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A funny thing about raising a kid in Los Angeles is that you’re bound to run into some celebrity parents.  Viv is not even 2 ½, but she’s already chatted up Pink and her daughter Willow, been cootchie-cooed by Amber Valletta at Trader Joe’s and met Don Cheadle outside a café–he reminded her to hold Mommy’s hand crossing the street.  Word. 

One celebrity I was really excited to meet was fitness guru Sara Haley, who turned up in our weekly music class with her adorable son Landon. 

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If you don’t know Sara, she has a successful line of workout DVDs, a popular website and a fancy training clientele.  As you can imagine, she stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the toddler moms—obnoxiously fit and trim–and I wondered what her damn secret was.

When I finally found out, I pounced, desperate to talk about exercise.  (This must be an occupational hazard for her, like when a doctor goes to a cocktail party and everyone shows him their rashes.)

So I’m like, Sara, help me.  I haven’t worked out in three years and I’m in the worst shape of my life.  But as a SAHM with a kid not yet in preschool, I don’t know how to fix that.

Well it turns out that Sara’s been working on a new idea – a way to exercise that incorporates our kids, no childcare required.  This week, me & Viv and some of the other music class families volunteered to test the new workout.  (That’s Viv in the green shirt and high pony, utterly fascinated that “Landon’s Mommy” is ALSO “The Teacher.”)

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I’ll admit, I was skeptical about working out with the kids.  I figured I’d maybe lift one leg before Viv noticed I wasn’t paying full attention to her and pitch a fit.  Instead, this is what happened:

Is that a riot or what?   We managed to keep it going for about 45 minutes.  I got a serious workout and the kids had a ball.  They basically did three things:

(1) Mimicked our movements (so cute).

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(2) Climbed on us, providing extra resistance and making the workouts much harder – score.

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(3) Sang along with us as we executed challenging isometric movements inspired by kids’ songs like Patty Cake and Humpty Dumpty.  (This was a bit like being tortured Clockwork Orange style, but I’ll admit that singing while exercising is great cardio.)

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I was sore as, well, a mother the next day and eager to try it again.

Until Sara produces a new DVD or YouTube series so we can all share this Toddler & Me workout, I have something great to tide you over: 

Go to SaraHaley.com and check out her videos Sweat Unlimited (so hard, but really fun) and Expecting More, which is for pregnant ladies who actually want to work out (weirdos).  Leave me a comment under this post telling me which video you want.   I’ll do a random drawing and someone will win a freebie (May 8 – May 15, 2013).   Cool?  Cool.

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