Mommy chatter

As I doubled over doing my ab crunches in the gym this morning, I marvelled at the dedication of a young man I have seen come to the gym every single morning. I reach the gym between 5:20 am and 5:30 am and have always seen this guy land before me. Once we happened to leave the gym together and I realised that he comes on a bicycle every morning and lives quite far from the gym. Last I heard him speaking to another regular, mentioning that he goes to work at about 930 or so.

This morning I was struck by the thought that the guy, who takes off with me on most days, probably reaches home around 7:45 or so…and perhaps either has a wife to look after the other chores such as tiffin cooking and packing, running a round of washing in the machine, tidying up the place etc etc…or lives with his parents or is a bachelor. Under all the circumstances, “Lucky guy” I thought.

“How I would love to live that life of carelessness and leisure; of having nothing more to do when I get back home from a fulfilling work out than enjoying a steaming cup of coffee with the cart load of newspapers we subscribe to; or simply spend fifteen minutes meditating; or jump starting the professional activities of the day….”

What I do on a typical day is rush home after the work out. At sharp 7 am I’m out and drive like a maniac to get home in 4-6 minutes flat. Because, I have to help hubby get the kids ready, make the ‘compulsory-in-school’ pigtails for daughter and hopefully have them out and in time to get their rick to school at 7:40.

This sometimes involves getting the son out of bed at 7:15 am and getting him ready in time to make it to the rick deadline! All this when hubby is the sweetest soul who manages their tiffin and gets them out of bed, (at least the older one) no mean task I assure you!

After the kids go, it’s the usual mundane household chores that need attending, leaving me, on most days with enough time to glance at the newspaper with longing eyes.

And mind you, all of this happens on GOOD days.

On bad days when hubby is out of town, I turn into the local superwoman who also has a gym routine she needs to move further up the clock…make it 5:10 am out of home. But that’s ok ‘coz she’d rather die without it!!!!

So imagine my surprise, while all through the one hour work out I envied the presumably ‘carefree’ life of the gym regular (I hope his day goes well today), drove home like a maniac and walked in at 6:40 am, hoping to find one in bed and one in the loo (courtesy the alarm I set for her), when I found my little darlings decked in the uniform!!!!

I stood frozen. Did they take ‘short cuts’? Like avoiding a bath? Or even brushing their teeth?

“No” both squealed, “We woke up early maa.”

The morning was like a dream come true. I had enough time to make their tiffin, feed them a relaxed breakfast, listen to their unending chatter and make two leisurely pigtails…. I even dropped them off to school, a rare treat for them since we live close to the school, as a bonus for making my day!

They’ve promised me that I would never have to struggle with them anymore. They even want me to take their dad to the gym in the morning!!!

I'd like to tell them that I am so thrilled that they made the effort to ease things for me, even if this were the first and the last time ever. This would qualify as the best surprise I have ever had!