The Gym's Daycare and Me

I took my kids to the gym today for the first time. The one reason I joined the gym is because it had a free daycare (those 2 words should have immediately turned me off but somehow magically had the opposite effect). Whats cooler than passing one hour of a SAHM's boring day than spending it at the gym? With a babysitter? Who is freeeee!?

note: my kids havent ever been left with anyone other than family. Immediate family. Family they know and love and trust. Never have I disposed them upon a stranger. Until today. Complete abandonment. With me just on the other side of the door.

When it came down to it, I'd wait until Jason got home to go to the gym, wish I hadnt spent the entire day dreading about the gym, think about how I'd have to rush making dinner the entire time I'm at the gym, and of course, miss time with my husband because I'm hanging out at the gym.

I got there around 8 this morning, trying to head off the crowd and let my kids be the only neglected offspring there. By 9 the place was jammed packed. But thats fine, my work was done. I'd ran/walked for 3 miles right next to the childcare door. Not once did anyone come rushing out of it with a bleeding Glig, or one that had instantaneously contracted polio, or a screaming one, or... anything else traumatizing. I was traumatized the entire 3 miles tihnking of these scenerios. I almost cried when I saw [through a large window for parents] the daycare lady holding and bouncing Lachlan, my baby boy, in her arms. Why would I almost cry? I thought she was being motherly and this made me sad. It should've been me.

But then I get all, "I need my own space" since one child or another is usually hanging on me or attached to me, "...my own time" since this is a luxury my husband gets and doesnt know it, "me me me", when its always "them them them" and I'm happy that lady is bouncing Lachlan for FORTY FIVE minutes of my 12 hour childcare day shift.

When I picked up the kids they were happy and socialized. Sunny observed societys' youngest the entire time, pressed a few buttons on a toy, and tried other kids' shoes on. Lachy chilled in the Exersaucer and the lady's arms. I burned a few calories. Everybody wins.