Exercising The Demon

After spending the last two days kicking myself in the butt for being so stupid, I woke up this morning and decided that I was done with staying around the apartment feeling sorry for myself. By the time Alexis woke up, I had already been awake for an hour and managed to get most of the housework that I wanted to do done.

After we had breakfast, we spent a while just playing on the floor. For the past couple weeks she's been trying to crawl, she could hold herself up on her hands but she seemed to get scared when it came to actually moving her legs to move along the floor. I've been trying to show her how it's done and I'd place toys just out of her reach so she'd crawl to them. But she's not stupid, she knows how to get them without crawling, she'll wait until I'm not watching and she'll roll over to the toy and by the time I look again, she's sitting with the toy in her hands just grinning at me. At first I let her think I didn't know how she did it but now every time she goes to roll over to the toy, I turn and 'catch' her. She sits up and just giggles like she's trying to tell me she's innocent. I know better.

Today we had a breakthrough, after a few shaky starts and a few tears on her part she finally crawled a little bit in frustration. I think she surprised herself because she stopped short and looked back to where I was with this look of pure terror. She sat up and held out her arms to me and I watched her lower lip tremble as I told her she did so good and I was so proud of her. Then I tickled her into a giggling fit and all was good again. Now she can't stop crawling, in fact she seems to get faster whenever she knows that I'm trying to get her for something, like bath time.

Alexis loves bath time, she loves the water. I've been thinking about signing us up for baby swimming lessons, I hear it's good for babies. The only problem is, I don't swim but will that be a problem? Do you have to swim to take your baby to a public pool where there are people on hand in case something bad happens? I don't know, I'll have to look into that I guess.

After her bath, we were in her room. I had put her in her crib so that I could pick out the clothes she would wear today, I was hoping to take her outside, maybe go pick up some stuff that we needed at the store. I was poking around in her dresser for a pair of warm socks when she just starts to bawl. I tried to tell her that I would only be a moment and then we'll get her ready but that didn't seem to calm her down, her crying seemed to increase in volume.

And that's when I heard it, "Daaa". I dropped all the socks I had in my hand and I spun around. Alexis was in the far left corner of her crib her tear filled eyes were fixed on something sitting on her nightstand, she held onto the rail of the crib with one hand as the other hand reached through the bars, opening and closing as if she was trying to grab something. I didn't even need to know what she was reaching for, even if I didn't hear what she said, I knew the only thing she could possibly want on that nightstand was the picture of Reed and me.

"Oh honey," I went over to her but she didn't looked up at me, she still tried to reach his picture. "Daaaaa."

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. In just a couple days in his presence my daughter was missing her father while her mother didn't ever want to hear from him again. What do you do? I wanted him to show an interest, he did. I wanted him to get to know her, he wants that too. I wanted him in her life, and he wants to be there. He did everything I wanted...for her. Did I really think that having him in her life wouldn't affect mine?

I wish I could say that I didn't hear from Reed since Saturday because then it would seem alright to hate him but he has been calling and leaving messages every hour since I left there Sunday. At first he was apologetic telling me that I misunderstood, that I had to give him a chance to explain what happened. Then he was upset that I could take off without telling him, and begged me to call him, he wanted to talk to me about Alexis. The last couple messages he left told me that there's no way he is going to let me keep him out of Alexis life; that he's her father and he's going to see her whether I liked it or not.

Along with Reed's messages, I've also had many messages from my mother. Each one begging me to call her, to tell her what happened and to let her know if there was anything she could do for me.

And if that wasn't enough, I also had one message from Reed's mother asking me to call her if I didn't wish to talk to Reed directly. She also told me that it was nice to see Alexis and me this past weekend and asked if we would come to visit again soon.

I don't know what's up with everyone wanting to suddenly be in our lives but I want to know what's up. The only problem is in order to do that, I have to actually have to swallow my pride and call them or go back again. I don't know if I'm ready for any of that. But I knew as I watched Alexis crying for her father, there wasn't any way I could put it off too much longer.

I needed to think, and we both needed to get out of the apartment. We got ready to go to the store but the moment I stepped out of my apartment door I knew we weren't going anywhere. Walking over to the window in the hallway, Alexis and I stared outside with the same disappointed look on our faces - it was snowing really badly.

So with the planned trip out cancelled due to snow and both of us not really wanting to sit in the apartment anymore. I changed both of our clothes and heading downstairs.

After I threw our newly washed clothes in the dryer, Alexis and I went a couple doors down to the exercise room. It's a room that I don't visit too often because the idea of anyone seeing me sweating like a pig doesn't thrill me, plus I'd rather play with Alexis than spend time with some machine. But today I needed something different to do.

Once Alexis was set up in her playpen with some of her favorite toys, I hopped onto the nearest exercise bike, turned on my mp3 player and rode off into the sunset singing off key to the various songs while my daughter sat there chewing on one toy or another laughing at me. It was great.

About 20 minutes into my little concert for Alexis, I noticed that she wasn't looking at me anymore, she was looking off to the right and she wasn't giggling. "Honey what's wrong?" I asked as I looked over my shoulder and damn near stumbled off the bike.

"Are you ok?" asked the blond haired blue eyed god that rushed to my side. Dying a thousands deaths, I managed to nod. "You sure?" Again, I nodded. He glanced at Alexis and then back at me and smiled. "Good." He said as he stepped onto the nearest treadmill.

I didn't know what to say to him, I felt kind of stupid for the near stumble. "I like that song," he said. I gave him a funny look, "Song?" I squeaked.

Giving a little chuckle he pointed to my mp3 player, "It's by My Chemical Romance, isn't it?"

Like a moron, I lifted my mp3player up and stared at it like I never saw it before in my life. "Ummm, yeah....'The Sharpest Lives'."

"Good song," he smiled. "Not what I expected to follow the Nickelback song before it. Or the Pink one before that."

Oh my God! How long was he standing there? I turned to Alexis, she was kneeling in her play pen just watching us. Why didn't you tell me? I asked her but of course she didn't hear me or answer. "Ummm... I like different stuff." I mumbled without looking at him.

He didn't say anything for a while then he stopped the treadmill and came over to stand in front of my bike. "Listen I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, I could leave if you want."

I shook my head, "It's ok, we will be leaving shortly anyway."

He frowned, "Not because of me I hope."

I shook my head, "No we were only killing time until our clothes were dry."

"Oh ok," he went to head back to his treadmill when he stopped. "My name is Chris," he held out his hand to me. "I'm new to the building, I moved into number 71 this weekend."

Did I mention I live in number 70? And that 71 is Mabel's old apartment? A moment of pure panic washed over me when I realized that this man will be sleeping only mere feet away from me at all times. My cheeks started to burn as my mind went places that it had no right going. "I...Alexis." I spit out and then realized I didn't make any sense.

"Is that your name?"

I shook my head, "No that's my daughter. My name is Amber." I managed to slip my hand into his still outstretched one without doing anything stupid. Not long after he went back to his treadmill and continued his workout. While I slowly tried to ride my way out of the pit of embarrassment.

Neither one of us said anything else until I stopped peddling and collected Alexis and her stuff. Chris stopped to ask if I needed a hand with anything, when I told him I had it under control, he just smiled but came over anyway. "I know you have it under control but I was always taught to lend a hand."

That's how he ended up walking me to my apartment, it's also how he managed to convince me to let him take Alexis and me out for dinner tonight.