Ben Sloot

One of my Year of Foundations objectives is to improve my fitness and health.

I sat on my wife’s peloton while 1/2 of the house attended a birthday and 1/4 of the house napped. 2/3rds (a lot of fractions in this post) of the way through the class, I grabbed my red “Little Debbie” waterbottle, about 1/3 full (now I’m just f-cking with you) and took a sip. The water tasted both rubbery and earthy.

I looked at the bottle and attempted to recollect the last time I filled the bottle. I haven’t ridden the exercise bike in two weeks… It’s important to stay hydrated, so I pedaled on glad that the bottle wasn’t see through.

Speaking of hydration – I stumbled across an article about the magic of keeping your toddlers hydrated to help keep them emotionally stable. Since then I’ve been pushing water on the 2 year old like she’s prepping for the Badwater Ultra

We’ve always been diligent about her hydration… We field tested a dozen different bottles to get the right balance of ‘sipibility’ and ‘spill proofness’ and then ordered multiples of the best bottle. Every morning, she goes to school with fresh from the filter water, every afternoon a bottle awaits her arrival home and every night she’s got new water in her bedroom.

I still regularly drink from a hose in summer and my Army canteens are worse off than my exercise bike bottle I mentioned earlier.

But that’s being a dad… We don’t go an extra mile for our kids; we go the right distance. Fresh water, healthy food, and a robust schedule of sleep are all things we should be doing for ourselves too.

I’m going to go get myself a glass of water.