My schedule’s been driving me crazy lately so I’ve had to make some decisions about what I can and can’t do any more, especially in the area of exercise. I’ve been taking karate classes for years, and I still enjoy it, but with my freelance picking up this past year and with two kids in school, I no longer have the time to spend two days a week in the dojo. When I go, it’s a 3-hour deal – half an hour to get dressed and get over there, two hours of class, and another half hour to come home and change again. I only get 6 hours during the day to work and one of those goes to things like lunch, showering, making phone calls, etc., so going to class for 3 hours pretty much kills my work day. And I’ve had the same problem with taking long bike rides and other physical activities – anything longer than an hour eats into my precious work time.
But I still need to exercise, so what to do?
Exercise at a time when I’m not supposed to be working, of course. But that means exercising when the kids are around, so anything I do will have to include them.
Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t given up exercising on my own. I still go to karate once a week, I still bike a couple hours a week, I still go to water aerobics twice a week. But I need extra work out time, so if I want it, I’m going to have to do it with the kids. To that end, I’ve started doing things like playing outside with them, or gardening in the yard while they ride their bikes and scooters in front of our house. And on Fridays, I take them to the pool at the Y.
This has to be the best part of the whole deal. I’ve been dying to get Pixie into swim lessons. Problem is, she hates taking the lessons. However, if I go in the pool with her, she’s happy as a lark. So rather than fight her over formal lessons, we just go to the pool together and use the open rec area. She’s actually taught herself how to doggy paddle, and I get to bounce around and tread water while she swims from the wall to me and back again. It’s a win-win scenario.
And Princess loves this too. She loves taking swimming lessons, but since she can swim pretty well, she’s not going to complain if we go to the pool just to go to the pool.
I’m still looking at other things we can do together that everyone will enjoy. I do have to be careful about my knees, so things like running races with the kids isn’t an option. But we can garden together, or I can do yardwork and they can play. And we can go on walks together and do other things together. And we can even do some Wii Fit together.
Anyway, that’s what’s going on in the wonderful world of exercise at la casa de Madden. Drop me a line if you can think of anything I could do with the family that I haven’t thought of yet!
