When Brent and I decided that I should become a stay-at-home mom after I had Penelope I immediately started to envision a lifestyle where I had time to clean my house, take my kids to the library, do the laundry and cook dinner all while wearing a serene smile on my face because life was just… SO. GOOD.

I was working at the time and during my lunch break I would see other moms saunter into Target wearing cute little casual chic outfits with their children teetering closely behind in clean coordinating outfits. I wanted that….Oh, how I wanted that.

Then I stayed home, and that’s not really how it worked out. Maybe I’m defective but that’s not what it’s like as a stay-at-home mom. I mean there are fleeting moments that may appear that way to the untrained eye but that isn’t the reality at all.

I only have one thing to say to Betty Crocker who started this unrealistic image… Screw you! How dare you glorify an impossible job. That image is about as artificial as your preserved snack cakes!

Oh wait, that’s Little Debbie…It doesn’t matter I’m on a tangent damn it!

When Brent came home from his wildland fire deployment I knew he would need a few days to rest so I continued to take care of everything on the home front.

He had spent so much time out on that fire that he had to readjust to being home again. One night I woke up to something patting my boob. I knew it was Brent touching my boob but I knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose. It was just an absent patting and an awkward squeeze here and there. To which I responded with a, “What are you doing?”

“What? Oh… nothing,” He rolled over and continued to sleep.

When I asked him about it the next morning he said that he was dreaming that he was looking for hot spots. He found a hot spot alright but it wasn’t the same kind he was referring to in his head. He was looking for an actual fire and instead of touching crunchy pine needles he found something soft and squishy. After he told me that I laughed until I cried…

Then one afternoon I caught him vacuuming the basement that I had just vaccumed and I asked him what he was doing…

“I’m doing what you should have been doing for the past two weeks.”

Excuse me?!

He knew he was in trouble the moment it came out of his mouth and he did that typical man move where he pretends like he didn’t actually say that and tried to act sweet from that moment on. Unfortunately he had found another hot spot… my temper.

At that moment his welcoming committee packed up and closed shop. Brent had been off of work for ten days so in my head he had plenty of R&R. I could feel the resentment building up as he lounged on the couch watching TV with his feet propped up as I continued to do all that I had to do while he was gone. Being the smart man that he is he picked up on that resentment and before heading back to work tomorrow he gave me some time off.

I spent the afternoon gossiping with my friend and getting that way over due haircut…

When I came home he had folded his laundry and had plans to cook dinner for the family.

While he cooked dinner I took pictures of Penelope getting into everything in the kitchen. I tried to step back and give him the full experience of cooking dinner while simultaneously watching a toddler. You know, just so he could see what it was like for me while he was gone and I should have been vacuuming the basement…

I’m not gonna lie it was kind of awesome.

Just that gesture of stepping into my shoes for just one moment washed away all of that resentment. It had solidified that I married the right man and I was officially not mad at him anymore. Since he’s going back to his regular work schedule, tomorrow will officially be the first day of normal.

Normal is such a boring adjective but it’s something that I’ve been craving for a while all the same.

I plan on waking up early with Brent before he goes to work and doing the blogger challenge workout from Fit Women’s Weekly before Penelope wakes up. Taylor contacted me and gave me access to her program for the next 6 weeks in order to give her feedback.

When you have access you are given a choice of several workouts. Once you click on it you can watch a quick run through video of the workout or you can watch another video of her completing the whole workout. Since I can’t grant you access to the videos I’ve done my best to describe the workout that I will be completing tomorrow. Just in case you wanted to join in the fun 😉

DanBata

(a tabata workout)

Workout Overview:

20 seconds of full out intensity, with a 10 second rest before completing again. You’ll go back and forth between 2 exercises for a total of 8 rounds (4 sets of each exercise).  Once you’ve completed 8 rounds you move on to the next pair still only resting 10 seconds in between.

Keep track of your sets because IF YOU DON’T get the same or higher than the previous round, you’ll be penalized with 2 burpees to be added to the end for EACH time.

 Pair 1:

Push-ups and Butt Kicks

Butt kicks are jogging in place while simultaneously kicking your own butt and I’ll be doing my push-ups from my knees because I have such a weak core.

Pair 2:

Side Jumps and Flutter Kicks

Side jumps you jump side to side (duh). Flutter kicks you lay on your back put your hands under your butt and quickly flutter your feet while keeping your legs straight.

Pair 3:

Incline Thrusters and Goblet Squats

With incline thrusters you bend over, put your hands on the ground in front of you, keep them there and jump your feet toward your hands and back again. These goblet squats don’t have any weight. It’s basically a deep air squat but only go deep if you can maintain good form.

Pair 4:

Box Hops and Up-downs

I don’t have a box at home so I’m just going to jump forward and backward. Up-downs are done in a plank position. You start off on your hands and walk down to your elbows and back up to your hands again… over and over.

When I’m done I’ll post my reps to the comments section of this post so you can see how I did. I was planning on posting these workouts three times a week but describing the workout took so much time and I would rather use that time musing over pop tarts and poopie diapers. (Can’t have this cramping my style.) Therefore, I’ve decided to just post one workout each Monday. If you are in the mood for a little friendly competition you can do the workout too. Do it anytime during the week and post your results in the comments section of  the Monday post. It should be fun!