Today was hot hot hot out. I found this out the hard way, when I was pulling the LP in the ninky nonk (you may call it a wagon...they prefer the term "ninky nonk"). I think I'm going to create a series of DVD workouts for moms. The first one will be called "Guns of Steel in Just One Year" and will focus exclusively on arms. Take a look at a mother with young kids sometime. Check out her arms. Chances are, she's got some muscle on them. Do you know why? BECAUSE NEARLY EVERYTHING WE DO RELIES ON THE ARMS. And my future award-winning, multi-million-dollar-generating fitness DVD empire will reflect that. It all starts in Labour and Delivery, when you warm up the arms by gripping anything readily available to help you push. Once the baby is here, you will use every muscle in your arms to haul their carseat bucket around for the first few months of his or her life. If you don't think this is a workout, please, come over and spend some time lifting it into and out of the car, carrying it through stores and up a flight of stairs to the doctor's office and then tell me how your arms are feeling. After you have mastered the art of carrying the bucket, two bags of groceries and a toddler on your hip while talking on your cell phone as you attempt to open the front door, you graduate to child carrying and rocking. This is the stage where the child cannot yet walk and may have some separation anxiety, so you resort to carrying him/her around because leaving the child unattended will probably result in something in your house being destroyed and/or harming the baby. Again, if you don't believe me, spend a day carrying a 20 pound baby around. Unless you have normally carry small children and therefore have Baby Arm, you will be sore. For cross training, take the stroller out for a spin and load it up with things that make it heavier to push. If you need some extra training, work on getting the stroller up and down curbs or down flights of stairs. When that gets easy, put the child and his or her sibling in the ninky nonk and go for a walk. Even if you go at a snail pace, pulling nearly 50 pounds of children behind you is definitely going to help those arms. Finally, once you have mastered all of these moves, you will graduate to dual carrying. This is where both children want to be picked up and the same time and ferried to their destination. When you have mastered this, you will have Guns of Steel. In just one year! Sure, the rest of you may sag and bag but your arms will be the talk of the town. You'll be able to wear tank tops or spaghetti straps with ease! Just buy an A-line skirt and hide the rest. No need to thank me. I'll be somewhere tropical, paying minions to carry my children around.
As you may have guessed, I came up with my brilliant DVD idea whilst pulling the LP in the ninky nonk. I had forgotten a few things in my errand-running yesterday, so I decided we would walk to a nearby store to pick them up. This would be the longest ride both LP have had in the ninky nonk. I debated about putting them in the stroller instead but I wanted a chance to see what worked better for them. As it turns out, the wagon was a good choice (and not just for helping my arms). The LP face each other when they're sitting in it, there's a compartment for snacks and they have more to look it. We didn't have a single meltdown either, and we were out for quite a while.
We made it to the store and I happily stood in the blast of air conditioning, as I was a sweaty mess. With her usual charm, LP1 had asked if she could have a treat today. She definitely has a way of asking for things so that you don't want to refuse. I agreed that she could have a treat and we settled on chocolate milk. Unfortunately, there was no small carton of chocolate milk in the store we were in. We ventured into the Starbucks next door only to find out that they were currently out of chocolate milk, too. Things were looking bad. I had to act quickly...we crossed the street and went to McDonalds.
It was at this point that I realized the LP were getting hungry. I ordered a chocolate milk for LP1 and two grilled cheese sandwiches. I thought that they would share one and I would have the other. Ding Dong! Guess who was wrong?! Between the two of them, they ate almost all of them, leaving only a few bites for me. Fortunately I can afford to miss out on some grilled cheese. They sat in the ninky nonk and I gave them pieces of grilled cheese to eat. LP2's were obviously much smaller, but he ate them with gusto. He has had bread before and he has had cheese before, but this was his first grilled cheese. It was a hit! The two of them were absolutely adorable, facing each other and eating their lunch. LP1 was making faces and noises that were making her brother laugh. I could tell that they were really enjoying this impromptu lunch. They were looking around at the other kids, sharing food and taking it all in. Their instructor from swimming lessons came in and they were happy to see her. LP2 was giving her big grins as LP1 mentioned that she was NOT wearing her life jacket tomorrow. The instructor introduced the LP to a colleague and mentioned that they were "superstar swimmers". It is always nice to hear your children complimented!
Once lunch was devoured, I gave them some sweet potato puffs and we began the trek home. They handled it very well and were, I think, relieved to get inside where it was cool. I was very proud of the way they behaved during our outing...and impressed with their appetites! I think we're in the middle of another growth spurt for both of them. See, that will be the other selling feature of my DVD. As the baby gets bigger, the weight increases and therefore you get more of a workout. This is a brilliant idea. I won't forget about you - you can say you knew me before I was famous!
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