At my most recent doctor’s visit, I was diagnosed with
borderline high blood pressure (pre-hypertension). Three years ago I was running marathons and the
healthiest I’d ever been. Now we’re having discussions about the possibility of
taking Lipitor for life.
It’s small wonder. I mean, taking care of the kids does not
exactly put me in a Zen meditative state. When I’m fighting Cody to put his
socks on after kicking them off for the tenth time, I don’t need a blood
pressure cuff – I can feel my
diastolic skyrocketing. And that’s just the stress dimension. Look at what kids
do to the other aspects of your health:
Diet: I don’t
know about you, but our diet pretty much consists of chicken nuggets and ice
cream. That’s on a day that we can convince the kids to eat the chicken nuggets
(sprinkles, yes sprinkles, on the chicken usually do the trick). Andrea’s and
my diet doesn’t seem to be much better. The four major parenting food groups in
our household have become: caffeine, ibuprofen, alcohol and Twix bars.
Sometimes not in that order.
Exercise: If
anyone has figured out exercise while working and parenting, please leave a
comment, because I have given up hope. My doctor has recommended 30 minutes of
brisk walking every day. Now that Chiara can ride a bicycle I had a fantasy
that we could do this as a family. But the 30 minutes of brisk walking has
become: 5 minutes of arguing with Cody that no, he can’t ride his tricycle and
has to ride in the stroller; 5 minutes of slow walking while Cody suffers
through the first block on his tricycle before giving up; approximately twenty
30-second brisk walking intervals between stops to pick up pine cones, pick
Chiara out of the dirt, and say “hi” to passing dogs; 5 minutes looking for
snail shells at the pond; heading back with twenty more intervals as before; 3
minutes of brisk walking while carrying a tricycle. Add on a shower and it’s
just not something we can work into the schedule every day.
Sleep: Okay, sure,
we could use more sleep. But listen, when we get the kids down at 8:30 we’re
not just going to flip off the lights. Mommy and Daddy need our few, precious
hours with just the two of us… and 2-3 episodes of Breaking Bad. So we’re running a sleep deficit to begin with, and
then both kids interrupt our sleep in turn. And I mean they wake us up every. stinking. night. Having a
size 11 foot in your gut isn’t great for rest and recovery, either, by the way.
Joint and muscle
health: Any parent of an infant knows you’re going to be sacrificing your
back to parenthood. The kids just get heavier from there. Mine are both around
40 pounds. Basically, I’ve had car accidents that were better for my neck and
shoulders than the piggy back rides that seem to be required on a daily basis.
Time for quiet
contemplation: Hahaha! I can’t believe I just wrote that!
So, bottom line, the prognosis for my blood pressure is not
good. Nor for any parents’ blood pressure as far as I can tell. I knew having
kids would be a lot of work, and expensive too. What I didn’t know was that
they should come with a label: Warning,
parenting can be hazardous to your health!
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