Walking Backwards

This year, exercising more and eating better were not on the list of my new year's resolutions. I didn't put them on there because I am lazy and I like cake and with those two hurdles to overcome, I didn't want to set myself up for failure. So you can understand why it was upsetting to me when my doctor told me that I have to start exercising. It is a cruel trick played by doctors on all asthma patients, I think, that by telling them that they need to improve their lung capacity they can't use their asthma as an excuse to sit on the couch and eat potato chips all day. I mean, who would want to exercise when you can't breathe after a few minutes of it? So, following my doctor's advice, I bit the bullet and joined an exercise program. I, of course, chose what I thought was the easiest exercise program of them all, Curves. For those of you who don't know what Curves is, look here. Because most of the women were over fifty and overweight, I thought "hey, this is the way to go". Oh how wrong one person can be. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to be out-done by a sixty-five year-old, two-hundred pound grandmother? Well, let's just say that I now do. By the time I was about half-way through the workout I was ready to go back to my couch and accept my early death. AND, I have to do this three times a week now. Dammit. At least I can still have cake.

Nicholas is riding to school with Cathy for the first time today. She has been driving him home and we decided that it was about time for the carpool to go into full swing. I don't know how he did yet, as they haven't returned to tell the tale, but I have to say that it is breaking my heart for him to be so independent all of the sudden. I know that I am going to garner a lot more of my own independence and freedom the more grown up he gets, but its just hard to no longer be the center of his universe. When you spend so long looking after and taking care of someone's every need, it becomes hard when they start trying to do things for themselves. Nicholas no longer feels like just an extension of myself, he feels like his own person.