Paripatetically Speaking

Another reason why I love my new gym: There are clean, fresh-smelling towels rolled into cylinders and piled in pyramids all around the gym floor and locker room. I’m a sucker for presentation.

Last night Nicole and I stayed up to the wee hours of after 9:00 pm to watch the much ballyhooed Britney Spears comeback performance. It was really really….lackluster…. but I thought she looked great, especially for someone who just had two babies in rapid succession. Imagine my surprise this morning when I watched various news programs and every single one of them panned her body and talked about how awful she looked. Were we watching the same performance? It’s bad enough that news programs are devoting time to the Video Music Awards train wrecks, but to use those minutes to pick apart a body? It is ridiculous. Down the road we will wonder why today’s little girls are going to grow up with eating disorders and body image issues. She looked great and looked much better than the many of the stick-thin lollypop-head half-starved women currently in the news, on TV and in the movies.

I know I go to the gym, but for me it is more about endorphins and relieving stress and getting energy to spend a 12-hour day with two babies that need constant attention. It really has nothing to do with fitting into clothes or how I look. Taking care of these girls is exhausting. On mornings that I don’t get to the gum, I find that my day is harder and I’m much more lethargic. So I try to squeeze in a work out. Any little bit helps.

Last night the girls went to bed at an unprecedented 7:00 p.m. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Just when I thought we were in the clear, both began to fuss about an hour later. We managed to soothe them back to sleep. Miracle. It was payback this morning when Avery woke up at 4:45 a.m., wide-eyed and hungry and happy. I fed her and tried to get her to go back to bed, but she was cooing and smiling and generally in no mood to sleep. It was very cute. But it is going to be a long day, since Nicole is at work all day and then has a board meeting at night.

I planned to walk down to Union Square with the girls but the humid air has me reconsidering. Getting around with them is difficult alone. I would take the subway but not all stations have elevators to get me to the train platform. How do people with wheelchairs and canes and walkers get around? It amazes me that this city isn’t handicap accessible. How do subway stations get away with that?

So I end up walking a lot. Last week I walked to my friend’s apartment on the east side. It is about a mile and a half each way. It’s kinda a haul with a baby strapped to you and one in the stroller but I would walk for days and days if the girls liked it unequivocally. Inevitably one baby starts to fuss and it becomes very complex. With a baby bjorned on me I can’t really pick up a fussy stroller passenger. And if the bjorned baby is upset, it is hard to stop and tend to her without causing the baby in the stroller to freak out. With my girls, strollers must NEVER stop moving, even in elevators. Even slowing down could cause a little whimper that will crescendo to a full-on whine should velocity continue to drop. They are picky, these babies.

This was one of those weekends when I don't heart New York. Maybe it was because we spent Saturday at my friend Jen's beautiful house for a BBQ, where there is lots of fresh air and green grass and tall tall trees and bedrooms with walk-in closets bigger than our babies' bedroom. I want space and nature and room to roam and a driveway. I want to walk outside at night and see stars. A washer and dryer in my own home! We know we will move before the girls start kindergarten, and we are not sure where, but we are trying to hold out as long as possible in the city. Nicole's commute is an easy 20-minute walk; if we move out of the city Nicole will be spending much more time commuting, which means much less time with us. If she gets home at 7:00 at night, she will have mere moments before the girls would (idealistically) go to bed. There are plusses and minuses to leaving and staying. All I know is we are staying put right now and spending our weekends getting away from the city as much as possible.

Pictured above are us and them at the my friend Jen’s weekend BBQ. Below is Auntie Annie with a sleeping Avery at said BBQ. The great outdoors and fresh air are good for the girls, and me.