Isabella is no couch potato. She loves the TV, though we don’t let her watch as much as she’d like. Also, she’ll only sit still while watching if she’s eating or if she’s really tired. The rest of the time, she’s in motion. It doesn’t matter if she just ate an entire pizza, she’s going to be on the move in front of the TV.

Her typical technique starts with standing in front of the TV with the remote in her left hand and her thumb resting on the pause button. Then she jumps up and down (I would think that the “down” part of that phrase would go without saying, but I said it anyway for those of you who are very literal or who read a lot of science fiction). Then she bolts away and crashes face first into one of our heavy leather chairs, her momentum causing her feet to fly up behind and partially over her head like a scorpion’s tail. Then she gets back up and repeats the process on the other chair across the room. Carrie is constantly scooting the chairs back into position because Isabella hits them like a linebacker on a tackling dummy.

Recently, like good personal trainers, we mixed up her regimen a bit by throwing in a mini-trampoline behind one of the chairs. Now Isabella performs her routine described above combined with a little mini-jumping. When we first got the trampoline, she looked up with apprehension at the ceiling. We assured her that she wouldn’t bounce that high.

With our DVR, she can rewind and pause the TV for a perfectly choreographed aerobic cartoon routine. The only thing missing is her “hippity hop” (not sure what the real name is... it’s like a giant balloon that kids bounce on while holding onto a handle on top) which is out of air. Well, technically we’re not out of air, I mean, I’ve got some right here, in fact. We just haven’t put any inside the hippity hop. Without air on the inside, that thing has neither hippity nor hop. If we aired it up and threw that guy into the room, we’d be able to set up bleachers and start charging admission, because Isabella would put on a show.

One day this past weekend, the weather wasn’t that great, and I mentioned to Carrie that it would be nice if there was a way for Isabella to get out and get some exercise. Then I heard a crash and turned to see Isabella watching TV, panting from her exertion, our big leather chair several inches behind the carpet indentations that indicated its typical resting place. Carrie and I looked at each other and shrugged. We needn’t have worried.