Exercise and the Pumpkin Patch

Last week, Libby and I took a desperate step--we bought an exercise bike. For the past two months, we've been making some effort to be less fat and lazy. Now that Norah is getting older we feel as though we have fewer excuses to NOT be taking better care of ourselves. But it's a tough habit to break. For a little better than a year, we've been growing increasingly accustomed to making Norah-based excuses for not getting out for a walk or jog or whatever.

The biggest excuse has been that we're too tired--and, really, that hasn't changed all that much. Norah still wakes up once or twice a night, and now Gabe is making a habit of not going to sleep until after 10:00 but still getting up between 5:30 and 6:00. But, at this point, it doesn't seem realistic to keep claiming a lack of sleep as an excuse. We've been doing it long enough now that we really shouldn't NEED sleep.

But now, as the days are growing shorter and the time when we could get out for a walk or jog has decreased, we found ourselves with a dilemma: do we try to get some gym memberships, keep getting out for exercise even though it's dark and cold, or get some exercise equipment. We assumed, correctly, I think, that being dark and cold would end up a reliable excuse to not exercise--and gym memberships are expensive, plus they still require us to be motivated enough to travel to a gym, probably in the evening when the kids are settled down (and that seemed like it would end up being a good excuse not to do it as well). So we went with an exercise bike.

Now, sadly, I don't have any good excuses. I'll probably have to start plumbing the depths of bad ones for awhile instead.

Not surprisingly, the addition of a new, fancy-looking piece of exercise equipment to my office caught Gabe's attention and curiosity. Add to that the fact that its readout panel is filled with shiny silver buttons, and you've got the recipe for the greatest distraction Gabe has ever known. Every chance he gets, he climbs up on it and tries to "exercise." Obviously, because he's so small, he can't use the thing properly, but that hasn't stopped him from finding new ways to use it improperly.

Video

I fully expect to find him lying on the floor in a twisted heap because he's gotten his foot stuck in one of the stirrups and can't get it out--and I've been sure to clearly spell out this prediction to him several times so I can say "I told you so" when it actually happens.

OK, shit. I apologize to anyone who has a subscription to this page who keeps getting emails saying I've published a post. Bloggers video upload has been a mess for the last week. It keeps starting to load videos then has some sort of problem that crashes. Last week, if I published the post then came back to try and add the video again, it would do it. Today, it's not uploading anything. So I'll post them on youtube instead, I guess. If I didn't have two years of posts on here, I'd seriously consider finding another service because I've just about had it.

Anyway.

Video

When it became clear that traditional sitting methods weren't going to work out for him, he decided to take an alternate approach. This actually ended up with him standing on the floor with with both of his feet through the stirrups. We had to pick him up and pull him out to free him.

Oh for the love of monkeys. Blogger won't even let me upload pictures now, and without those, discussing yesterday's trip to the pumpkin patch is pointless. Screw it. I'll try again later to get that updated. Stupid technology.