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A New Groove

I worried about a lot of things while pregnant. In fact, I mastered borrowing worry. My child was going to be colicky - I was certain. So I read books to prepare. Charley's not colicky. According to my sister, she's the most well-behaved baby ever. (That's an overstate, but she is pretty darn good.)

One of my biggest worries was how I'd get my workout groove back. Husband and I had a nice little system pre-baby. We'd alternate gym days with dog walk days and on weekends I'd swim and yoga while he hit the trails. We each got workouts in about five days a week and felt relatively fit.

While pregnant, I wracked my brain to come up with a system that would work with a baby and dog. I'd get up an 4:30am to accommodate exercise. I'd go to the 8pm swim practices. I'd do extra long workouts on the weekends.

Sometimes good intentions remain intentions.

Getting up at 5am gives me time to feed the baby, get ready for work, pump and get baby to day care. Saturday mornings are such a luxury now. Coffee with my husband, Baby C in her sleep sack until 10am, taking Trudy on a long walk. The last thing I want to do is bust ass to the gym and miss this family time.

To my friends with kids, I owe you a huge apology. I remember one friend bemoaning how hard it was to get to the gym with a kid. My callous response was why don't you go after you pick her up from day care?

Really? I told my friend to take her baby who had been in day care all day to put her in a gym day care for another hour afterwords? I would have smacked me.

I race to get C from day care. This is no reflection of the facility, but I can't get her out of there soon enough. Then I get her home and just want to feed her and look at her and sing to her. Leaving her to go to swim practice doesn't even cross my mind.

A friend asked if I'd start training again for triathlons. I laughed. Training for one sport is far-fetching enough. Trying to do three would make my head explode. For now, my sport is composing jingles that make her smile.

Things will eventually change and she won't be so needy. I'll start running with her in the stroller or Husband will put her in the burley. Maybe she'll swim and I'll train while she's at practice. But for now the sport of being a mom is pretty awesome.

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