Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The best laid plans

As I mentioned before, the hubby is still out of town (he'll be back on Saturday, and not a moment too soon!) and it's been really challenging to get time to run while he's been away.  I didn't realize just how convenient that getting up at 5am to run routine really was.  The first issue is that my gym's daycare options SUCK (Urban Active Pittsburgh, I'm talking to you!).  They are closed from 2-4pm Monday through Thursday and 12-4pm on Friday.  This is ridiculous because that's the time of day I could actually really use the gym and make the most of my time!  If they were open during that time, I could pick Elliot up from preschool at 1pm, drop him and Charlie at the childcare (where Charlie would nap and Elliot would play with the cars) and do my 8 miles, or whatever, get showered, and have plenty of time to get Oliver from school at 3:50.  That time between Elliot's pickup and Oliver's is absolutely dead time because of Charlie's nap, it would be the perfect time during the day to run.  But can I?  Nope.  Because my gym's daycare hours suck.

In an effort to overcome this difficulty, I decided on Monday that we'd go to the gym at 4pm after picking Oliver up from school and I'd do my 8 miles on the treadmill, then we'd either grab dinner out or whip something up quickly at home.  I figured we'd be home around 6pm.  Well, it too longer than I thought to get us checked in and everything (it should be a newsflash to no one that 4pm is a busy time at the gym, and I should have anticipated this), I misplaced my phone in the changing room and had to track it down, and the 4 miles into my 8 miler I got a call from the childcare that Charlie was freaking out, so I cut it short, showered and went down to get him.  Since it was so late in the day, I had packed a bag of snacks for the kiddos, which the childcare staff totally forgot I brought, so my children were absolutely losing it because they were hungry, poor things.  So I took everyone home, all three of them crying, Oliver in low blood sugar induced hysteria, and realized that there really was no part of that plan that had been a good idea.  So lesson learned, 4pm at the gym is not a good time for a whole bunch of reasons.

I was going to try to go this morning, since the older two kiddos would be at school, but then I ran into problem number two - my kids keep getting sick.  Oliver said his belly hurt, so I agreed to let him stay home since he said it hurt "so bad" and was crying and upset, the whole nine yards.  Now he *IS* a pretty sensitive soul and prone to overreaction, so I made a rookie mistake and let him stay home even though he really didn't seem that sick (I think he just had some gas).  I didn't want to drop him at the childcare if he was sick (obviously), but I did make him come to Target with me to get some new shoes for Charlie, where he proceeded to *skip* through the aisles and pitch a hissy fit in the Lego aisle when I wouldn't buy him the 12 different things he asked for.  At that point I decided he was probably fine, so I signed him into school late.  Yup, I'm *that* mom.  But I'd already missed my chance to run since the stupid childcare closes so early, so today is a wash, too.  This means either I'll have to talk my mom into hanging out at my house after I put the kids to bed so that I can go to the gym and do my hamster on a wheel routine, or I'll have to skip pilates tomorrow so that I can run instead.  And that'll only work if everyone stays healthy!  Let's not forget that I've got my old annoying cold that I'm fighting, but since mom's don't get to be sick, I'm choosing to ignore it for now.

That's a whole lot about my kids and not a whole lot about running, which seems pretty appropriate given how the week has been shaking out.

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