About a month ago, I discovered that I somehow had earned enough points on my credit card to get a FitBit Charge. What?! Cool! Wait – how much have I have been using my credit card? Whatever – I pushed aside any concerns and ordered my FitBit on the spot.

A FitBit is a fancy step counter. My Charge counts the number of steps I take, how far I’ve walked, how many flights of stairs I’ve climbed and even how many times I was restless during the night. It’s supposed to calculate the amount of calories I’ve burned too, but I don’t see how that’s possible given that it can’t tell when I’ve got a 20lb baby strapped to my back.

I’ve wanted a FitBit for ages because I want to know if I actually spend all day on my feet like I think I do. When I swear that I’ve put in miles and miles just returning toys from the living room back to the bedrooms, am I exaggerating? Because if feels like I never, ever stop. I’m sure you know the feeling.

Take a typical 15 minutes from some random day: we finish breakfast and I start clearing dishes from the table. Forest is still happily sitting in his high chair playing patty cake with the yoghurt that now coats his tray, so I take this opportunity to dash down the stairs to throw a load of laundry in the washer.

When I turn to leave the laundry room, I step squarely in a pile of cat puke. Now I have to hop up the entire flight of stairs and all the way to the bathroom so that I don’t accidentally leave a trail of kitty vomit covered with bits of kibble and tufts of cat fur. I get to the bathroom and wash off my disgusting foot, then rush back to the kitchen table because Forest is getting antsy. Oh, and he’s covered in yoghurt.

I rush back to the bathroom to grab a cloth and then run back to the kitchen table to wipe down his hands and his face, which is apparently one of the 53 recognized ways to torture a one year old. My normally chill baby screeches in protest, flinging his head from side to side, but I’m persistent and I get the job done. I put the baby down on the floor and – what was I doing? Right, the dishes.

I take a quick lap around the house to find any stray dishes from the night before and then realize that I’ve left the dishwasher open, which means that a) Forest has climbed up on the door and is now jumping on it or b) he’s chosen to forgo his favourite trampoline and instead he’s made a beeline for the cutlery tray. Why oh why do use so many knives in this house? And forks?

I run back to the kitchen to find that it’s actually: c) he’s systematically pulling the glass bakeware out and throwing it to the ground. I move him away from the dishwasher and he howls with rage for 2.8 seconds because now he sees the pantry door has been left open. I let him run over to the pantry while I make myself more tea and start washing the dishes that don’t go in the dishwasher. Forest happily plays with vinegar and I figure that’s the best possible thing for him to mess around with, because if it spills, it’s like cleaning the floor by accident. Win.

OK, the kitchen is looking good and the baby is happy – I run out of the kitchen and up the hall to tell River that we’re going to start math soon, then run back to the kitchen to find that Forest has opened a bottle of Worcestershire sauce and is dragging it into the living room. I run to the bathroom to wet a clean cloth and I try to wipe the thick sauce off his hands before he can make it to the couch. It’s much harder this time around because he’s not strapped in a high chair and he thinks this new game of tag is hilarious. Do I look like a fun mom that plays tag? No – I cut him off and then hold him down between my knees so that I can clean his hands.

Then I wipe the floor and run half way to the kitchen before I realize that I left the bottle of Worcestershire sauce in the living room and, yes, Forest has it again. I grab it from him and then head back to the kitchen for another cloth to clean the floor with. In the kitchen, I find Harbour stuffing dish towels into the drawer. She tells me that she spilled all of her milk but that she cleaned it up herself life a big girl. Using every single towel in the drawer, of course. Despite this, I shower her with praise because this really is progress, and then I gather up all the towels in my arms and carry them straight to the laundry room. Where I step in cat puke. Oh, right. That.

Sigh.

While, not always in this order, all these things have happened to me so many times that I’ve lost count. The worst part is that I never, ever stop moving long enough to rest or regroup or realize that keeping the Worcestershire sauce in the bottom drawer of the pantry is stupid.

But I decided that FitBit was going to fix this, because it would actually confirm that yes, I spend all day running around. A FitBit would to justify my exhaustion at the end of the day. It will give me tangible proof to wave in my husband’s face that I did not spend all day on Facebook – well, ok, I did spend all day on Facebook, but it was from my phone while I chased the kids down the street and not sitting in front of the computer.

The FitBit will give me permission to take a break.

Because these days, I don’t even know how to take one.

I’m not very good at taking breaks. I have a hard time sitting down and doing something I enjoy, like knitting or blogging, when my house is a mess. And, yes, I know that having a clean house isn’t the most important thing in life (save your comments), but right now I have a newly minted ONE year old (sob) that wants to put everything in his mouth, and if I stop for a second, he is going to find that tasty Barbie shoe hidden under a towel or the meatball that Harbour stashed under the living room chair or the cat barf in the laundry room. Crud – have I not cleaned that up yet? Seriously, why do we even own cats when we’re already outnumbered by kids?

But listen – I need a break. I’ve been reading so many great books lately about the need for rest and I’m sold. We need to rest. Mothers need to rest so much more than we do – and I have some thoughts on why that is. If I’m ever going to get around to writing about them, I’m going to need to find some time to myself.

With that in mind, I have set two goals for the next two weeks. First, I want to try and get my 10,000 steps by the kids’ bedtime, and then I want to stop, guilt-free. Second, I want my Sundays to be different from the other days of the week (another thing I hope to write about as soon as I have a chance) – I want to see a noticeable decrease in my step count on those days as proof that my days was not spent rushing from room to room to room. I think those are both reasonable goals, no?

Today (a Sunday) has gone pretty well so far. Forest had a good 90 minute nap and I was able to work on this post. My step count is under 5000, which makes me happy – that’s a lot of sitting! And to top it all off, I know without a doubt that I don’t have to worry about the Worcestershire sauce spilling today, because Forest hid it a week ago and I haven’t found it back yet. Except that I might need it for dinner tonight so I suppose I need to find it.

Huh.

I guess I better get moving.