We’re at Annabelle’s swimming lesson and I want to finish this before she finishes her lesson. I doubt I will since I barely have enough to make a full post. I’ve had the same conundrum for months and months now. I don’t like when I post twice a month, but I don’t have enough going on that is either A. worth sharing or B. can be shared on the internet. Do I yammer on about nothing (which I’ve done plenty of times) so I have something to post or wait until I have something good to talk about? Quality or quantity? That’s how we end up with a large amount of sub-par quality posts.

I have continued to go to the new gym once or twice a week since school started. For the first several weeks all I did was pilates because I didn’t trust myself to use any of the machines in the machine room. I don’t even know what it’s really called. Cardio room? Weight room? Cardio weight room? I still barely know how to use anything but my new motto is fake it til I make it. I’m sure anyone looking at me through the security camera can tell I’m faking it but I’m trying.

I’d like to file a formal complaint with the powers that be who named muscles. Why couldn’t you give them normal names? Couldn’t you have called them “front upper arm” or ”back of your knee” or “the one you pull when you try to move the couch by yourself because you don’t want to ask for help”? I took this picture when I was resting from a very strenuous arm exercise on a machine I can’t begin to guess the name of. I know three of these muscles and of those three I can identify where two of them are located. This isn’t a problem of me needing to be better at anatomy. It’s a you problem.

Narrator: She did not finish this during swimming lessons. Not even close. It is now eight days later.

A few nights ago when I was putting Annabelle to bed, she told me, “Mama, I think you’re the second or third smartest person in our family. I’m not sure if me or you is smarter.” She wasn’t one bit rude or cocky about it. She was genuinely trying to figure it out which of us is smarter. I’m no Thomas Edison, but I did teach her how to speak, use the toilet, and write her name which I believe gives me a few points in the smarter category. But to be fully transparent, I did have to google “smart people” because the only extra smart person I could think of was Albert Einstein and I didn’t want to compare myself to him. I have very little wiggle room for boosting.

Is it worse for my ego that I might be the third smartest or that she drew a picture of me looking like a balding Benjamin Franklin with no eyebrows or eyelashes? Hard to say.

Yesterday our day got off to a very late start. It was a homeschool morning which meant we were more flexible on time, but I still try to stick to a schedule. We had a doctor’s appointment at 10 and would be out all morning and I needed to get the roast in the crockpot before we left. Sesame was doing her thing (spilling as much cereal on the counter as she got in the bowl) while I simultaneously ate my oatmeal, seared the roast in the dutch oven, and put on mascara. We scrambled around for schoolbooks to bring with us, locate socks, brush hair and tell Linus that he was not dying so he didn’t need to meow like he was. We rolled into the office with two minutes to spare. We were an entire week early. Annabelle thought it was hilarious. I had a feeling it was the wrong day, but I live with the feeling that I’m constantly wrong about something so I rolled with it anyway. AB asked why I didn’t call and make sure it was the right day so maybe she is the second smartest in the family after all.