Day Off

I didn't exercise today. I probably could've found the time but my body is just tired. Really achy. Maybe it's my long unused muscles waking up. At any rate, since it was also cleaning day, I decided to take the day off of the workout. That is to say recognized workout. I still cleaned the house most of the time wearing a 11 pound baby in a front wrap. Do you have any ideas how many squats I do a day? Things I would normally bend over to do require a squat instead. Therefore activities like dusting or clearing the dishwasher end up breaking a sweat. I just saw on Livestrong that "childcare" is estimated to burn 376 calories an hour. So can I record about 20 hours of that? I just realized today that feeding the twins really is a full time job: I spend at least 8 hours a day feeding those two. In other news, I put in some excruciating time today trying to get Elyse to nurse. She's more or less been on a strike for the last month. Screaming in a whole new pitch if I offer it to her. Owen has tried that, but I always wait him out and so he's continued nursing. So I wondered, why do I let her get away with it? So today we worked on it for awhile. I try to keep in mind as the screaming ensues that she's really mad not sad; she doesn't want to work so hard. It certainly won't be the last time she gets so mad at me! At the same time, I can't help but wonder, are the benefits of nursing worth the emotional turmoil it takes to keep them at it when they fight me so much? And you know what I realized: nursing has no eternal value. Duh. And there are lots of reasons that doing just bottles and formula would be so much easier. I'm not saying that I'm going to give up nursing, but I am going to be more introspective about weighing the costs. For instance, an hour of quality one-on-one time with one of my older children will probably have more lasting value than whether or not Owen nurses this feeding. If I can accomplish both, then great. But if I have to choose one or the other I need to make sure that I am choosing from an eternal perspective. If all this effort to successfully nurse exhausts me so that I have no time, or patience, or even a kind word for the rest of my family, then what am I really gaining? Or is it only a loss? I apologize if I am just rambling now: I'm pretty sure that once again my number of cups of caffeine exceeds the numbers of hours of sleep. :D