Selfish

I've discovered that staying in shape requires a certain degree of selfishness, especially as a mom. Everybody in a mom's world wants her time--kids, husband, PTA, Scouts, the people she wants to hang out with--and staying in shape requires her to put herself first. Good for me, I'm plenty selfish enough to get my work out time in. My priorities keep karate at the very top, and then sleep and family is somewhere under that.

I have discovered in my 11+ years of being a mom that I'm not really very good at taking care of anybody else if I haven't taken care of myself first. I have no problem telling my kids they can't do something if it will interfere with time I need for myself. Working out helps keep me centered and mellow, it helps kick pms in the butt and it helps me feel sexy.

I know some ultra self-sacrificing moms who put all of the activities that their kids want to do first, and then the husband and house next, and their personal time ends up somewhere down past the middle of their list. Not me, ever.

So today I got some time in with Carl. I could give you details on the workout, talk gym lingo like machines and weight and reps, but that won't truly give you an idea of what kind of workout it was.

So I'll let you know about my shower.

I turned the hot water on just fine. It's one of life's fortunes that tub faucets are generally below the waist and you can reach them by letting your arms dangle downward. So far so good. I got in the shower and it felt great because I was sweaty.

And then I tried to wash my hair.

During shampooing, I had to let my arms down for a break. They refused to stay anywhere above the elbow for longer than ten seconds. We did an upper body workout today, and I was a little worried about being too tired to hold my baby girl, or whip up a snazzy healthy dinner, but it never occurred to me that pumping iron would make it so hard to wash my hair. So after a bit I decided that it was clean enough and just stood in the hot water for awhile.

I still think Carl is a great guy. I might change my mind tomorrow after I wake up and try to lift my arms the day after a workout.

The bummer part about today is that, looking in the mirrors in the gym, I have a little less vertical and a little more horizontal than I thought. Oh, and I've carried on my affair with diet Coke. Not a lot, but still cheating on my goddess-body-in-waiting with the carbonation. Good news is that I only had one can today. One, even though 3:00 hit and I reallyreallyreallyreallyreally wanted another one. Pat myself on the back.