Mick Jagger

The cliche for parental sacrifice for the good of the family is Dad and Mom working two or three jobs just so Junior can have a personal trainer for traveling-team baseball and Princess can follow her ballet dreams with private lessons 300 miles away three times a week.

Well, I've made a couple sacrifices this week, I'm here to write ya.

My kids will reminisce that Dad stopped sports gambling so they could eat, and stopped the family gym membership so Maggie could go to a more-challenging preschool. Sentimental? For me, you bet (pun alert!).

I already miss gambling, which I'm good at until I bet too many games because it's fun to have action, and any half-assed gambler will tell you you have to be patient and disciplined so you can do the opposite of what I do. I have less than half an ass, apparently. For me, it's fun, but the winners, the guys in the black, make it more like work.

I win, say Yipeee, then bet three more games, and lose more than I won. No need to know how much I've lost this time, but suffice to say that unemployed people shouldn't lose anything. Another reason I need a job. You can see that I'm finally getting it, yes?

As far as the gym, we've been members of Lifetime Fitness since 2003. Great place, well worth the expense. Maggie's been a member of our family since 2005, and unfortunately, as has been recorded in this space before, her birthday is at the end of September, meaning she'll be the towering kindergartner who steals lunch money and understands algebra because she'll be almost six when she starts.

That is bad enough, but the main problem is that Carrie and I have somehow produced a child who could read at age 3. Her park district preschool is boring her, which isn't as ugly as you might conjure---Daddy, I'm so bored, I want a new school and a squirrel, now! She only admitted it under interrogation, and I believe her. Her class is mixed 3- and 4-year-olds, and the descriptions of what the class will be covering this winter is pretty fundamental. Wow, there's no way to type this stuff without seeming like a real butt hole.

Anyway, I've been slowly looking around for where we can send her for more challenge, yet knowing that the right place would cost more. And knowing that if and when we found a place, the gym would be the first to go. Jefferson Preschool came highly recommended and is part of our school district, so Maggie and I went to register her for next fall, but got lucky that there was space in a 4-year-old class that she could join in February. We're all excited.

Four days a week, 2.5 hours each class, comes with a screening, and is twice what we're paying now, but also more hours. When I get a job, all the wee ones will go to Kindercare, but for now, January 30 will be my/our last day at Lifetime. So I will either become a runner or a lard-ass, because my metabolism is slow and slowing, and I will not diet.

Push-ups; maybe some jump-roping because we have lots of 1st-floor hardwood space; we have a nice-sized and steep staircase to run; I can do that personal-trainer favorite where you run with your butt in the air and hands on a towel, sliding it across a slick floor (did it once, it's uneasy, you might say). Yes, all those things I can do. But, will I?

Hmmmmm, better get the kids trained on what to do when Daddy (or Joe, for Connor) grabs his chest and screams "Kelly Clarkson!!" just before landing with a squelch on his blubbery belly and coughing up a half-eaten double cheeseburger. No, don't eat the rest! Call 9-1-1!

I had other thoughts for today, but let's stop there. Ciao