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5AM. I push the coffee table back, drag it scraping across the floor until there's enough space. Naomi, who is up way too early cause she had a long nap yesterday and now her body is just lying to her, immediately walks into the middle of it..
"You want to work out with me?" She looks up, a little surprised to be asked, then nods very seriously like I've offered her something important.
"Okay," she says.
"Okay," I say back. I grab my mat from behind the door and roll it out and she steps right onto the edge of it and looks down, then up at me.
"Stand here?"
"You can stand right next to me, come on." She moves beside me, fixes her feet so they're pointing forward, arms at her sides, ready. I don't say anything about how she looks like she's about to salute someone. I just start.
Jumping jacks first, nothing crazy, just moving, and she starts immediately, arms going the wrong direction, knees going wherever they want, completely off beat and absolutely sure she's doing it right.
"Like this?" she says, mid-jump.
"Exactly like that." She nods and goes even harder, little face focused, and I watch her out of the corner of my eye and smile a little and just keep moving. She cannot open a juice box without help but she is very, very strong right now and that's what matters.
High knees next and she tries those too, knees barely coming up, one sock half off, making small effort sounds with every step, little huffs, like she's been at this for an hour. After about thirty seconds she stops and puts her hands on her hips.
"That's enough of that."
"Yeah, those are hard," I say, which is true for her and also genuinely true for me right now.
"Very hard," she agrees, and goes back to the edge of the mat to watch, satisfied that she's done her part.
Push-ups follow. I get down and she's on her stomach beside me before I've even set my hands. Her palms are flat and her face is very serious.
"Like this?" she says.
"Exactly like that baby." She pushes up about an inch, arms shaking immediately, and looks at me.
"I did it."
"You did, that's a push-up."
"That was hard."
"It is hard," I say, and I mean it, we're both doing something difficult right now, just at different levels, and I don't see why that needs to be said out loud. She lays back down with her cheek against the floor, watching my hands from six inches away. I keep going.
