Burn, Baby, Burn!"

Hi. Ya'll know my name, and my last cookies were at 1:00 p.m. Yeah. All four of them. Why do I think that one of my weekly commitments is going to have to do with cookies very soon . . .

I'm also eventually going to have to step on a scale and resign myself to spending the only quiet hour and a half of my day to burning off my ample behind and then showering, because burning calories inevitably causes one to sweat like a swine in a sauna. As I said, "Burn, Baby, Burn!"

So, before future weeks of joyous weight loss sweep over me in happy waves (please, note sarcasm), I have to whine just a little bit. The female metabolism is one of the great injustices of the cosmos. I mean, I'm a mom, right? I get up at 6:30 most mornings--earlier when my three year old shows up at my bedside, shoves my glasses in my face, and announces that he wants to watch cartoons, or that he can't to go to the bathroom alone because it's dark, or that he needs me to close his closet door because a giant pair of gold fingernail clippers is trying to pinch him.

After that, I don't stop running. Your familiar with my daily climb up Mount St. Dishmore. Let me tell you about the rest of my work out. I do bicep curls every time I pick up a crying child, put a baby on the changing table, or lift a hungry mouth into a high chair. I do work abs every time I give way to persistent pleas for horsey rides. I work those triceps and calves every time I work a top shelf for my multivitamin, baby tylenol, cleaning products, cereal, goldfish crackers, and the list goes on.

And then there's my varied work out--the walks up and down our street, jogging to keep up with a running toddler while pushing a stroller, pulling a wagon, and somehow managing to hold the dog's leash too. There's the millions of times I get up from the table when I've almost got my fork in my mouth (but not quite), not to mention the sweeping, the scrubbing, the vacuuming, the laundry-hauling, and--on rare days like today--climbing up on the roof and wrapping my chimney in old vinyl table clothes, so the torrential rains expected tomorrow do not end up on my basement floor.

By the time I put my kids to bed, I feel like I've done enough. Surely, I've burned off today's calories--maybe yesterday's too--maybe even a little of last week's. So forgive me. Please forgive me if I feel like just a little bit annoyed, miffed, and otherwise disgruntled--that in that quiet moment that finally comes about 8:01 p.m., I am supposed to turn on an exercise video and huff and puff alongside some woman who probably couldn't keep up with me on an average day anyway.

If you're sensing righteous indignation, yep, you're right on. But. As our parents were so good to remind us so often as children, life ain't fair, them's the breaks, suck it up Marine, etc. Come January 4, my commitment of the week, will have something to do with exercise, and for the sake of positive mental energy, I shall do my best to decease with the whining. I will put on my baggies (or at least I hope they're baggy eventually), I will exercise my index finger, and I will push the button on my DVD player. And later, when my poor body falls like a piece of soggy celery onto the bed, and my jaw spreads itself across the pillow like that of a knocked out boxer, I shall mutter to the Sandman: "Burn, baby, burn . . ."