave Erik to play alone in the busy parking lot? Grab him and let him get me all wet?

Of course, I would never leave him alone in the parking lot. I fumbled into my shoe, threw his doll stroller out of the way, picked him up and gave chase to the bizarrely fast ball. Seriously, I think there were a trio of naughty invisible elves pushing it as fast as their elfy legs would carry them. I didn’t want to get wet, so I was kind of holding Erik out to the side in a weird football hold as I ran my ass off to get the ball. There will never be a need for us to go to Disneyland. He had more fun running wildly down the road, held precariously while I chased that damned ball, than a spin on the teacups could ever provide.

In the end I should have just calmly proceeded to the very end of the apartment complex because I wasn’t able to catch the ball before it travelled the length of the parking lot. I’m not complaining. In fact, I’m exhilarated. I ran all the way down there, toting a 26 lb toddler, and I didn’t even lose my breath. Those of you who have always been in shape have no idea how HUGE of a deal this is for a fat lady like myself. I may not be losing much weight even though I exercise like a mad woman, but my body appreciates the effort in other ways.

Ta da!

Don’t you love snazzy endings like that?

This entry was posted on Monday, June 25th, 2007 at 9:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.