If it weren't for these meddling kids

While nursing, which I did for nearly three of the last five years, I am blessed with the metabolism of a supermodel. Only instead of subsisting on Evian and cigarettes, I eat whatever I want, and lots of it, on a schedule approximating that of the baby I'm nourishing--which is to say, every three hours at minimum, all while slimming down to the skinniest I've been since high school.

What's unfortunate is that when the nursing stops, I really need to step away from the trough. It takes awhile for that to sink in to whatever feed me Seymour section of my brain has been driving my appetite.

So, between the fact that my go-to jeans are pretty much gone from my wardrobe, and that my health-nut family shamed me into submission during their recent visit (simply by example--not, thankfully, by snide comments) my New Year's resolution was to get off my lazy butt and try to fit some more exercise into my life. (That, and lay off the weekly chocolate-chip scones for breakfast.) Now that knocking furiously we can usually count on Opie to sleep through the night, since he is almost two years old fergodssake, I decided that it would not be such a hardship to get up a half-hour early every day and put in 20-30 minutes of exercise. I found a couple of quick workout routines in a magazine--one strength, one yoga--and planned to alternate those with walking on the treadmill. In the spring, I can swap the treadmill for walking outside with the dog and/or taking the kids to daycare in the bike trailer.

Two weeks in, how'm I doing? Lousy. I've followed this plan maybe twice in 9 weekdays. The first few days of the year, I was recuperating from the fact that I stayed up until 5 a.m. on New Year's Eve, only partly due to an actual party (the rest, of course, being due to the toddler). Twice this week, I did get up and start working out--for about 45 seconds before a child woke up and interrupted me. These kids have not darkened our door before 7 a.m. for months--yes, it takes forever for Opie to go to sleep at night and he still has the occasional night waking, or the two weeks straight of being up from 10 p.m. to midnight, but the good news is he sleeps late, and so does his sister.

But of course they just knew that I was counting on that fact, didn't they? Too damn smart for my own good. Oh, and along the way somehow Jo acquired an understanding of the term "muffin top." And she knows how to use it.

I guess you know what I'll be doing this weekend.

Saturday morning update (or, "You'll get a toddler bed when Al Gore's Tennessee swimming pool freezes over"): Proving that he's read both the Toddler Handbook and this blog, Opie woke up during the wee hours last night. Twice.