hello, body. it's me, the lady who steers you around.

today marked my first time back in the gym since the baby doctor told me to lay off exercising. I was honestly nervous, not of working out again - okay, I was a LITTLE nervous about that - but mostly of leaving little M down in the kid's area. what if she screamed the whole time? what if she caught something from the other kids?? as it turned out, the new kid's zone down there is flipping awesome, and the little babies and toddlers have their own separate area full of wonderful swings and things. apparently, Miss E put my baby in one of the swings and she slept until I walked back in the door. plus, seeing those ladies and the number of kids they oversee made me think they know what's what and wouldn't be fazed by mine if she cried...

it felt good to move my body again, and today was the first time I really felt how changed it is. my ultimate goal, aside from losing about twelve pounds, is to get back in the habit of enjoying the ritual of caring for my body and eventually feel strong again. there was a totally comedic moment involving an attempt at sit-ups on a stability ball... my abs are so weak and flabby and my balance is so wonky I totally fell off the side of the ball. oh yes, I'm hott that way. so there's lots of room for improvement! we got good groceries at the store last night, so here's to a new week of moving and making better food choices...

speaking of groceries, the baby melted down at Central Market so we went outside while Daddy finished shopping. as I pushed her in her stroller up and down the sidewalk, she'd calm down and then burst out screaming like she was being skinned alive. oh, the looks I got. it was exhausting for both of us. as I fell asleep last night, I had a vision of doing a timeline of my day. the bare bones of it would look something like this:

- wake up, get the baby up, marvel at her
- spend the next number of hours feeding, burping, changing, lugging baby gear around, and putting her down to sleep
- when she doesn't sleep, troubleshoot by trying out various tricks
- when none of them work, listen to her scream in my ear while I robotically murmur 'I know, I know, it's okay, it's okay...'
- when she does nap, hastily do some laundry/load the dishwasher/take a bath/mindlessly surf the 'net/think about the calls I need to make/cards I need to write/magazines and books I'd like to read/zone out
- by 6p when M comes home, pass her off for awhile and plot the order of feedings/baths/etc. to get her to bed for the night
- maybe get her to bed smoothly, maybe not.
- creep in multiple times to look at her when she's finally asleep to make sure she's breathing and isn't too cold (since she likes to kick out of the blanket). marvel at how long she looks to me now. which makes me want to cry and stop time.

we've been trying to introduce her to a variety of music since she was in utero, but here are a couple of recent clips... these were both taken this weekend as we were setting up our new fun music storage in the den (and ultimately getting rid of the brown wooden shelves):



-m.y.