The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly! (AKA: My Weekend)

Well as I got thinking about the weekend that just was, I realized very quickly that starting with Friday, my days fell naturally into a pattern best described like the ole' Clint Eastwood classic ... The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. As I further hashed out the happenings of the last couple of days, I realized that there was a lot of material here to discuss. So much so that I contemplated breaking this blog into three seperate sections to give you all a break. But then I decided .... Nah! ...They can deal with an extra long blog. They're tough! (You are tough right?) I do advise getting a bite to eat and using the facilities before sitting down to read this marathon blog.

Heck, you could even combine the three. Just lock yourself away in the bathroom and tell your family that you are having "stomach issues" and "you might be awhile"! Then grab a sandwich and either a portable device or hard copy print-out of the blog and relax. Anyway, wherever you decide to read this ... you have been warned. This is gonna be long.

THE GOOD

Don't even get me started on the fact that after going back to school on Monday, the school committe in my town thought it would be a good idea to give the kids Friday off ... effectively creating a four day Labor Day weekend only four days after school started up again. What? The teachers need a break already???? HELLO! I just got these kids out of my house after 3 months. What kind of sick joke was this really? Well since I would have probably been arrested for dropping my girls in front of their schools and driving off, I decided to let them stay home with me and the baby on Friday.

The day itself was fine with the kids - gym, lunch, park, etc. But Friday night is where things got good. Not good as in my single-college-days type of good. But good in a mid-to-late-thirties-with-kids type of good. Friday night was the type of night all of us moms get excited about - a highlight in our month that we look forward to from the moment the last one ended. The night where we leave our families behind for a few hours, actually wear clean clothes, put makeup on and brush our hair. Yes, Friday night was my GIRL'S NIGHT OUT!!!!

Nothing gets a mom more giddy than knowing there is a girl's night out coming up. For me and one of my closest friends, our girl's night out is usually the first Friday of the month, and September 4th came right on schedule!!! Yeehaw! Now as I intimated in the last paragraph, our girl's night is not quite the same at our station in life as it might have been 15-20 years ago. No, no crazy drinking parties playing strip poker, or dancing on tables at a dive bar, or rocking out until sunrise at a disco. No crazy adventures eluding the cops, or drinking margaritas at a male strip club. Nothing like that. Not that I would even know what that stuff would be like. Noooooooooo, not me, I was a saint! I just heard rumblings from friends about that kinda stuff. Yup .... ahem .....

.... Anyhooo .... moving on. The point being is that the definition of a girl's night out has changed with age and the amount of dependents we claim on our taxes. Nowadays, it really doesn't take that much to get us excited, or make us feel like we are getting craaaaaazzzaaaay. Heck, most times, we don't even make it out of a 5 mile radius from our homes. Does this make us old farts? You betcha!

For us, our girl's night usually starts with a long and leisurely dinner with drinks, where we can actually .... you know .... TALK! Truly, such a novel idea when you are used to grabbing dinner together with all the kids in tow. Between the yelling at the children to "sit down" "stop climbing under the table" "use your restaurant voice" "eat your food or no dessert" or taking them on their third trip to the bathroom in a half hour, there is usually very little time left to say 10 words to each other ... and those are only curse words whispered under our breathes anyway. Yes, uninterrupted conversation between myself and another adult is such a luxury that I will literally hold a full bladder of pee for HOURS, just so we can keep talking.


So dinner and drinks it usually is, and was on Friday night, followed by yet another prized luxury in our lives ... the child-free trip to Target!!!!! I can't even begin to explain what getting a half- hour of peaceful browsing through our favorite store is like. For the men out there, I'd imagine it is the mom version of what you dads might correlate to being home alone with no wife or kids, and discovering that its a free preview weekend of Cinemax!!! Just wow!

First off, we don't need to push a cart. We can walk freely and uninhibitedly through clothing racks, touching and caressing the clothes we usually only get to glance at quickly from afar. We can wander by the toy section without the impending sense of doom that our children will start begging for every item they see ... usually trying to convince us that because London Tipton has it, so should they. We can wander up and down the housewares department with gay abandon, picking up a picture frame here, or a plasitc container there. It's all so lovely and quiet! Of course, and this is probably the biggest and sickest irony of the whole Target without children experience - the only item my girlfriend and I walked out of the store purchasing, was something for our kids. Sad I know, but at least we picked it out on our terms, damnit!


Our girl's night out usually ends the evening with a movie ... preferrably an R-rated movie with no talking animals or 3D glasses... oh and the more dirty language the better! Our last three movies we saw before this Friday were Step Brothers, The Hangover, and The Ugly Truth. Yes, we cherish the opportunity to see something base and raunchy that may even (gasp!) have male frontal nudity! So what if we are already blushing nervously during the Previews when those dang AXE Cologne ads come on? Have you seen those? Seriously, they are pornographic for cripes sakes! But we persevere, cause we old farts with little kids need to keep it real sometimes, and any Judd Apatow movie usually does the trick! HOLLA!

Well this Friday night we went for a tamer PG-13 selection and saw All About Steve. Cute and silly movie, but really the only reason we chose it was because after The Hangover, we realized Bradley Cooper is WICKED HOT!!!! Hey, we mom's need our eye candy too!

So Friday night ended, and I returned home to a quiet and sleeping house ... more relaxed and rested, and not even thinking about our next scheduled Girl's Night Out on October 2nd. Then Saturday came ....

THE BAD

So the early morning was pretty normal actually. Woke about 6:30-7am. Enjoyed my tea in bed while my kids came and snuggled one-by-one with me. Pretty awesome actually. I love my morning kid snuggles ... and am especially receptive after a Girls Night Out!

So seemingly off to a good start, I decide that Brody, my 15 month old little dude, would enjoy a bath. He loves baths actually and although his favorite part is taking plastic cups, filling them with water, and dumping them out on the bathroom floor, I was feeling extraordinarily patient and forgiving. So I threw caution (and my OCD tendancies) to the wind, and lined the floor with towels and proceeded to hand over TWO plastic cups to my little rapscallion. Yes he happily splashed and dumped water on the floor as usual. Yes I was soaking wet and not minding it too much, but that is when things changed for the worse. About the time I was washing his hair, I noticed Brody fighting me more than usual. He would crawl away to the far side of the tub and precariously attempt to stand up and away from my cleaning and rinsing cup. I was getting frustrated as I was having a hard time getting the shampoo out of his hair without it going in his eyes, while I was simultaneously worried he would slip and fall and hurt himself. Brody was just getting mad. After another minute of this power struggle, he turned red faced and screamed ... and that's when I realized ... he was "dropping a deuce" in the tub!!! OH NO!!!! The dreaded poop in the tubwater scenario! A first for Brody, but after two other kids, certainly not a first for me. However, unlike my girls' sweet little hard tootsie rolls that were fairly easy to catch and dispose of, darling little Brody was leaving me more of the chocolate mousse variety!!! ACK! And it was coming and still coming!!! What did this kid eat for breakfast?!?!?!

I screamed out the window to hubby who was working in the backyard to let him know of my predicament. Did he come running to my rescue... to help with either the poopie retrieval or to hold the poopie covered and very slippery baby while I recleaned the tub? Um that would be a negative. I was on my own, just me, the baby and the crap. Bad times.

However, with all the patience and creativity I had in me, I was finally able to get the baby out of the water, holding him while I caught all the poopies, drained the tub, cleaned out the rest of the poopies, refilled the water, cleaned off the poopie-covered baby, and then put the baby back in the tub for bath number two! AH HA! But not before hubby finally came to my assistance! Yes, my knight in shining armour appeared for 10 seconds to hand me some paper towels and leave again!!!! Really? How gracious of you! Seriously, how will I ever repay that type of kindness? Hmmm .... let me think ....

So that was the first sign that it might not be a great day, but I put the "dooker in the tub" episode behind me and moved on, hopeful for better things that day. While Brody napped and the girls played out the backyard with hubby, I even started to recapture some of that early "tea and snuggle" feeling. I decided that when Brody woke up from his nap, I would take him to IKEA for a few hours while hubby continued to work on his backyard project. A little outing with just the baby and I ... you know to be sure there were no lingering hurt feelings from our little incident in the tub. It all seemed to be a great idea on paper; Daddy gets his project done, girls get to play outside, and mommy and baby head off for the hour drive to the Swedish Mecca.

But as they say in football ... thats why they play the game !!!

Not 15 minutes into our little road trip, Brody's happy demeanor turned into a mild crabiness, which within another 5 minutes turned into a full fledged meltdown. I'm talking sweaty, red faced, kicking and screaming meltdown. The kind of screaming that creciendos into volumes so loud that you have to roll your car windows up in traffic before someone calls DCYF on your ass. I thought perhaps pulling off at a rest area for a little drive-through snack would settle things down. I thought wrong. He threw a chicken nugget so hard at my head that I'm pretty sure the Baltimore Orioles would make him their 5th starter.

It was also about this time that he started with the hyperventilating. Oh God how I hate the hyperventilating! It makes me feel so bad for babies when they get going like that. They have no idea why they can't breathe, and they're too young to coach them through it. I kept telling myself that if I could just get to IKEA, I know he would stop. He just wanted out of the car and out of the car seat.

Either Brody was still bitter at ME for the tub incident, or he has something seriously against the Swedes, because well... I was wrong again.

We arrived to a full Saturday afternoon parking lot which didn't offer up too many easily found spaces. Do you know how stressful it is to look for parking in a jammed lot, with a screaming and hyperventilating child in the car? Well, trust me, its like the Mt. Everest of stress!!! Every ounce of patience I had stockpiled from my Girls Night Out, was not only depleted, but was building debt quicker than the Economic Stimulus Plan.

I think I finally "car stalked" a family from the IKEA door to their car and gave them the hairy eyeball as they unloaded an entire house-full of "assembly required" furniture into their SAAB at the pace of my 5 year old getting ready for bed.

When I finally got into a space and looked back at the Martian in my son's car seat, I was certain better times were before me. Well color me shocked when taking him out of his car seat, still kicking and screaming, didn't stop him. Or the hugging and rubbing his head and trying to soothe him. Or the putting him in the shopping cart. Or stroller. Or carrying him. Or rocking him like a newborn.

As I approached the door to IKEA in hopes that seeing the bright sparkly lights of the world's biggest baby maze would shut him- er ... I mean soothe him, I saw the fear of God on the watchful faces of the other shoppers entering the store. "That woman is NOT going to be briging that screaming tazmanian devil into the store IS SHE????" I smiled pathetically. I tried putting Brody down on the floor ... you know ... to crawl out his troubles. Give him a sense of freedom. Nope. Nuthin'. He screamed louder and held his arms up to me pleadingly. I felt bad. Awww he just wants his Mommy, or so I thought until I picked him up and he began to swing at my head in furry. He seriously wanted to kick my ass!

Good Lord and Mercy Me! I just drove an hour here with a screaming child, only to get in the door five feet and realize I had to now drive back home an hour with a still screaming and seriously ticked off 15 month old. An even more terrifying thought ... I had to put him back in his car seat!!!!

(help me mama)

So back to the car (and that parking spot I worked so hard for dang it) I went, and now those horrified faces on strangers turned to sympathy. I was not getting any meatballs today.

So about 20 minutes back towards home, Brody finally screamed and hyperventilated himself into a sleep coma. He fought it - boy did he fight it. But it finally overtook him, and soon his adorable sweaty pink face was finally sleeping peacefully. I however needed Advil and a stiff drink .... and definitely a bathroom. Did I happen to mention I had to pee this entire time too? Unfortunately all of these things ended up having to wait until I got home, but what couldn't wait was a stop to gas up. As I cut the car motor at the pump, I glanced in the rearview mirror like a speeder looking back in fear that the cop they just whizzed by wouldn't hit the siren and come after them.

PLEASE DON'T LET THE BABY WAKE UP!!!!

No such luck. He woke up. DANG IT!

Much to my surprise and delight however, was that the alien that had possessed Brody and had screamed non-stop for nearly two hours strait, had been replaced by the sweet and happy son I once remembered. Brody was quietly babbling and smiling while grabbing his feet playfully. Well I'll be. Remind me to ask his pediatrician how early bi-polar disorder can be diagnosed.

I finally returned home, exhausted and nursing a helluva headache, but with a baby as happy and contented as the one I left with. I have of course vowed never to take Brody to IKEA again. He's not even allowed to LOOK at the catalog!


THE UGLY

(are you still with me???? Better stretch your legs now!)

So Saturday mercifully behind me, and now came Sunday. Did I mention that on Friday I agreed to run in my first ever 5K race???? I didn't? Oh yes, because I had tried to forget that little fact all weekend, but now was the day ... the day I put my pride on the line, and attempted to run 3.10 miles .... outside, away from a treadmill, and in front of other people! What was I thinking people!?!?!

Let me just say that although I have become one of those "excersing people" I used to mock, I am not, and will never be, a runner. My knees are too bad, my heart and lungs too weak, and my mind not nearly focused enough to ever become one of those people who like to run. You know the ones ... the one's who run 15 miles before breakfast and describe it as peaceful and energizing. Don't get me wrong ... I really admire those people and wish secretly to possess their superhuman powers, but I certainly don't get them, and I won't ever be one of them. Of course I once said that about the "excersing people" too, and now I've joined their ranks so I guess you can never say never right?

Anyway, I do run on a treadmill a few times a week, mainly as a quick and simple way to get a cardio workout in. I do it sometimes to challenge myself to see how far I can make it before my bad knee starts tweaking, or before I get bored and want to do something else. I have completed a 5k on a treadmill a few times. Every time I was proud of myself, and every time it was real hard. So when I decided on a whim to run in this particular 5k race ... my first ever REAL 5k .... I had exactly 48 hours to prepare mentally and physically. I figured the physical part would either be there or not, and as far as mental preparation? Well if I could survive the "IKEA Screaming Babyathon Challenge" without murdering anyone the day before, then I figured I was mentally tough enough to tackle 3.10 miles ... no matter how ugly it was.

Oh, and it was pretty ugly. My goal was to finish under 35 minutes and without stopping. I am proud to say that I finished in 33:03 (about my average) and I never stopped running. YAY.... goodie for me! However, it was ugly nonetheless. I'm not used to running outdoors .... with hills ... and heat .... and wind .... and tree roots unleveling all the sidewalks. My breathing was as shallow as Paris Hilton and my stride as unbalanced as a two-legged tripod. When the lady pushing TWO children in a stroller passed me in my last mile, I regretted not pulling a "Rosie Ruiz" early on and at least experiencing a few passing moments of glory before being shamed for life. Regrets aside, and with much perseverence, I did finish, and I was thrilled. And as ugly as it was, I am so glad I did it. I will even (gasp!) try it again sometime. If for no other reason than to get the free pizza and donuts at the finish line. What? Spectators get those too?!?!? Well forget it then.

THE AWESOME!!! (BONUS SECTION)

As long as this blog has already become, I couldn't finish telling you about my weekend without telling you about the best part of it. I know The Awesome wasn't a part of that Clint Eastwood movie title, but really this was truly THE AWESOME!

So I shared the ugly truth about my 5k on Sunday, but what I didn't mention was the fact that my 8 year old daughter Isabella, ran the 5k too! Her first as well! She is an amazing athlete who loves any kind of athletic challenge. She is a runner too. At another annual race, she has run and won the 1 mile race for her age group two years in a row, and she does seem to have unlimited wealth of competative reserves. She is simply put ... a MACHINE!

So she and I agree to take on this 5k challenge together. As daunting as I felt about it, I knew this would be a tough challenge for her. She's never run any distance over a mile and half and she was BY FAR the youngest runner in the race.

Well imagine my surprise and immense pride when she finished in front of 75 other runners to finish in under 30 minutes at 29:42, and well before yours truly!!!! She was inspirational! Crying the last 100 yards, but yet increasing her pace by double, she sprinted to the finish line amongst hails of cheers and applause. She did it! She was AWESOME! Her dad and I couldn't be prouder. And not because of her fast time .... but because she accepted and completed a tough challenge willingly. It was hard as heck for her and yet she perservered AND EXCELLED. She is truly in the game of life full out and it rocks! FYI, this is one of the best realizations you can have about your child!

Although in the moments following her finish, she understandibly swore to never run another 5k again, she has since amended her stance, and already wants to beat her time next year! Hmmm, I think she might just someday end up being one of those people enjoying their relaxing and energizing 15 mile morning runs. As long as she returns to share in my "tea and snuggle time!"


IN CONCLUSION

Is there really anything else to say? I've blabbered on forever here. I think I might have already just set my own unbreakable record for longest blog ever. However, one last thing before I go ... and this one I really couldn't categorize in anyway that would do it justice. Just know that I capped off my weekend Sunday night with what had to be the most riveting couple of hours of television ever! I watched Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus starring Deborah (Debbie) Gibson and Lorenzo Llamas (with a southern accent!) on the Sci Fi channel. I'm truly sorry if you missed it. It really was the height of filmmaking, surely never to be exceeded. When the Mega Shark jumped out of the ocean and ate an airplane right out of the sky, well I knew this was a made-for-tv movie for the ages. It was the perfect summation of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (and Awesome!) Quite simply, it was the perfect ending to my perfectly, not-so-perfect typical weekend. I just have one question ... is it October 2nd yet?????

MEOW!