A mommy's workout

Some days I feel really bad about not taking time to exercise. But this morning I started thinking of all the things I do that could be considered exercise (at least I can consider them exercise so I don't have to feel bad). Here are some of my daily chores that could be deemed "exercise" in the most liberal sense of the word. I'm sure you other moms with small children will recognize some of these as things you do as well:

• 5 sprints through the kitchen to prepare a bottle and cereal before baby realizes she's hungry



• 10 laps around the bed while holding baby with one arm and making bed with other



• 6 squats to pick up pillows to put on bed (bending at the waist has become a thing of the past since that would dump baby on her little punkin' head)



• 3 lunges to retrieve laundry from the dryer while holding baby



• 5 one-leg hops to pick up socks dropped from laundry with toes



• 10 or so more squats to pick up pacifier from the floor (as it would be quite unsanitary to pick it up with toes)



• at least 50 bicep curls lifting baby from crib, exersaucer, swing, etc.



• 2 minutes of balancing exercises as one tries to hold baby, run bath water into baby tub (while continuously monitoring its temperature), and not fall face first into bath tub



• 12 crunches while trying to entertain baby with a rousing game of airplane



• countless minutes spent doing the mommy sway or rock (whichever your baby prefers) to keep baby happy in line at the grocery store, post office, etc. as to not receive evil stares from those around you

And these are just the ones that come to mind right away.

So, basically, in the time it took to write this, I could have done a few minutes of real exercise, but that wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.