How Many Steps to a Denise Austin Butt?

Today alone, I made the following trips up and down the steps in my house, all before 9:00 a.m.:

• Up the stairs with the babies to feed them breakfast, back down to get them dressed.
• Up to get their sippy cups filled with milk, back down to put them in the diaper bag.
• Up to put the sippy cups in the fridge, since my husband already has cups in the diaper bag, back down to start the laundry.
• Up the stairs to sweep the kids’ rooms for dirty laundry – I mean, dirty clothes – back down to the laundry room.
• Up the steps to go pee, since the kids took the last roll of toilet paper to their bathroom upstairs, back down for a shower.
• Up after my shower to put on makeup because the skylight in the kids’ bathroom provides exactly one hundred times more light than my dungeon of a bathroom downstairs with environmentally-conscious twisty bulbs does, back down to do hair.
• Up to put on a pot of coffee while I blow-dry my hair downstairs.
• Up to find the toothpaste, which Curlytop hijacked and gleefully painted herself with this morning, back down to brush my teeth.
• Up to find my sunglasses, which I removed and left on the kitchen counter last night while I made dinner, back down because, at this point, why not?
• Up to get a cup of coffee, which I don’t get because I become distracted looking for my keys, back down to find my keys under the toy box.
• Up to get a cup of coffee, which I don’t get because I become distracted looking for my sunglasses again, which I sat down on the counter while looking for my keys. Back down to try to get out the door, which I can’t do, of course, because I haven’t had any coffee!
• Up to get a cup of coffee, which I don’t get because I spot the novel I’ve been searching for over the past week peeking out from under the sofa – huzzah! – back down to put it in my backpack.
• Up to get a cup of coffee, which I do, then dump down the drain because it’s gross after sitting on the burner all morning.

All of this running is no small feat, folks… I’ve got two set of stairs to tackle each way. I’m like the Army – I get more done before noon than most people do all day.

You’d think, with all of the up-the-stairs, down-the-stairs, I’d have a butt to rival Denise Austin’s.

No such luck.