The Mommy Workout

I often stop and think how much I like the physical side of parenting. I think this even when the paraphernalia of two kids (not to mention the two kids themselves) are weighing on me: I remember the first time I actualized the thought, I was walking home from the playground with Eleri in the baby bjorn on my front; Clio had fallen off her tricycle so I picked her up on my left (a purse or diaper bag was on my right) and pushed the tricycle with my "free" hand. It was hard, but it felt good.

I've never been an athlete; I was more of a reader from a young age, and didn't play on neighborhood league teams or compete in after-school sports. While I did dance through elementary and middle school, the classes were once a week, the performance once a year- more of an artistic hobby than the physical undertaking of, say, serious ballet training. Junior year in high school, I became a cheerleader, and Senior year I became the captain; my favorite part of the whole thing was being a "base" for stunts, literally holding up the smallest girls, tossing them in the air, and being there to catch them when they came back down to earth. After high school I returned to my more intellectual roots, and spent years feeling detached from my body.

Until I found myself (surprise!) pregnant with Clio. It's nearly impossible to be detached from your physical self when pregnant, and for the most part I reveled in it, despite all the drawbacks (oh, the edema! oh, the bedrest!). Thinking of my body as a temple for the first time (easier for me when someone else was there to worship), I went to yoga regularly, ate better than ever in my life (a colleague used to say I was eating a hunter-gathered diet of "nuts and berries" because of the regular stash of almonds and dried apricots I kept from the local organic market), and marveled at the physical feat that women's bodies are built to accomplish.

My body finally became useful. And with kids, so it remains. I take satisfaction in all of it: nursing, changing, carrying, burping, bathing, all the things they need us to do for them until they can do for themselves. I like falling into bed at night exhausted from doing so much tangible work.

There are some pleasant side effects too. 2 weeks after Clio was born, I weighed less than on my wedding day, and by the time she was 6 months old I was down to a weight last seen in Junior High. Even without making it to the gym, and even though I'm actually finding time to feed myself (plenty) this time around, there's just so much to do on a daily basis that burns calories, and lots of 'em. I've been thinking about this for a while, and then this morning I found myself in a situation that sort of literalized the concept of the mommy workout.


As we know, breastfeeding burns about 500 calories a day. Add to this the toddler leg lifts, and I'm sure I burned off the pancake breakfast, hot dog lunch, and extra-steak dinner. Right?