Blogging from the treadmill on a phone is not as easy as you’d think! This week started my “oh shit I’m thirty next year and still treat my body like a teenager” overhaul, version 3562! This is my second trip to the gym this week, go me! And apart from eating 2 slices of The Husbands pizza, one slice of The Sons and half a (share size…) bag of lime Doritos last night, I’m doing well on the diet! The Daughters pizza was safe, mainly because she knows better than to leave her pizza unattended when I’m in the room!
So enough of the exclamation points and shock at my own resolve, moving swiftly on to the static bike. I’d have blogged from the cross trainer if it wasn’t for my hideous lack of coordination on the thing … Think spider on roller skates, a la Hary Potter and you’re about there.
I’ve always cherished my children, and have never consciously taken them for granted. I admit, like most parents there are days when I hold up Bed Time like some kind of demi-god, and think that Out To Play should be prescribed to all parents on the NHS, and maybe I’m a little quicker with my temper than ideal, my patience shorter than I’d like and occasionally I sound like I’ve swallowed my mother, tripping out phrases (such as “because I said so) that I swore up and down I’d never use. But I’m human. Right?
Or maybe, without noticing because the change has been so gradual, I do (just a teeny bit) take them for granted. My blossoming friendship with Mrs Recipient has stirred something inside me. Sorry boys, put away your lesbian fantasies, I’m talking about all-out singing and dancing Appreciation For What I Have. I have 2 healthy, happy, intelligent, precocious, inquisitive, strong willed, funny as hell BEAUTIFUL children. And I didn’t even have to work hard to get them. No money was spent in the pursuit of the blue line on a test. I fell pregnant on my first cycle. How damn lucky am i?! I see Mrs Recipient nervous as hell on car journeys to that clinic, so desperate in her need for a swelling belly, an infant suckling at her breast, and think “there but for the grace of god”. It was so easy for me. Too easy, perhaps.
My decision to live better is coming from appreciation for my kids, and wanting to be with them as long as I can be, and as well as I can be. I’ll be taking lots of deep breaths, because I WILL exercise more patience, I WILL appreciate their strong wills and personalities when we butt heads, and I WILL cherish every moment with them, even if it leaves me exhausted and collapsed in a heap in the corner.
On the way to the very first appointment, Mrs Recipient told me I don’t know what this means to her. My reply?
I do, because I know how much my kids mean to me.