2010-01

He was always the worst-behaved child in the room. It didn’t matter where he went. Or when. Three-year-old Cameron* simply couldn’t control himself — ever.

“He was bouncing off the walls all the time,” recollects his mother, Susan*. “I loved him dearly but couldn’t bear to be around him because he was so obnoxious, in-your-face, he could never sit still, never stop moving, couldn’t control his impulses—he was always hitting, kicking, jumping or touching.”

Desperate to figure out what was going on with her son, Susan stumbled onto an article about a little girl whose behavior seemed nearly identical to Cameron’s and who was “cured” through a special diet.

Let me tell you about my first step aerobics class.

I was in my twenties and, like all 20-somethings, I was thin. Problem was, I lived in Los Angeles, where any woman who weighs more than 100 pounds automatically qualifies for a spot in the hippo exhibit at the L.A. Zoo. So I decided to get fit.

My company offered all employees a health-club benefit: $50 a month paid directly to the gym of our choice. This was a long time ago, when nobody except people in L.A. went to gyms. It was also a heap of cash, so I could join the fancy-schmancy Gym-To-The-Stars only 15-minutes (and a world) away from my (crummy) apartment.

I promptly went shopping and bought a pile of aerobics outfits—those little thong things that looked so good on Jane Fonda (note: I do not now nor have I ever looked like Jane Fonda)—and a pair of pink sneakers.

I was ready.

If you’re stinging from the pain of ‘this economy’ or suffering nasty paper cuts from your post-holiday credit card statements, consider cutting back on child-related costs this year.

I wanted to be a chubby mom.

I wanted doughy arms and big bosoms and a comfortable lap to sit in.

I wanted my little nuggets to be enveloped in the soft cushion of my embrace as I squeezed them to my to my heart’s content.

These somewhat crazy aspirations were a lot easier to have when I was comfortably tucked into single-digit jeans. Yes, I’m talking about high school. It was cute then, to think of the perfect world of motherhood, of sweet little cherub children staring up at me with their big doe eyes and listening to my syrupy lullabies as I rocked them to sleep in my loaf-of-bread arms.

Driving the 100 or so miles to Homestead Heritage at Brazos de Dios in tiny Elm Mott, Texas takes only about an hour and a half. But the journey is more like time travel.