How fit are you?

During Back to School Night last week, the principal was discussing what the school is doing to meet the state standard for physical activity. My kids are very lucky, since not only do they have Gym twice a week (although #2 insists on still calling it Physical Education, I'm sure at the urging of her Napoleon-like gym teacher), but the principal has them run or walk laps around the playground for ten minutes at the beginning of recess. And while I think they are lucky, I'm sure they think all this exercise business is a pain in the ass, as I did in school. And this brought back a memory - The Presidential Physical Fitness Test.

How many of you remember that torture? In my memory, it was only in high school, but it couldn't have been, could it? I'm not even sure they do it anymore and Googling it didn't bring up anything concrete. There were several events and various, embarrassing moments associated with them, that stand out in my mind though - feel free to add to the list in the comments please.

1. Running - There were several runs of different lengths in this category, some long and some short. I sucked at both. While I have become a runner in my thirties, even in high school I was never fast. I'm more of an endurance athlete, let's say. H says it's because I'm stubborn. What probably did not help in high school? The fact that I barely changed my clothes for PE, and wearing an underwire bra, cut-off sweat-shorts and Candies tennis shoes did not set me up to be the next Flo Jo. And the poor fat kid. I would always avert my eyes and try to get involved in some distracting conversation to avoid seeing and hearing people make fun of him as he huffed and puffed around the track. My heart still cries at the memory. Meh.

2. Shuttle Run - If you thought you were humiliated running outside, wait until you have to fling yourself as fast as you can across the gym, bend over to grab an eraser on the floor (did the gym teacher have to borrow those?), quickly change direction and head back to the start to drop the eraser and do it again - twice. Again, my shoes? Not helping. I ran into that particle-board-folding-dividing-wall-thingy more times that I can count.

3. Sit Ups - How many sit ups can you do in a minute? I have no idea, but it has to be more than I could do in high school, as I would have H to hold my feet, and not be crippled by the anxiety that the kid who sits behind me in AP Chem is going to see my undies as I lay on the floor in front of him. Oddly sexual, no? After this particular activity half the student body couldn't walk upright or laugh without excruciating pain.

4. Long Jump - Standing in place, swinging your arms at your sides, jump as far forward as you can. What exactly is this a test of? Your ability to imitate The Million Dollar Man? White girls can't jump! Regardless, my senior year, I almost killed myself trying to get a high enough score on long jump since, getting an %85 average on the PPFT, and playing a varsity sport, got you out of gym for the year! (And, if you must know, it was field hockey and all I did was run away from the ball and try to look cute in my kilt.) Having scored so poorly on the other parts of the test, long jump was my last hope. I even came back during lunch to keep trying to up my score. Eventually, I did and I couldn't walk fora week. Got me out of hockey practice though.

5. The Bar Hang - You fellas might remember this one as Pull Ups. This was my most abysmal performance of the whole test. For the gals, you stand on a chair, holding onto the pull up bar, palms facing away from you, and you are timed to see how long you can hang. This test was the realm of the tiny, gymnastics/dance squad girls, five foot three and under. Me? Picture the teacher having to forcibly drag the chair out from under me with my legs still firmly planted on it as my body is stretched out slowly away from the wall. Upper body strength? What is that? Too bad I didn't have Little Man back then, because he has helped me develop some guns.

So here's one more thing to make you grateful high school is over. But considering I feel like I'm in better shape now (considering I actually exercise and consume more than soda and Chips Ahoy all day) I might actually have a chance of legitimately passing. Except maybe not the long jump. With three kids, I can't afford to be a cripple.

Only Adam...

...my stay at home dad friend, referenced way back in the beginnings of Mean Mommy, could find a YouTube clip so perfect and funny, I almost laughed myself into an asthma attack:

CLICK HERE

And then afterward, I feel guilty because Adam, being a man, puts up with the same shit we moms do, having to care for the kids when sick and all. He is quite the conundrum, that one. To experience more of his hilarious sense of humor and really disturbing knowledge of 80's movies (in which I am referenced - squee!) please check out his parenting book Don't Put Baby In The Corner! A PG-Rated Guide To Parenting Advice Found In 1980s Movies.

Sick days? I know not what you speak of...

I come up from the basement this morning after working out and instead of finding H filling his travel mug, ready to head out for the day, I was met with silence. I crept up the stairs, lest I wake the offspring, and found him, still burrowed beneath the covers of our bed, fast asleep. Nudging him gently I ask, “Are you going to work today?” “Ugh, doh”, he responds, “I’b doo sick.” Apparently he has been struck down by the cold I was suffering from earlier this week. The difference? He actually called in sick to work, while I live at work.

H spent the morning sleeping (until ten thirty for Christ’s sake), while I ran around getting #1 off to school and taking the other two to buy a new jogging stroller. What did I do the two days I was ill? The same damn thing I did today, just substitute stroller shopping with taking them to the park. Yes, one of the perks of being a stay at home mom is that you never, unless you are on death’s door, get a sick day. And even in that circumstance, there is no simple phone call to be made. There are car pools to be rearranged, saintly in-laws to be called into service, or when every other possibility has been unsuccessfully explored short of pulling some stranger in off the street, spouses cajoled into staying home with much disgruntled tut-tut-ing. And once you have secured yourself some childcare, don’t think you are collapsing into bed for some much needed, uninterrupted rest, you are still responsible for packing everyone’s shit to go to grandma’s or your, apparently, temporarily retarded spouse will come in every ten minutes to ask where the extra diapers are or what #1 eats for lunch even though she’s eaten nothing but peanut butter since she was three.

This must be the reason God made women mothers, since apparently, only our gender have the strength, and patience, to deal with illness in such an environment. I was climbing ladders chasing Little Man at the park Monday, while surreptitiously blowing my nose. H is lying prostrate in front of CNBC*. Even the severity with which we feel thee illnesses, and pain in general is less than that of the fathers of our broods. I felt a little congested, H feels like “his head is going to explode”. Perhaps we have some genetically enhanced pain threshold. As I have mentioned before, if the day H and I got our tattoos is any indication, we do. I sat in the chair first and afterward told him not to worry, it felt like a burning bee sting, and after all, the tattoo was only about half an inch square. Well, he came out like he had been water-boarded for an hour followed by some shock therapy. “You are out of your mind.”, he told me. “That hurt like a mother!” Well, no not really. It didn’t hurt this mother too much at all.

So as my reward for working when I am sick I am taking advantage of the warm body sitting in my house and have sneaked out to get my roots done while the baby naps, figuring, even in his state, H can listen to the monitor and call me when Little Man wakes up. That is, if the phone isn’t too heavy for him in his illness ravaged state. If I can’t get a sick day, then at least I will have good hair.

*To be fair, he did entertain LM while I prepped dinner, allowing him to crawl all over his prone body on the couch.