20 Minutes.

As incentive to get our post-baby bodies back into shape, the hubs (who always puts on a few sympathy pounds when I'm preggo) signed us up for a pretty swanky gym and I've been doing my best to get the most bang for our buck by hitting it up almost every day for the past two weeks.

Included in our membership is free childcare and a variety of classes for the big brothers and a fully operational nursery for the Tank. While I never would have dreamed of dumping off Max, or even Hud, at a gym nursery at 10 weeks old, I seem to have no problem handing over my third newborn to complete strangers, some of whom have braces.

  Although Frank has typically performed very well while under gym nursery care,  I still try and keep my total trip within an hour- mindful of the fact that there is only so much bottle, burp, poop, and contented staring that goes on before the Tank gets pissed if someone doesn't know how to handle him  properly when he's sleepy. Mr. F.R. Grump 'n Dumps needs his simultaneous swaddle, binky, bounce, twist and shush executed just so.

This gym also has a fully loaded locker room, complete with sauna, steam room and jacuzzi- and I've been eyeballin' that jacuzzi like a shirtless David Beckham since day one. However, mindful of my self-imposed time-limit, I have yet to sink into it's jet-powered goodness....until today.

Today was the day. I decided I would go light on the cardio and heavy on the locker room. I would hop on the treadmill for a quick 20 minutes, stretch, and then b-line to the locker room to leisurely soak, shower and then blow dry my hair as if I had some place to be.

After ten minutes with my bubbly Beckham and a quick shower, I was still on schedule and ready to make it happen with a round brush.....until...I heard my name on the flipping gym intercom. I was to report ASAP to the daycare. 

Now, when I check in my little nugget, I fill out a sheet that asks how long your kid can cry before they page you- and I always check 15 minutes, which is the longest amount of time listed on the sheet (I once considered penciling in 20- but then thought maybe I was a terrible parent for even considering).  So, assuming that Frank had exceeded his 15 minute time limit, I squeezed my still-sweating body into my clothes and, with mascara-smeared under eyes and my hair wet and unbrushed, headed promptly to daycare hoping not to give any indication that I am the type of parent who would pencil in 20 minutes of cry time.

I get there, and my little man is a little red in the eyes, but otherwise chillin' in his Graco Snug Ride. I ask, "I'm sorry- has he been crying long?"

"Not really- about 5 minutes."

"Oh- good," is how I reply.

What I really wanted to say was:

"Ooooh- five minutes? Was that an inconvenience for you, or did you not look on the friggin' form that I spent two minutes of my precious 60 minutes filling out? If you had, you would have seen that I clearly indicated 15 minutes as my time-length of choice for screaming- or do you really only put that amount of time on there to see who the bad-parents are and notify social services accordingly? Because if so, you can tell them I was about to pencil in 20!"

And that's it. If you're wondering what the moral of this story might be- well, there isn't one- I guess I just needed to vent. And, despite that fact that he partially foiled my me-time plans for the day, I wasn't even a little bit mad at my chubby little man- I mean, how could I be?

See for yourself- fat cuteness:

Well played, chubby.