I May Have Suffered A Slight Heart Attack...

Before I tell you the main story of this post, I need to fill you in on two little stories that go along with the big story.

Keep up, all will be revealed.

The first story: When Carl and I were first dating, he decided to teach me how to drive his manual car. I had only had experience with automatic vehicles... baby blue 12 passenger van type of vehicles to be exact. After a few twists and turns on the 20 mph roads, he thought I was ready for the big leagues and directed me right on to an on-ramp. Before I knew what was happening I was driving on the highway and I started to scream, cry and stall. This story also reminds me a lot of my wedding night, but I digress... I freaked out, he yelled at me, and people were honking and gearing up to unleash their road rage upon me. Eventually I was able to get the car moving and get off of the highway. I think I may have even pee'd my pants a little that day. This is the day I started to make little mean faces at my husband when he was not looking. It is his own fault that sometimes I stick my tongue out at him and roll my eyes when he tells me something with his back toward me. I am not proud of this, but if he had not made me stall his car on the Dan Ryan and then yell at me, well I would be a much more well-balanced person.

The second story: When I was in labor with our first child I was hooked up to every machine in the hospital. I think I may have even been hooked up to the ATM, that may explain that nasty run in with a male nurse and his debit card, but again, I digress... One of the machines that I was hooked up to would track my contractions. It would tell me when I was calm and contraction free and it would tell me when I was having a semi-truck drive straight through my abdomen. Carl instantly fell in love with this machine. For the next three hours he would tell me when a contraction was about to happen. He would say "10 seconds now, 9, 8, 7, 6, you only have about 5 more seconds until a contraction, 4, 3, 2, oh, this one looks like it is going to really hurt, 1. You should be feeling a contraction right now." Eventually I ripped out his tongue and threw it across the room. The three births that I have had since that first one, Carl has not been allowed to talk during labor. He may try, but I will oh so delicately explain to him that the sound of his voice whilst I am in labor sounds like fingernails on a chalk board, and if he even wanted to be present at the birth of his children then he needed to sit quietly, making no comments... except maybe to tell me how amazing I am.


OK, now that you are caught up, I can tell you this story...


After the Mom posted a comment telling me I should start jogging because "After baby number 4, I quickly learned that a morning jog was 30 minutes ALONE in a place where the little people can't find me...the phone doesn't ring..nothing needs to be cleaned...there are no papers to grade... It's just me and the sound of my feet hitting the pavement. Bliss!" I thought that a jog sounded like Heaven wrapped in a Dairy Queen cup. I couldn't get my running shoes out of the closet and dusted off fast enough!

I made the mistake of telling my husband that I wanted to start jogging. I even went so far as to ask him if he wanted to jog with me in the morning before he goes off to work. Now, if you know me personally, you may be saying to yourself "What in the mother loving world is she thinking? Cris does not jog, Cris does not sweat, Cris does not do anything that will cause heavy breathing whatsoever... except for that one thing-you know what I am talking about, and Cris does not do anything other than sleep in the morning... she doesn't even make her own children breakfast! She makes them eat cold pizza and leftover pot roast in the morning! She is out of her mind!"

Wait... I must tell you first that my husband loves me very much. He loves me when I am fat, and he loves me when I am a supermodel. He genuinely loves me for my mind. I also have ocean front property in Arizona that I would like to sell you... just send me your credit card and Mr. MasterCard will say OK! No, seriously, he loves me.

ANYWAY... I get a phone call from my husband today and he says "Put your running gear on, we are going jogging." I hang up and wonder what exactly IS running gear? I trudge upstairs and start going through my drawers. I found a sports bra with the elastic shot so I had to wear a second one over that one because I have some lovely lady humps that are full of manna from heaven-I needed to tie these puppies down. I put another tank top on for security reasons and then a t-shirt just in case. I pull on a pair of shorts and head downstairs to stretch-because that is what runners do, and starting today, I am a runner.

We start off fast... too fast for me and I am huffing and puffing and by the time we hit the corner my chest was burning and I may have dropped my bladder at the end of my neighbor's driveway.

I start walking. My husband yells at me to "KEEP RUNNING!" and so I follow behind him, making faces at the back of his head. Before I know what is happening he turns the corner out of our subdivision and is running along the busy highway-like road. Now let me tell you, there is nothing more embarrassing than running along traffic with your running shorts jammed up your butt crack and your left boob playing peek-a-boo with your tank top, not to mention the cellulite on the back of my legs jiggling and my butt bouncing up and down as if I were on a mechanical bull. It was at this moment that I started to understand my friend when she told me the story of when she was hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro with her husband and she just kept repeating in her head over and over "I hate my husband, I hate my husband." with each excruciating step up the mountain. Sure, she has the lack of oxygen to blame for her "psycho" chant... I just had years of relying on my hereditary thinness and the loss of blood flow to my head.

Eventually he turned off the "highway" from hell and slowed so that I could catch up. When we were side by side he kept talking. He talked about the bills, he took a mental tally of all of the clothes in his closet and what he was going to pack for his trip in November, he talked about Aaron's baseball team, Hope's softball techniques, Emma's coloring pages, Mary Claire's poo... he talked and talked and talked until I wanted to scream "STOP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!"

You have to understand that I was in pain. I have not run in over 10, OK 20 years. My heart was about to burst out of my chest and my legs were about to crumble under me. I could not breath, my mouth was dry, I was coughing (I think I may have contracted asthma on this run) and my hair kept blowing in my eyes-I do not have a runners hairdo.

We ran for maybe a mile-not all at once... I am not the bionic woman people!

When we were finally home and I was standing in my cold shower I had some thoughts
#1 I would be kicked off of "The Biggest Loser" on the first day.
#2 Are you supposed to taste blood in your mouth when you run?
#3 I may have pulled something in my butt.
#4 I may very well have suffered a slight heart attack-or a stroke, yes, I may have had a stroke.

But my final thought was about my husband. Thank God I have him to help me along-to toss me onto a highway and talk to me until I want to vomit. If he can handle my complaining and cursing at him, I may be able to keep this torture up!