Work It Out.

I started coaching field hockey two weeks ago. At my first practice, someone threw up. Other coaches and trainers look at me with a smiley sort of pride when I tell them this. Double sessions were hot, and I worked those girls hard with many painful exercises I learned at boot camp this summer. And by the way, even though I gained weight in the past few weeks, according to recent measurements, my body fat is down 1.2%. Which means, I have gained muscle and not, in fact, ice cream in caramel sauce! Take that.

But, back to coaching. In some ways, it feels like I started two days ago, and in some ways, like two months ago. It without question makes me extra tired after a full day with a Sassy Bean and a Looney Toot, and all I want to do when I get home is watch Jeff Lewis tease Zoila or Anthony Bourdain be all self-assured and droll on location.

For the past two weeks, I've thought about posting at least once a day. But then I slump on the couch, and can't think of anything besides how great Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are. Or how most of the Best Things Food Network celebrities eat are nowhere near enough for me to eat.

But because I can't let one more day go by without writing something, here are some things that have happened.

We did manage to have some slow and sweet family fun at a nearby playground over Labor Day weekend. And Rudy had to go "wheee" in each swing for about a minute before trying the next one. For about fifteen minutes. And Marley showed off her wiry strength on the bars.

And the day before that, Marley biked alongside Todd (hauling Rudy Toot in a trailer) on our town's Rail Trail while I jogged ahead and behind. It was practically idyllic.

With Danielle's advice and Todd's patient help, I rearranged the office upstairs in the hopes that I would finally use our comfy armchair, newly slipcovered and brought up from the basement. I hung up new pictures scribbled by Rudy and drawn by Marley, the most recent one of Bean and Toot in a hot air balloon, featuring a thought bubble going from Rudy's head to a messier version of Rudy in the sky. As Marley explained, and try to hear this in an excited and exasperated tone, "She's imaginating that she's flying like a bird and she doesn't even know she's in a balloon!"

And perhaps most distressing: I took my mom to an 11 a.m. eye appointment, and even though I left at 9:30 a.m. with Marley and Rudy and books and crayons and plenty of snacks, we weren't seen until around 1 p.m., when Rudy was beyond hungry and tired and wailing on the floor, and I made it home just before 3 p.m., in time to climb on the bus with the field hockey team to our first game. Which we lost. I almost started crying a couple of times in the waiting room. I mean, for the first hour, I maintained serenity and modeled patience for my kids. I pulled out the books and crackers and water; I helped Rudy look for babies and puppies in waiting room magazines; I played Paper Rock Scissors with Marley and tried to teach Rudy how to Patty Cake. But by the end, I was terse and grumpy with the staff and saying things like, "Our appointment was at eleven." And "We've been here for over an hour." And my mom's having cataract surgery in two weeks, and we need to do that, so I need to be at the appointments to provide consent and remember the eye drop instructions. And when the appointment was over, I had to drive about 40 minutes to get her back to assisted living and then another 40 minutes back home. After one o'clock, I only smiled once, when I heard the opening lyrics of "What A Fool Believes" on the office's soft rock station, because I love doing that Michael McDonald impression, and so does Todd (and so does everyone, I think) and we had actually been Michael McDonalding it up just the night before while getting dinner on the table.

And today, Marley and I got haircuts. And Rudy peed on the kitchen floor. That last one's worth more space, obviously, and I think I'll have more time and energy to to elaborate tomorrow. Now, Marley needs a bedtime story and then I need to watch Anthony Bourdain in Paris.