Motherhood: Running with kids at home

I've started running, something I swore I’d never do. Why? I like the way I feel when I roar back into the house in the morning with the taste of sweat in my mouth, my tank sticking to my back, grit on my face and a blue bandana flopping on my head.

And that it's a workout I can do with no babysitter needed. Sure, working out with the children underfoot isn’t ideal. But when they're out of school for the summer, you need to get creative. Here's a few tips for when you want to get exercise done and over without a lot of pre-planning and babysitter procuring:

First, put the kids in a hypnotic state: It's time to relax your rules on Wii playing. I can only run for 30-40 minutes straight. This is barely a good run at Mario Galaxy II. The children will still be arguing over who gets to be Luigi by the time you are done.

Book Excerpt: Birth of son

Here, an excerpt from my novel and work-in-progress:

Her mother had bought her a fluffy red robe with yellow and brown and white kitties embroidered on the sleeves and back. She would wear it as she paced the hospital floors, waiting for her first son to be born. She would wear it later, when the doctor said her baby was sick and they would take him down the hall, without her.

“It’s a boy,” the doctor had said and put the lumpy mess on Lainey’s chest.

And for a few precious seconds she looked down at the child who was not immediately adorable as she’d been promised, and fumbled and cried and tried to figure out what to do with the little boy.

Lainey and her husband touched his skin for the first time and bent in to cup his soft head and squeeze his smashed toes. In their inventory, it took them a moment to realize the room had become quiet. And, in the next moment, frantic.

The baby’s face was turning red, then dark, then blue. Lainey thought this was normal for a moment, a moment when the normalcy of everyday life was replaced by stirrups and IVs and pushing.

But indeed this blue stage wasn’t right, and they scooped the baby away. They saw what she didn’t and took him, without asking and without telling, and did what needed doing.

GTW Editorial: Child's Play

Glorious summer is upon us and that means only one thing: We must re-master working at home with the children as they test the strength of the house’s foundation around us. This is our 8th year of surviving such harrowing times. And these are the ways we get by, especially when the authorities aren’t watching:

Fact: They are bored by Day 3 of summer vacation.
The fix: Shaving cream. Kandy brought this up at a Girls Night Out and was surprised to find it was shocking and ground-breaking.