Before I get going on my list of my current favorite pop culture "vices," I wanted to first remind you that yesterday was October 2.
To the uninitiated, October 2nd was the first Friday of the month which means it was girl's night out!!! Thanks to Sue and Becky for a great time. We really shook up the concept of the whole dinner, drinks, and a movie thing by going upscale and doing it up right at a few fancier establishments. No, this was not your typical dinner at Friday's and catching a movie with all the teenagers at the local strip mall. Nope, this was dinner at the CBS Scene Restaurant (the only place I know of that you can watch The Brady Bunch at your table), and a movie at the Showcase Cinema de Lux! For those of you not familar with the whole Cinema de Lux concept, let me just say that you are missing out on what could possibly be the best invention since they put wings on maxi's!
You see the Cinema de Lux concept that they've added to some of the Showcase Cinemas more higher-end locations, is a revelation and a retreat, especially for those of us suffering from the "Disney, Pixar, 3D, wigglefest, multiple bathroom trips, and kid infested noon time showing extravaganza" we call our typical movie viewing experience.
Yes, viewing a movie in the "Lux Level" is most like moving from coach to first class! Or in some cases like moving from the baggage compartment to First Class. First off it is a 21 and older experience ... already worth its cost of admission right there! But before you even hit the inside of theater itself, you are escorted behind the velvet rope and up a set of stairs to the VIP lounge area. Feeling like Britney or Lindsay sipping martini's at ultra-sheik tables with linen napkins and fresh flowers, while looking out and down on the commoners below, you instantly look and feel more important. You realize very quickly that this isn't going to be your usual movie going experience. I knew this going in cause it wasn't my first time on the Lux Level, but I was bringing friends who had only heard the stories. It was like taking an expidition to the North Pole to see that Santa really did exist!
The "Lux" continues when our own personal maitre'd escorts us, drinks in hand, from the lounge into the theater to our seats. These aren't your typical movie theater seats either ... these are like Donald Trump private screening room movie theater seats. Once again situated above the the general admission area below, these giant leather recliners are so big and comfy, that the only thing missing was someone giving me a mani/pedi as the previews played.
Spa treatments not withstanding, you still get the little adjustable table that swings in front of you and a full menu selection of sandwiches, pizzas, cocktails, desserts and of course typical concession fare. Just one press of the service button located on your arm rest, and a nice waiter or waitress will come and take your order. You can do this all movie long and close out your bill at the end of the movie. Pretty much like club sections at sporting events, but loooong overdue at the movie theater. Thank you to Showcase Cinemas for finally realizing that some of us will actually pay more to sit comfortably with adults and enjoy a nice meal and drinks with our movie!
Anyway, our girl's night out wasn't quite a scene from The Hangover (if you don't count the random roaming chicken) but it was a fabulous time with great friends, good food and drink and a bit of VIP treatment. And as usual, it was very much needed! Can't wait for November 6th!
Now on to my five pop culture vices and why I'm not afraid to admit to them ....
(in no particular order, because vices are vices no matter the context, so each one always seems like the most important one while you are indulging in it)
Tori Spelling- Huh you say? Tori Spelling is one of your vices? Yep, I admit it ... although I might not have been chanting "Let Donna Martin Graduate" back in the Beverly Hills 90210 days (I was a Kelly gal), I have since developed a little bit of a girl crush on Tori and her whole family. It started when I first watched her show Tori and Dean: Inn Love. I followed their move out of LA and into proprietorship of their very own B&B. I was impressed with Tori's down to earth nature, her work ethic, her desire to distance herself from the tabloid image of a spoiled daddy's girl, and her wacky sense of humor which I found oddly familiar to my own. I related to her very real and normal relationship with her husband, her adjustment to pregnancy, and I laughed along with she and Dean's escapades as they attempted in vain to start a new life in the boonies.
I was hooked. I have since watched every episode of the Tori and Dean franchise and as they returned to LA and settled down into a new house every year it seems. I have read both her books (both are HIGHLY entertaining and great easy reads), and I even follow their happenings on Twitter. Heck, if I win Powerball, I might even be able to afford some of the clothes in her adorable new children's clothing line. Believe it or not, our sons even look a lot alike. So much so that my hubby and I started calling our son "monkey" after the nickname Tori and Dean gave their son Liam. They also gave birth to their daughter Stella on my son Brody's due date and the two are only a week apart in age. Now I know this all may sound kinda stalker-crazy on my part, but trust me ... it's all very innocent. I just relate to her and her family (but sadly not her houses or her bank account), and they are by far my favorite TV family and I am not ashamed to admit it. I have laughed and cried with Tori for many years now both on TV and in print. I feel like I've really gotten to know her and Dean, their kids, and their extended family of friends and "guncles." In fact, let me at that Candy Spelling .... I need to give that woman a biotch-slap! Seriously though .... Tori, you rock girlfriend, and if you are ever in New England, please swing by and we can get the monkey's together, and plan a kick ass party ... as long as you foot the bill of course!
Reality TV - Oh Lawdy! Where do I start here? Seriously I have such and addiction to reality TV that I could literally write 5 blogs about this topic alone. American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing With The Stars, Tori and Dean, Top Chef, America's Next Top Model, Project Runway, The Biggest Loser, Ghost Hunters and The Amazing Race are just a few of the shows I've had on my DVR just this year. But the list of Reality TV shows I've watched at one time or another goes waaaaay back to the first season of MTV's The Real World (or as I like to call it ... the year that the music video died). Heck, I may be the the only person you know who has watched every season of Solitary. Call me sad and pathetic, but other than my brother who is an actor and who's livelihood depends on being cast in scripted tv shows, no one else has any right to judge me.
My love of Reality TV does not make me shallow or stupid. Rather I like to see it more as being "well rounded." I love a good drama or comedy, I love to read books and see snobby independent movies. I graduated college Magna Cum-Laude for crying out loud! No, my love of Reality TV has nothing to do with my education level, but more about my desire to escape into the craziness of someone else's life for a change. Sometimes after a long day playing teacher, mediator, chauffeur, clown, and disciplinarian to three kids, all I want to do is sit on the couch and see if some crazy designer can really make a dress out of dust-bunnies or a wanna-be Top Chef can make a Devil Dog Ceviche with a balsamic reduction. Yeah its not Masterpiece Theater, but frankly I always thought Masterpiece Theater was as boring as hell!
Facebook- The fact that between every paragraph I write here on my blog I am refreshing my Facebook page, might just be an indication that I am an addict. I reluctantly stuck my toe into the Facebook universe just under a year ago. 240 friends and many high scores of Bejeweled Blitz later, I am officially in with both feet and the water is rising fast.
Unlike MySpace, and the free for all of teenie boppers and weirdos trying to collect friends like squirrels stashing nuts for the winter, Facebook I found was a bit more "adult." More importantly, it was more private and controllable. At first I just enjoyed finding and reconnecting with many past friends, many of whom I thought would be relegated forever to my memory and old photo albums. As time passed and I got into the rhythm of reading and posting on the News Feed everyday, I realized how important it is for me to start every day checking in to find out who's kid has a fever, which friend is getting a haircut, or how many of them have already gotten in their work-out. Yes, I am now a slave to Status Updates! And the more the merrier I say... Post away! Once I got the Facebook App on my iPhone (more on that to come), the mobility set me free! I'm not ashamed to say that I've checked those status updates from the toilet on more than one occasion. Go ahead ...admit it ... I'm not the only one ... I know those of you with Blackberries and iPhones have done it too!
Now some of you may be Twitter fantatics, and that's fine. I like Twitter too. But I find Twitter a bit more impersonal and limiting. Come on .... 140 characters???? Really, ME????? Other than discovering real-time breaking news with the trending topics, and the pseudo-stalking of certain celebrities by following their "tweets" (Hi Tori!!!), Twitter is pretty much only good for people trying to advertise their businesses or confuse us amateurs with a bunch of #@#@## symbols that look like gooblygunk. Nah, give me a handful of my closest friends, and a couple hundred more of my former classmates, ex boyfriends, mild acquaintances, and people I might have never met in person, and tell me what they are up to a few times a day. THAT my friend is a recipe for addiction! (And I haven't even mentioned all the stupid games and quizzes)
Clay Aiken- Well this current vice goes all the way back to 2003, and like Tori Spelling, was born out of the Reality TV vice. When I was introduced to one Clay Aiken during the second season of American Idol, little did I know that 6 1/2 years later I would still be as addicted! Now step off people and don't be a hater! Clay Aiken quite simply has the best male voice in popular music and puts on one heck of an entertaining concert. I should know, I've seen him in concert more than 30 times, and in eight different states. More simply put, I am one of those crazy Claymates ... and I don't even meet any one of the stereotypes! (well, okay ... I do own a cat ....)
Since the moment the title was stolen from him in 2003, through all the media attention, the lies that were told about him, and the revelations he eventually shared, one thing has remained ... his voice! I'm addicted, and listening to Clay's music will be a vice I shall happily enjoy for the rest of my life, even if he never makes another album. Now all my former radio peeps, and music snobs can take your judgements and stuff em! Moonkitty doesn't care what you think. Yes I like all types of music, from Ministry to Miley Cyrus and everything else in between. It just so happens that number one ahead of them all is my love for Clay Aiken. Now deal with it!
iPhone- I remember when my dear hubby got me my first iPod for Mother's Day back in 2005. I was excited, but not sure I really needed this portable little gadget that simply put music in a digital form. I liked my Sports Talk radio and my few Clay Aiken CD's and that was pretty much all I was listening to at the time. Silly girl! Within days I was hooked. I had playlists, and mixes and loved playing the iPod in the car. I could barely contemplate life before the iPod, and promptly sold off every CD I owned! Flash Forward 2 years when hubby upgraded me to the iPhone, and my life was basically changed forever.
Even back in 2007 the iPhone was pretty amazing. Phone, Text, iPod, Internet, Email, Camera, and a handful of Apple created applications that were always fun to play with. Even with these functions alone, my life was immediately streamlined into technology nirvana. But now add the upgrades and the thousands and thousands of third party applications available at a touch (including Facebook), and I've basically become a slave to my iPhone ... but I have no complaints!
Does anyone else just marvel at the miracle that is the iPhone? Seriously, I swear the thing is magic, dropped accidently onto our planet by some careless fly-by aliens. I mean isn't it pure Science Fiction here? Wasn't it just like 12 years ago that our cell phones were as big as toasters with antennas a foot long??? Now my cell phone can purchase Gouchos from the Gap with a few touches! Seriously, what would I do every morning if I couldn't lay in bed drinking my tea while checking Facebook, Twitter, the 10 day weather forecast, my emails, and buying movie tickets? I mean this is our life now, and I wouldn't want it any other way. Well, I am kinda glad this technology wasn't around when I was a kid though. I can't imagine getting an ounce of work done in high school or college if this technology was introduced to me then. I mean we actually had to pass handwritten notes, knock on each other's doors or call from our see-through Swatch phones with the 8 inch curly cord if we wanted to make plans with each other. You really had to like someone to take the effort it took back then to go out with them.
Yeah, I'm actually pretty psyched that the technology held off long enough for me to grow up and define my identity and gather my self worth before the era of instant impersonal communication came about. But I am sure glad it did come about. Now if I could only keep it away from my kids until they are at least 25 years old.
.... Hmmmm thinking about lobbying Congress to pass a law here ....
Anyway, viva la iPhone!
So there you have it. A few of my favorite pop culture vices. I know just the word "vice" implies a bad thing, and without moderation I know I would be fresh for the loony bin. But when stricken with the right balance ... all the gadgets, celebrities, TV shows, and social networking web sites we find ourselves drawn to over and over again in today's pop culture obsessed society can yield beneficial results. Stress relief and friendship are just a couple of the biggest benefits that immediately come to my mind. Hey its better than downing a bottle of Pinot a day or hiring hookers right???
Seriously, I listed my pop culture vices as way to be free and proud, and to send a message to all of those who proudly proclaim to be "above the fray" and so much better than all these base and lowest common denominator things that they so snootily look down upon. Well I say ... too bad for you. While you are out there being sooooooo refined and worldy, you are missing out on a damn good Cha-Cha from Maks and a D-list celebrity!!!!
MEOW!
Post Script: There will not be a blog for a few weeks as I prepare for our family vacation. We leave in a week and will be gone for a week. I need the time leading up to our trip to prepare and pack, and although my iPhone makes it possible, I will not be blogging from the beach. I'll give y'all a nice long recap blog though when we return ... that is if I'm still functioning!
Post Post Script: I was kidding about the chicken.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
P90X, 5K's, and Insanity (AKA: Just Three of the Signs I've Officially Lost My Mind)
Let's just get this out of the way once again ... I am not a fitness freak, nor do I love to workout and exercise. I have literally gone years between workouts in the past and never thought a minute about it. I will never be the fittest person I know, nor do I want to be. I hate to diet, and basically hate 96.4% of all vegetables. So how is that in the year 2009, I have completed the P90X home bootcamp, trained myself to be able to finish 5k's, and still plan to take on yet another home bootcamp program called Insanity later this fall? Well basically it came down to the fact that I got tired of just doing enough to get by. I might have been thin, and I might have been able to get back into my skinny jeans after each pregnancy, but I had never been truly fit, flexible, and strong. So I figured, what the heck, I'd give it a go. Either I have finally hit another benchmark on my journey of personal growth, or Tony Horton has given me a fitness labotomy. I'm leaning toward the labotomy.
Whatever the reason, we can't talk about present solutions without looking back in time and discovering the past causes.
First and foremost I was blessed with good genes. I have always had a tall and lean build, and even when I packed on extra weight, it usually got hidden well by my height. In my youth, I was just one of those lucky types that could pretty much eat what I wanted and stay skinny.
On the exercise front, I was a tomboy growing up and loved to play sports. This helped me keep in shape without even thinking about it. When you run 50 Suicides everyday in basketball practice, you tend to keep the weight off. More importantly, my mom worked in the fitness industry since I was young, and other than the scarring memories of her traipsing around in blue lycra unitards and legwarmers while my childhood crushes asked her out on dates, I was fortunate enough to exposed to the "healthclub/gym" lifestyle starting early on ... even if I didn't really think much about it on a personal level until later in my life. I do think that kind of exposure however, has to seep into you almost by osmosis, whether you realize or not. Gyms may never have appealed to me much, but they never scared or intimidated me either.
My college years were certainly not my healthiest, but seriously .... whose are? I played a few sports here and there, and maybe found myself in the college weight room less than a dozen times in 4 years. (Me working the front desk at the gym doesn't count does it?). I did my fair share of imbibing cheap beer, and I even DJ'd in a nightclub where the Budweiser and the extra 15 pounds were free! By the time I graduated to single working life in NYC, my body went into shell shock! I was at my heaviest weight ever and trying to adjust to a totally different lifestyle. This was really the first time I consciously took on the whole "lets get fit" mentality. This new lifestyle in NYC did work to my benefit in many ways. I had to walk everywhere, I could climb the 18 stories to my apartment everyday, and my building was choc-full-o-cute guys who liked to workout in the little community gym. So maybe not so coincidentally, I found myself there working out a lot more than usual. Ok, so my motivation wasn't that pure, but I did land me a hottie for awhile!
The diet part was a bit trickier. I've never ever ever been a healthy eater. Luckily, I've never had a big appetite, but what I do eat is rarely what you would call "the smart choice at the buffet." I have a wicked sweet tooth, I love my carbs, fried food and red meat. I literally gag when I eat most vegetables, and I'm in a very committed relationship with carbonated beverages. I was raised a total meat and potatoes kinda gal and we dined out more than the average family. As you can see, I have my work cut out for me.
On my own in NYC, my minimal discretionary income and I, were led to rock the "Ramen Noodle Diet" pretty dang hard. I even bought Susan Powder's "Stop the Insanity" book and learned that "fat made me fat." So with the few dollars I had for groceries each week, I filled my cart with lots "fat free" Smartwells, and the occassional can of green beans. Yeah .... not so healthy I know. BUT ... I did lose the college weight! Granted, my insides were probably toxic and glowing, but I was still riding the coattails of an early twenties metabolism, and still gloriously naive to the looming effects of age, poor diet, and 3 pregnancies yet to come!
So as my twenties came and went, so did most of my excerice regimes, and any inclination towards a healthy lifestyle. I moved on from NYC to DC, and even back home to Massachusetts with mom and dad for awhile. Yes, I did eat a little better than I had been, but what little good habits I did have in NYC all but slipped away. All the walking was replaced with driving, the gym was replaced with working more, and what free time I had, was filled more often than not with socializing over beers and cigarettes. On the bright side, I did meet the ultimate "hottie", who I eventually married. We settled in Florida for a few years, and spent most of our time working, playing, golfing, smoking, drinking and eating out, and not always in that order.
Honestly though I loved every minute of it! I look fondly back on my twenties as some of the best times of my life. Where the baby boomers might have their Woodstock era of free love and excessive drugs use to reminesce about, I have my Florida sunshine era with marriage and endless weekends at the pool with some beer, smokes and chicken tenders to reminesce about. And trust me ... if I hit 85 years old, I am adopting that lifestyle full force again! I figure if I make it that long, then I'll have earned the free pass on all that end of life debauchery. The good news for me though was, although my carefree ways in my twenties may have lowered my chances of making it to 85 years old just a bit, I was still keeping my weight in check. Yep, based on my very shallow and vein criteria, I was doing goooooooood!
When I was 29 that all changed. We had since returned to New England to start our family, and right on schedule I got pregnant and promptly gained 60 pounds! I had my first child and for the first time in my life, I realized that perhaps a long walk and skipping that 4th slice of pizza was not going to get me back into my skinny jeans. It was about the time I turned 30 that I finally learned that I actually had to "work" to accomplish what fortuidous genetics and an amped up metabolism had done for me in the past. I also started to care just a little more about making it to 85 years old after all. That's one of the first lessons I learned about what getting older and having kids will do to you. You no longer feel invincible and you care!
I dumped most all the bad habits upon learning of my pregnancy, and after giving birth, I joined a gym. When I plateaued still 15 pounds shy of my pre-pregnancy weight after a year of what I would consider light to medium excercise about 3 times a week, I joined Weight Watchers and tried to finally get my poor eating habits under control. Within six very strict and regimented weeks I had finally hit my goal weight and even fell below it for a time. But then guess what happened? I went back to work, my gym membership lapsed, and fried food made a welcome reappearance back into my life. But even with my little relapses, I was still able to do just enough to maintain my weight. That was until pregnancy number two and another 50 pound weight gain.
It was rinse and repeat after that child was born. Rejoined another gym, pulled out the ole' Weight Watchers calculator and dropped the weight in about 6 months. I hit my goals and stopped hitting the gym. I maintained my weight as I always had, by just doing enough to get by. I would cut back on the bad foods when I would gain a few pounds, and I got my exercise chasing 2 active girls around. In 2008 I got pregnant with my last child, and kept the weight gain to 40 pounds this time- an impressive feat I think since I was working in a restaurant during that time and was as inactive as Jaba the Hut during those 9 months. And not just Jaba the Hut, but Jaba the Hut with two broken legs. (Well not sure Jaba really has legs, but you get my drift). When my son was born I thought they had accidently left another baby in my uterus. I swear I had a 6 month baby bump for weeks after his delivery that I not so affectionately called "The Twin."
I did the Weight Watcher points again, but I didn't join a gym this time around. Rather, because it was summer, I took a lot of walks, and supplimented them with daily workouts from Fit TV. Gilad and I became very close. Do you know that he's "happy I trust him with my boddddayyy?"
I even made one of those Oprah-tastic "Dream Boards" and put a half naked picture of Edyta Sliwinska from Dancing With The Stars on it. Trust me, my hubby was really supporting my efforts 100% !!!
By the fall I had done it. I had lost the pregnancy weight again, and it was back again to lazytown. I broke up with Gilad and points were only counted when the scale started to creep upward. Yes, my fitness commitment once again became as eratic as Kanye West's social graces. But who cared ... I was back in those size 6 jeans baby!
Then came 2009 ... or as I now refer to it ... the year that I'm certain Tony Horton gave me a fitness lobotomy.
Maybe it was having a little more time with me not working, or half-naked Edyta staring me in the face every day, or being hypnotized by that scary professional tennis player in the informercial that finally convinced me, but clearly I lost my mind when I agreed to 90 days of intense home bootcamp in addition to its regimented 90 day diet.
I was commited. I would take the P90X challenge with my husband and I would take it on full throttle. The promise of getting in the best shape of my life and getting ripped for the first time in my life was pretty intoxicating. And all I had to do was keep putting the DVD in and pressing play everyday ... oh and then actually doing the workouts and not just watching them. Tony Horton, the totally jacked and ripped personal trainer became my closest friend and fitness mentor for 90 days. Even though I've never really met him, I swear he and I had a connection. I felt it. He always knew what to say and how to say it .... oh and he hadthecutestlittlejokes......
Ahem... anyway ... Tony kept me motivated, encouraged me "to do my best and forget the rest", and led me through a series of workouts the likes of which I had never seen in my life. I knew on day one that this wasn't a joke when our very first move after warm-up was Stacked-Foot Staggerd-Hand Push-Ups. Are you serious? Push-ups? I could barely do ten standard push-ups ... on my knees! Now Tony wanted me to stack my feet and stagger my hands and do push ups ... as my very first move!!!! Crap! What had I gotten myself into.
But never one to quit on a commitment, and not wanting to disappoint my dear Tony, I kept at it, kept pushing play. By the time my 90 days were complete, I enjoyed the push-ups. I became proficient at power yoga, kempo karate, and had moved from 3lb-5lb weights to 15 and 20lbs weights for much of my resistance workouts. I will never love the pull-ups or the demonic 16 minutes of hell they call Ab RipperX, but I did them. I got good enough to do banana rolls just like the lovely and talented Dreya Webber (do you know she flies through the air with the greatest of ease???). I was able to not only touch my toes in a straight legged hamstring stretch, I could grab my feet and hold them the entire time. Never once in my life had I been able to do this until now. I somehow found a way to get that workout in every day (with a few reasonable exceptions). If it meant getting up at 5am I did it, and if it meant 90 minutes of Yoga at 10pm at night, I still did it ... and I always felt better afterwards (if you don't count the first week where I felt like I had been drawn and quartered by Clidesdales).
The commitment was daunting as hell at times, as was the low carb diet (the high protein part was a breeze!). I even purchased the Jack Lelane Juicer so I could drink all those vegetables that I hate. Its amazing how good veggies taste in a drink with a little apple or banana to sweeten it up. I was determined to make this 90 days my chance to finally do it right ... 100% balls-to-the-wall commitment. I figured that if I couldn't make this one little 90 day commitment for my health and well being (and to look smoking hot in a bikini just in time for summer), then I was doomed to a middling existance for the rest of my life. If I quit or "half-assed" it, I would once again just be doing enough to get by. How completely comfortable and incredibly unremarkable that would be.
I would not, could not do that to myself, my hubby or my kids ... or to my dearest Tony whose face I would never be able to look at again. So with this alien resolve, I completed my 90 days in June with one of the greatest senses of accomplishments I've ever felt, and Tony was right! I was in the best damn shape of my life.
So now what?
Well what I didn't realize when I handed over my mind, body and soul to Tony and the P90X gang was that they were really lying to me ... it wasn't just a 90 day committment I was making. They often say it takes only 21 days to a form a new habit. Well if thats true, guess what 90 days forms? You got it... A lifestyle. I had just busted my ass working out for 90 days straight, getting fitter, stronger, and more flexible than I have ever been (and in a size 4!!!), and I wasn't about to just hop back on the couch and eat bon bons and let all my hard work go to waste. Nope, I decided to keep going, incorporating my P90X workouts into my new gym regimen.
Then one day I discoverd something else amazing ... I could run! Well let me just admit right now that I'm not "a runner" and I will never be "a runner". I don't love it and I won't be one of those people who wake up one day and decide they want to run a Marathon. Not going to happen. Ever. However before P90X, I couldn't even run a mile without huffing and puffing and having severe knee pain from an old injury. I'd quit and convince myself that "walking on incline" was just as effective. HA! Well one day right after my 90 days were complete, I just decided to hop on the treadmill and start running and see how far I could go. Imagine my surprise when I ran 3 miles! Now I was going at a very slow pace, but I was still amazed, and just a wee bit inspired I guess.
So I kept up the running, and tried to increase my speed a little each time, and even pondered the possibility that I might someday run an official 5k. You know down the road in the future sometime. Maybe even next year. Well imagine my complete horror one Friday when hubby proposed that I run my first official 5k that Sunday!!! 48 hours later!!!! Oh Good Lord, what had I done. I had gone and misguidingly convinced other people that I liked running and might even be good at it! Double HA!
Well again, the Tony Horton labotomy kicked in and I just decided to go for it. If you haven't read my Good, Bad, and Ugly blog from earlier this month, go back and do so. I detail the happenings of the race there.
The next day I tweeted about barely surviving my very first official 5k race, and some random "follower" of mine replied to me that he "ate 5k's for breakfast."
Jackass!
Yet the more I thought about it, I couldn't stop thinking that the idea of "eating 5k's for breakfast" was so completely and utterly cool. Here I thought eating "Special K's" for breakast was about the healthiest I'd ever get, now I had the option of eating 5K's for breakfast. Hmmmmm.... maybe he wasn't a jackass afterall. Maybe he was just laying down my next challenge.
So I have continued to run 5 days a week, on the treadmill and outside. I haven't really gotten much faster, or dared to add the hills back into the mix, but I have noticed that I can now indeed eat very flat, temperature-controlled 5K's for breakfast. Or at the very least, I'm snacking on them. I am planning my second official 5K before the end of the year.
Seriously, what did Tony do to me????
Now as the weather cools, and working out in a house without central AC once again becomes a viable option, hubby and I have decided to take on our next challenge. Another at home bootcamp called "Insanity." Only 60 days this time, but all intense cardio-based workouts, I think this one is very aptly titled. I do feel as though I have gone insane sometimes. I still don't see myself as that "gym rat" or "fitness freak" just because I work out at 5-6 days a week. I do it because I love the results and want to keep them. I'm usually game for a challenge, and I love knowing that I can now indulge my sweet tooth or cravings for craptastic food every now and then and I won't be drenched in guilt or worry about counting points again.
But most of all I am determined to make it to 85 so I can party like Lindsay Lohan on a weekend bender! So only 47 more years to go!
Damn you Tony Horton! 90 days my arse!
MEOW!
Whatever the reason, we can't talk about present solutions without looking back in time and discovering the past causes.
First and foremost I was blessed with good genes. I have always had a tall and lean build, and even when I packed on extra weight, it usually got hidden well by my height. In my youth, I was just one of those lucky types that could pretty much eat what I wanted and stay skinny.
On the exercise front, I was a tomboy growing up and loved to play sports. This helped me keep in shape without even thinking about it. When you run 50 Suicides everyday in basketball practice, you tend to keep the weight off. More importantly, my mom worked in the fitness industry since I was young, and other than the scarring memories of her traipsing around in blue lycra unitards and legwarmers while my childhood crushes asked her out on dates, I was fortunate enough to exposed to the "healthclub/gym" lifestyle starting early on ... even if I didn't really think much about it on a personal level until later in my life. I do think that kind of exposure however, has to seep into you almost by osmosis, whether you realize or not. Gyms may never have appealed to me much, but they never scared or intimidated me either.
My college years were certainly not my healthiest, but seriously .... whose are? I played a few sports here and there, and maybe found myself in the college weight room less than a dozen times in 4 years. (Me working the front desk at the gym doesn't count does it?). I did my fair share of imbibing cheap beer, and I even DJ'd in a nightclub where the Budweiser and the extra 15 pounds were free! By the time I graduated to single working life in NYC, my body went into shell shock! I was at my heaviest weight ever and trying to adjust to a totally different lifestyle. This was really the first time I consciously took on the whole "lets get fit" mentality. This new lifestyle in NYC did work to my benefit in many ways. I had to walk everywhere, I could climb the 18 stories to my apartment everyday, and my building was choc-full-o-cute guys who liked to workout in the little community gym. So maybe not so coincidentally, I found myself there working out a lot more than usual. Ok, so my motivation wasn't that pure, but I did land me a hottie for awhile!
The diet part was a bit trickier. I've never ever ever been a healthy eater. Luckily, I've never had a big appetite, but what I do eat is rarely what you would call "the smart choice at the buffet." I have a wicked sweet tooth, I love my carbs, fried food and red meat. I literally gag when I eat most vegetables, and I'm in a very committed relationship with carbonated beverages. I was raised a total meat and potatoes kinda gal and we dined out more than the average family. As you can see, I have my work cut out for me.
On my own in NYC, my minimal discretionary income and I, were led to rock the "Ramen Noodle Diet" pretty dang hard. I even bought Susan Powder's "Stop the Insanity" book and learned that "fat made me fat." So with the few dollars I had for groceries each week, I filled my cart with lots "fat free" Smartwells, and the occassional can of green beans. Yeah .... not so healthy I know. BUT ... I did lose the college weight! Granted, my insides were probably toxic and glowing, but I was still riding the coattails of an early twenties metabolism, and still gloriously naive to the looming effects of age, poor diet, and 3 pregnancies yet to come!
So as my twenties came and went, so did most of my excerice regimes, and any inclination towards a healthy lifestyle. I moved on from NYC to DC, and even back home to Massachusetts with mom and dad for awhile. Yes, I did eat a little better than I had been, but what little good habits I did have in NYC all but slipped away. All the walking was replaced with driving, the gym was replaced with working more, and what free time I had, was filled more often than not with socializing over beers and cigarettes. On the bright side, I did meet the ultimate "hottie", who I eventually married. We settled in Florida for a few years, and spent most of our time working, playing, golfing, smoking, drinking and eating out, and not always in that order.
Honestly though I loved every minute of it! I look fondly back on my twenties as some of the best times of my life. Where the baby boomers might have their Woodstock era of free love and excessive drugs use to reminesce about, I have my Florida sunshine era with marriage and endless weekends at the pool with some beer, smokes and chicken tenders to reminesce about. And trust me ... if I hit 85 years old, I am adopting that lifestyle full force again! I figure if I make it that long, then I'll have earned the free pass on all that end of life debauchery. The good news for me though was, although my carefree ways in my twenties may have lowered my chances of making it to 85 years old just a bit, I was still keeping my weight in check. Yep, based on my very shallow and vein criteria, I was doing goooooooood!
When I was 29 that all changed. We had since returned to New England to start our family, and right on schedule I got pregnant and promptly gained 60 pounds! I had my first child and for the first time in my life, I realized that perhaps a long walk and skipping that 4th slice of pizza was not going to get me back into my skinny jeans. It was about the time I turned 30 that I finally learned that I actually had to "work" to accomplish what fortuidous genetics and an amped up metabolism had done for me in the past. I also started to care just a little more about making it to 85 years old after all. That's one of the first lessons I learned about what getting older and having kids will do to you. You no longer feel invincible and you care!
I dumped most all the bad habits upon learning of my pregnancy, and after giving birth, I joined a gym. When I plateaued still 15 pounds shy of my pre-pregnancy weight after a year of what I would consider light to medium excercise about 3 times a week, I joined Weight Watchers and tried to finally get my poor eating habits under control. Within six very strict and regimented weeks I had finally hit my goal weight and even fell below it for a time. But then guess what happened? I went back to work, my gym membership lapsed, and fried food made a welcome reappearance back into my life. But even with my little relapses, I was still able to do just enough to maintain my weight. That was until pregnancy number two and another 50 pound weight gain.
It was rinse and repeat after that child was born. Rejoined another gym, pulled out the ole' Weight Watchers calculator and dropped the weight in about 6 months. I hit my goals and stopped hitting the gym. I maintained my weight as I always had, by just doing enough to get by. I would cut back on the bad foods when I would gain a few pounds, and I got my exercise chasing 2 active girls around. In 2008 I got pregnant with my last child, and kept the weight gain to 40 pounds this time- an impressive feat I think since I was working in a restaurant during that time and was as inactive as Jaba the Hut during those 9 months. And not just Jaba the Hut, but Jaba the Hut with two broken legs. (Well not sure Jaba really has legs, but you get my drift). When my son was born I thought they had accidently left another baby in my uterus. I swear I had a 6 month baby bump for weeks after his delivery that I not so affectionately called "The Twin."
I did the Weight Watcher points again, but I didn't join a gym this time around. Rather, because it was summer, I took a lot of walks, and supplimented them with daily workouts from Fit TV. Gilad and I became very close. Do you know that he's "happy I trust him with my boddddayyy?"
I even made one of those Oprah-tastic "Dream Boards" and put a half naked picture of Edyta Sliwinska from Dancing With The Stars on it. Trust me, my hubby was really supporting my efforts 100% !!!
By the fall I had done it. I had lost the pregnancy weight again, and it was back again to lazytown. I broke up with Gilad and points were only counted when the scale started to creep upward. Yes, my fitness commitment once again became as eratic as Kanye West's social graces. But who cared ... I was back in those size 6 jeans baby!
Then came 2009 ... or as I now refer to it ... the year that I'm certain Tony Horton gave me a fitness lobotomy.
Maybe it was having a little more time with me not working, or half-naked Edyta staring me in the face every day, or being hypnotized by that scary professional tennis player in the informercial that finally convinced me, but clearly I lost my mind when I agreed to 90 days of intense home bootcamp in addition to its regimented 90 day diet.
I was commited. I would take the P90X challenge with my husband and I would take it on full throttle. The promise of getting in the best shape of my life and getting ripped for the first time in my life was pretty intoxicating. And all I had to do was keep putting the DVD in and pressing play everyday ... oh and then actually doing the workouts and not just watching them. Tony Horton, the totally jacked and ripped personal trainer became my closest friend and fitness mentor for 90 days. Even though I've never really met him, I swear he and I had a connection. I felt it. He always knew what to say and how to say it .... oh and he hadthecutestlittlejokes......
Ahem... anyway ... Tony kept me motivated, encouraged me "to do my best and forget the rest", and led me through a series of workouts the likes of which I had never seen in my life. I knew on day one that this wasn't a joke when our very first move after warm-up was Stacked-Foot Staggerd-Hand Push-Ups. Are you serious? Push-ups? I could barely do ten standard push-ups ... on my knees! Now Tony wanted me to stack my feet and stagger my hands and do push ups ... as my very first move!!!! Crap! What had I gotten myself into.
But never one to quit on a commitment, and not wanting to disappoint my dear Tony, I kept at it, kept pushing play. By the time my 90 days were complete, I enjoyed the push-ups. I became proficient at power yoga, kempo karate, and had moved from 3lb-5lb weights to 15 and 20lbs weights for much of my resistance workouts. I will never love the pull-ups or the demonic 16 minutes of hell they call Ab RipperX, but I did them. I got good enough to do banana rolls just like the lovely and talented Dreya Webber (do you know she flies through the air with the greatest of ease???). I was able to not only touch my toes in a straight legged hamstring stretch, I could grab my feet and hold them the entire time. Never once in my life had I been able to do this until now. I somehow found a way to get that workout in every day (with a few reasonable exceptions). If it meant getting up at 5am I did it, and if it meant 90 minutes of Yoga at 10pm at night, I still did it ... and I always felt better afterwards (if you don't count the first week where I felt like I had been drawn and quartered by Clidesdales).
The commitment was daunting as hell at times, as was the low carb diet (the high protein part was a breeze!). I even purchased the Jack Lelane Juicer so I could drink all those vegetables that I hate. Its amazing how good veggies taste in a drink with a little apple or banana to sweeten it up. I was determined to make this 90 days my chance to finally do it right ... 100% balls-to-the-wall commitment. I figured that if I couldn't make this one little 90 day commitment for my health and well being (and to look smoking hot in a bikini just in time for summer), then I was doomed to a middling existance for the rest of my life. If I quit or "half-assed" it, I would once again just be doing enough to get by. How completely comfortable and incredibly unremarkable that would be.
I would not, could not do that to myself, my hubby or my kids ... or to my dearest Tony whose face I would never be able to look at again. So with this alien resolve, I completed my 90 days in June with one of the greatest senses of accomplishments I've ever felt, and Tony was right! I was in the best damn shape of my life.
So now what?
Well what I didn't realize when I handed over my mind, body and soul to Tony and the P90X gang was that they were really lying to me ... it wasn't just a 90 day committment I was making. They often say it takes only 21 days to a form a new habit. Well if thats true, guess what 90 days forms? You got it... A lifestyle. I had just busted my ass working out for 90 days straight, getting fitter, stronger, and more flexible than I have ever been (and in a size 4!!!), and I wasn't about to just hop back on the couch and eat bon bons and let all my hard work go to waste. Nope, I decided to keep going, incorporating my P90X workouts into my new gym regimen.
Then one day I discoverd something else amazing ... I could run! Well let me just admit right now that I'm not "a runner" and I will never be "a runner". I don't love it and I won't be one of those people who wake up one day and decide they want to run a Marathon. Not going to happen. Ever. However before P90X, I couldn't even run a mile without huffing and puffing and having severe knee pain from an old injury. I'd quit and convince myself that "walking on incline" was just as effective. HA! Well one day right after my 90 days were complete, I just decided to hop on the treadmill and start running and see how far I could go. Imagine my surprise when I ran 3 miles! Now I was going at a very slow pace, but I was still amazed, and just a wee bit inspired I guess.
So I kept up the running, and tried to increase my speed a little each time, and even pondered the possibility that I might someday run an official 5k. You know down the road in the future sometime. Maybe even next year. Well imagine my complete horror one Friday when hubby proposed that I run my first official 5k that Sunday!!! 48 hours later!!!! Oh Good Lord, what had I done. I had gone and misguidingly convinced other people that I liked running and might even be good at it! Double HA!
Well again, the Tony Horton labotomy kicked in and I just decided to go for it. If you haven't read my Good, Bad, and Ugly blog from earlier this month, go back and do so. I detail the happenings of the race there.
The next day I tweeted about barely surviving my very first official 5k race, and some random "follower" of mine replied to me that he "ate 5k's for breakfast."
Jackass!
Yet the more I thought about it, I couldn't stop thinking that the idea of "eating 5k's for breakfast" was so completely and utterly cool. Here I thought eating "Special K's" for breakast was about the healthiest I'd ever get, now I had the option of eating 5K's for breakfast. Hmmmmm.... maybe he wasn't a jackass afterall. Maybe he was just laying down my next challenge.
So I have continued to run 5 days a week, on the treadmill and outside. I haven't really gotten much faster, or dared to add the hills back into the mix, but I have noticed that I can now indeed eat very flat, temperature-controlled 5K's for breakfast. Or at the very least, I'm snacking on them. I am planning my second official 5K before the end of the year.
Seriously, what did Tony do to me????
Now as the weather cools, and working out in a house without central AC once again becomes a viable option, hubby and I have decided to take on our next challenge. Another at home bootcamp called "Insanity." Only 60 days this time, but all intense cardio-based workouts, I think this one is very aptly titled. I do feel as though I have gone insane sometimes. I still don't see myself as that "gym rat" or "fitness freak" just because I work out at 5-6 days a week. I do it because I love the results and want to keep them. I'm usually game for a challenge, and I love knowing that I can now indulge my sweet tooth or cravings for craptastic food every now and then and I won't be drenched in guilt or worry about counting points again.
But most of all I am determined to make it to 85 so I can party like Lindsay Lohan on a weekend bender! So only 47 more years to go!
Damn you Tony Horton! 90 days my arse!
MEOW!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Ten Things I'm Excited About Right Now (AKA: things that keep me from the bottle!)
Every now and then I find myself really excited and/or filled with lots of anticipation about certain things. Things that give me something to look forward to and help keep me sane. When these things start adding up, I will probably put them here in my blog as a list. Yeah, a list is kind of a lazy way out of a blog, but for an OCD gal like me, life is often one big list, so get used to em, I have a feeling there will be a lot of lists here at Moonkitty Mama. So without further adieu ....
Ten Things I'm Excited About Right Now
10. My new "Radio" app for my iPhone! Ok, I know this seems kinda silly since having portable radios with headphones isn't quite groundbreaking territory here. I got my first Sony Walkman Radio when I was like 11 years old back in 1982, and never took it off for like 5 straight months. I swear I was the only kid who listened to Casey Kasem's Top 40 Countdown three times every week! But I digress ... the good ole' portable radio headphones have become part of our past, and the techie graveyard like VHS tapes, or word processors. They first made way for advances like the portable cassette player, the Discman, and eventually for things like mp3 players, iPod's, iPhones and any other miriad of gadgets that can play music while you email, text, call, Facebook, Tweet, and GPS every person you have ever met at any time (and some you haven't!). So other than seeing the occassional senior citizen wearing them, antenna's up, on the treadmill, listening to commercial radio while working out might seem as dated as a Ron Burgandy mustache. However don't scoff just yet! Thanks to the IPhone and its endless goodie bag of Apps, the ability to listen to your favorite radio station while you are pushing through that early morning run is once again possible ... and without looking like you've taken Michael J. Fox's Delorian back twenty-five years! For me, there really is only one radio station I want to listen to while I workout anyway, and that is WEEI Sports Radio. I don't know about you, but I excercise better and longer when I can forget I'm well... you know.... excercising. Music becomes too background for me. Too easy to focus on the pain in my thighs or my chest or my head. Too easy to engage that part of my brain that likes to remind me of my couch and my bed and my bag of Doritos. However, things like watching television or listening to sports talk while working out, keeps my focus away from the pain away from the evil lazy thoughts. I can go a lot longer on a treadmill watching a good episode of Oprah, or run a lot further on the bike path listening to the guys on WEEI debate who has the biggest man-crush on Tom Brady. Viva la iPhone! I'm really digging your Radio App!
9. Getting more "involved" at my daughters school, and by "involved" I mean I'm aiming for being recognized by more than one person at the school not named Sophia Richardson. Yes, my youngest daughter Sophia started Kindergarten a few weeks ago, and for reasons too complicated and boring to explain here, she attends a different elementary school than my oldest daughter Isabella. Also new for me is the fact that I'm no longer a working mom. With Isabella these last few years working full-time, I was unable to be involved in much. I couldn't volunteer for things, I didn't get to attend many daytime events or class field trips. The few things I was able to attend left me very envious of those SAHM's that all seemed to know each other, to have that "SAHM mom clique" that I yearned for. Yes working moms I found out very early on, are the social outcasts at every Open House or School Play .... we have no one to sit with or no one to chat with afterwards. Its was a lonely existance, and even though I had my beloved "daycare mom clique", it didn't help me at the school functions. Now that I am a SAHM myself, with another daughter starting fresh in a new school, I am determined to get in early with that "SAHM mom clique" ... you know... so I too can stare down my nose at these lonely working moms just standing around looking desperately to assimilate. MUAHHHHHH!!!! No seriosuly, I'll actually talk with these mom's ... and here's a novel concept .... invite them to join us!!!! Ok, I'm really not that bitter I swear, but I am all about reforming the whole mom's clique crap. It's 2009, time to end the segregation people!!! Me getting involved in year one, on the kindergarten level, will be my first step to a new era! Print the bumper stickers, my campaign starts now ... Moonkitty Mama / A Mama for ALL Mamas or maybe Moonkitty Mama! She will sit next to you at the next school function! Ok, maybe that last one is a little long, but you catch my drift. I will fight to bring the SAHM's and the working moms together! I am excited about this!
8. Brody is about to walk finally .... I think .... I hope ..... Brody is my third kid. I'm not a naive new parent. This is isn't my first rodeo is what I'm saying. I wasn't always eager to have him walk. I know what a walking child means to me and to my sanity. For the first 14 months I was absolutely fine with his seemingly apathetic attitude towards getting around in an upright position. However, he's pushing 16 months now. He's in the 96% for height. He's heavy. He's wiggly and strong when I have to carry him. I have officially passed over to the WALK DAMN IT stage! I shall deal with the chasing of him when it comes, but right now I just need to be able to put him down outside. I'm excited because he's currently experimenting with standing without holding anything, and hopefully those first few steps are soon to follow. If not, I might just put him in rollerskates and give him a push! I'll keep you posted on his progress.
7. I have a Lia Sophia party on Saturday. So I haven't mentioned my little side business yet have I? Yes, even though I am a SAHM now, I do have an outlet that makes me a little extra cash, and gets me out every now and then. I love my Lia business because I basically get paid to party, and get lots of free and discounted "bling" to boot! Anyway, got me a party this Saturday afternoon. No kids, free cocktails, getting to meet new peeps, and making a litte extra $$. Now that get's me excited! Now just in case you are wondering what Lia Sophia jewelry is (and I thought you'd never ask), here's my Lia website .... http://www.liasophia.com/sites/kirarichardson
6. Isabella's soccer season. This actually started last week, but having had a first glimpse of my 8 year old's forray into U10 league, I am even more excited. Isabella has been playing soccer since she was three years old. She is really good. We've encouraged her love of the game, but have always made sure she stays on the "fun-side" of the sport as much as possible. We do have to reign in her hyperactive competative nature just a tad, because well... she is really competative. Yeah so she was throwing elbows at four, and throwing Serena-like tantrums on the field by five, but she has also been the best player on almost every team she's played on. She's routinely scored between 5-15 goals per game. She's the kid the other parents are whispering about. Her dad and I are extremely proud, but are determined not to become the obnoxious sports parents who takes our child's sports success as some sort of personal goal and accomplishment. This is her thing, and we are here to support it they best we can. We're glad she is good, and we are glad she loves it ... and although she tells us her goal is to play for the Women's US Olympic Soccer team someday, we realize that making Varsity in high school is still a pipe dream at this early point. That being said, Isabella finally moved to U10 this season. This is "the big leap" from small field to big field, small nets to big nets ...with goalies ... and real legit soccer rules, including offsides. I was, and am excited to see Isabella's transition into this next level. This is where we see if she will sink or swim as a top notch player in her age group. Whether or not she'll be good enough for a Club League next year. Isabella had her first game this past Saturday. She scored all three goals for her team and they won 3-1. So far so good. Now where is that scholarship damn it!
5a. The Baseball Playoffs are coming. As a lifelong Red Sox fan this is bizarro territory for us for sure. Ever since our World Series win in 2004, we have become pretty accustomed to getting into the playoffs. As long as we're remotely in the Division or Wild Card races, we kinda sit back and check-out until the playoffs come rolling around. Maybe it's because we as fans have gotten cocky, or bored, or more interested in the start of the football season. I think it's because as long as we are confident that we are going to get there (and we will get there this season), then NOTHING matters more than the playoffs themselves. So go ahead wake me up when the ALDS starts, and until then .... ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!?!?!?! And that leads me to part 2 of the next thing I'm excited about ....
5b. FOOTBALL!!!! For us Patriots fans, the football season starts tonight. Yes, yesterday was a nice appetizer, and it was nice to see that Brett Favre made it through an entire game without retiring, but for me the main course kicks-off at 7pm with the return of the best QB in the league back under center where he belongs. Our hopes for another awesome run to the Super Bowl are high, but as fragile as another Albert Haynesworth tackle. I know I'll be holding my breath with every drop back pass Brady takes. Yes he's nice guy, and yes he's hot, and will likey have offspring more beautiful and awe inspiring than the Sistine Chapel, but I'm a fan first and foremost, and despite conventional wisdom that women only like a players if they look good in tight pants, I root for Tom Brady because he is a winner. The fact that he is smoking hot is just the marshmellos in my hot chocolate. This brings me to big a pet peeve of mine. I've been a sports fan my entire life. I have two older brothers who had a lot to do with harvesting my enthusiasm, but I became a huge sports fan very early on. I was watching in the 70's when the Bruins were on top, the Celts were coming off a decade of dominance, the Red Sox had Yaz, Rice and Lynn, and the Patriots were the 4th most popular football team in New England, let alone sports team. Yes, I love my teams and I fly high when they win, and I go into deep depression when they lose. So in this respect I spent a lot of the 1990's depressed as hell. I do resent it when some men seem to take my fandom lightly just because I'm a "girl". As if I couldn't talk for hours about why Belichik is going back to the 4-3 after years in the 3-4, or how it was nice to finally see another good free throw shooter in Boston in Ray Allen, years after Larry raked up his 93% season in 89-90. No, instead we are derogatorily called "Pink Hats" as if wearing pink hats means we are new light-weight fly-by-night fans, only taking superficial interest in the team because they are winning and its somehow en vogue. Dude... I friggin like the color pink, so shoot me! Anyway, I am a sports fan, and I love my teams with a white hot passion of a million burning suns, and yes I happen to have boobs. I'm a woman, a mother, and a sports chic (hear me roar!). Now get used to it.
Ok, end of bitter ugly rant. Pass the nachos, I'm ready for some football. Woo hoo!!!
4. This blog! Yes, I'm very excited that I started this blog, and I look forward and am enjoying updating every week. It's given me a good healthy outlet to express myself, and document things going on in my life these days. I hope you all (the 25 or so of you) are also enjoying it too. Please also know my fake indifference to judgement is only a front. I'm really insecure and crave feedback. So I will be shamless hag and beg you for your comments at the bottom. Come on ... you can do it. Use your voice! If I don't like what you say I can always delete it anyway. Hee hee.
3. My hubby's back! Very excited about this. I do plan a future blog about my heightened paranoia and OCD tendancies that I develop while my husband goes away for any length of time, but for now lets just leave it at ... he was gone, now he's back. I love him and missed him and oh yes, I'm tired as hell after another 5 days without him .... so yeah ....I'm pretty excited he's home. The fact he reads this blog did not enter into any decision to include him on this list.
2. Our family vacation to Florida next month! Yeah, this should be number one really. Nothing gets me excited like knowing I've gotta vacation coming up. The anticipation alone is like a pool of excitement that keeps on giving and giving until the vacation gets real close and I start dreading its end before we've even left. Yeah yeah, I know ... not very "living in the moment" of me. Anyway ... we've got a week long vacation at the beach in Florida coming up in October, and without the baby even - just hubby and the girls and me! I think about my beach vacation at least 3,432 times a day. Now you also know why I'm working-out everyday too.
1. October 2nd. If you don't know why I'm excited for October 2, see last blog :)
MEOW!
Ten Things I'm Excited About Right Now
10. My new "Radio" app for my iPhone! Ok, I know this seems kinda silly since having portable radios with headphones isn't quite groundbreaking territory here. I got my first Sony Walkman Radio when I was like 11 years old back in 1982, and never took it off for like 5 straight months. I swear I was the only kid who listened to Casey Kasem's Top 40 Countdown three times every week! But I digress ... the good ole' portable radio headphones have become part of our past, and the techie graveyard like VHS tapes, or word processors. They first made way for advances like the portable cassette player, the Discman, and eventually for things like mp3 players, iPod's, iPhones and any other miriad of gadgets that can play music while you email, text, call, Facebook, Tweet, and GPS every person you have ever met at any time (and some you haven't!). So other than seeing the occassional senior citizen wearing them, antenna's up, on the treadmill, listening to commercial radio while working out might seem as dated as a Ron Burgandy mustache. However don't scoff just yet! Thanks to the IPhone and its endless goodie bag of Apps, the ability to listen to your favorite radio station while you are pushing through that early morning run is once again possible ... and without looking like you've taken Michael J. Fox's Delorian back twenty-five years! For me, there really is only one radio station I want to listen to while I workout anyway, and that is WEEI Sports Radio. I don't know about you, but I excercise better and longer when I can forget I'm well... you know.... excercising. Music becomes too background for me. Too easy to focus on the pain in my thighs or my chest or my head. Too easy to engage that part of my brain that likes to remind me of my couch and my bed and my bag of Doritos. However, things like watching television or listening to sports talk while working out, keeps my focus away from the pain away from the evil lazy thoughts. I can go a lot longer on a treadmill watching a good episode of Oprah, or run a lot further on the bike path listening to the guys on WEEI debate who has the biggest man-crush on Tom Brady. Viva la iPhone! I'm really digging your Radio App!
9. Getting more "involved" at my daughters school, and by "involved" I mean I'm aiming for being recognized by more than one person at the school not named Sophia Richardson. Yes, my youngest daughter Sophia started Kindergarten a few weeks ago, and for reasons too complicated and boring to explain here, she attends a different elementary school than my oldest daughter Isabella. Also new for me is the fact that I'm no longer a working mom. With Isabella these last few years working full-time, I was unable to be involved in much. I couldn't volunteer for things, I didn't get to attend many daytime events or class field trips. The few things I was able to attend left me very envious of those SAHM's that all seemed to know each other, to have that "SAHM mom clique" that I yearned for. Yes working moms I found out very early on, are the social outcasts at every Open House or School Play .... we have no one to sit with or no one to chat with afterwards. Its was a lonely existance, and even though I had my beloved "daycare mom clique", it didn't help me at the school functions. Now that I am a SAHM myself, with another daughter starting fresh in a new school, I am determined to get in early with that "SAHM mom clique" ... you know... so I too can stare down my nose at these lonely working moms just standing around looking desperately to assimilate. MUAHHHHHH!!!! No seriosuly, I'll actually talk with these mom's ... and here's a novel concept .... invite them to join us!!!! Ok, I'm really not that bitter I swear, but I am all about reforming the whole mom's clique crap. It's 2009, time to end the segregation people!!! Me getting involved in year one, on the kindergarten level, will be my first step to a new era! Print the bumper stickers, my campaign starts now ... Moonkitty Mama / A Mama for ALL Mamas or maybe Moonkitty Mama! She will sit next to you at the next school function! Ok, maybe that last one is a little long, but you catch my drift. I will fight to bring the SAHM's and the working moms together! I am excited about this!
8. Brody is about to walk finally .... I think .... I hope ..... Brody is my third kid. I'm not a naive new parent. This is isn't my first rodeo is what I'm saying. I wasn't always eager to have him walk. I know what a walking child means to me and to my sanity. For the first 14 months I was absolutely fine with his seemingly apathetic attitude towards getting around in an upright position. However, he's pushing 16 months now. He's in the 96% for height. He's heavy. He's wiggly and strong when I have to carry him. I have officially passed over to the WALK DAMN IT stage! I shall deal with the chasing of him when it comes, but right now I just need to be able to put him down outside. I'm excited because he's currently experimenting with standing without holding anything, and hopefully those first few steps are soon to follow. If not, I might just put him in rollerskates and give him a push! I'll keep you posted on his progress.
7. I have a Lia Sophia party on Saturday. So I haven't mentioned my little side business yet have I? Yes, even though I am a SAHM now, I do have an outlet that makes me a little extra cash, and gets me out every now and then. I love my Lia business because I basically get paid to party, and get lots of free and discounted "bling" to boot! Anyway, got me a party this Saturday afternoon. No kids, free cocktails, getting to meet new peeps, and making a litte extra $$. Now that get's me excited! Now just in case you are wondering what Lia Sophia jewelry is (and I thought you'd never ask), here's my Lia website .... http://www.liasophia.com/sites/kirarichardson
6. Isabella's soccer season. This actually started last week, but having had a first glimpse of my 8 year old's forray into U10 league, I am even more excited. Isabella has been playing soccer since she was three years old. She is really good. We've encouraged her love of the game, but have always made sure she stays on the "fun-side" of the sport as much as possible. We do have to reign in her hyperactive competative nature just a tad, because well... she is really competative. Yeah so she was throwing elbows at four, and throwing Serena-like tantrums on the field by five, but she has also been the best player on almost every team she's played on. She's routinely scored between 5-15 goals per game. She's the kid the other parents are whispering about. Her dad and I are extremely proud, but are determined not to become the obnoxious sports parents who takes our child's sports success as some sort of personal goal and accomplishment. This is her thing, and we are here to support it they best we can. We're glad she is good, and we are glad she loves it ... and although she tells us her goal is to play for the Women's US Olympic Soccer team someday, we realize that making Varsity in high school is still a pipe dream at this early point. That being said, Isabella finally moved to U10 this season. This is "the big leap" from small field to big field, small nets to big nets ...with goalies ... and real legit soccer rules, including offsides. I was, and am excited to see Isabella's transition into this next level. This is where we see if she will sink or swim as a top notch player in her age group. Whether or not she'll be good enough for a Club League next year. Isabella had her first game this past Saturday. She scored all three goals for her team and they won 3-1. So far so good. Now where is that scholarship damn it!
5a. The Baseball Playoffs are coming. As a lifelong Red Sox fan this is bizarro territory for us for sure. Ever since our World Series win in 2004, we have become pretty accustomed to getting into the playoffs. As long as we're remotely in the Division or Wild Card races, we kinda sit back and check-out until the playoffs come rolling around. Maybe it's because we as fans have gotten cocky, or bored, or more interested in the start of the football season. I think it's because as long as we are confident that we are going to get there (and we will get there this season), then NOTHING matters more than the playoffs themselves. So go ahead wake me up when the ALDS starts, and until then .... ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!?!?!?! And that leads me to part 2 of the next thing I'm excited about ....
5b. FOOTBALL!!!! For us Patriots fans, the football season starts tonight. Yes, yesterday was a nice appetizer, and it was nice to see that Brett Favre made it through an entire game without retiring, but for me the main course kicks-off at 7pm with the return of the best QB in the league back under center where he belongs. Our hopes for another awesome run to the Super Bowl are high, but as fragile as another Albert Haynesworth tackle. I know I'll be holding my breath with every drop back pass Brady takes. Yes he's nice guy, and yes he's hot, and will likey have offspring more beautiful and awe inspiring than the Sistine Chapel, but I'm a fan first and foremost, and despite conventional wisdom that women only like a players if they look good in tight pants, I root for Tom Brady because he is a winner. The fact that he is smoking hot is just the marshmellos in my hot chocolate. This brings me to big a pet peeve of mine. I've been a sports fan my entire life. I have two older brothers who had a lot to do with harvesting my enthusiasm, but I became a huge sports fan very early on. I was watching in the 70's when the Bruins were on top, the Celts were coming off a decade of dominance, the Red Sox had Yaz, Rice and Lynn, and the Patriots were the 4th most popular football team in New England, let alone sports team. Yes, I love my teams and I fly high when they win, and I go into deep depression when they lose. So in this respect I spent a lot of the 1990's depressed as hell. I do resent it when some men seem to take my fandom lightly just because I'm a "girl". As if I couldn't talk for hours about why Belichik is going back to the 4-3 after years in the 3-4, or how it was nice to finally see another good free throw shooter in Boston in Ray Allen, years after Larry raked up his 93% season in 89-90. No, instead we are derogatorily called "Pink Hats" as if wearing pink hats means we are new light-weight fly-by-night fans, only taking superficial interest in the team because they are winning and its somehow en vogue. Dude... I friggin like the color pink, so shoot me! Anyway, I am a sports fan, and I love my teams with a white hot passion of a million burning suns, and yes I happen to have boobs. I'm a woman, a mother, and a sports chic (hear me roar!). Now get used to it.
Ok, end of bitter ugly rant. Pass the nachos, I'm ready for some football. Woo hoo!!!
4. This blog! Yes, I'm very excited that I started this blog, and I look forward and am enjoying updating every week. It's given me a good healthy outlet to express myself, and document things going on in my life these days. I hope you all (the 25 or so of you) are also enjoying it too. Please also know my fake indifference to judgement is only a front. I'm really insecure and crave feedback. So I will be shamless hag and beg you for your comments at the bottom. Come on ... you can do it. Use your voice! If I don't like what you say I can always delete it anyway. Hee hee.
3. My hubby's back! Very excited about this. I do plan a future blog about my heightened paranoia and OCD tendancies that I develop while my husband goes away for any length of time, but for now lets just leave it at ... he was gone, now he's back. I love him and missed him and oh yes, I'm tired as hell after another 5 days without him .... so yeah ....I'm pretty excited he's home. The fact he reads this blog did not enter into any decision to include him on this list.
2. Our family vacation to Florida next month! Yeah, this should be number one really. Nothing gets me excited like knowing I've gotta vacation coming up. The anticipation alone is like a pool of excitement that keeps on giving and giving until the vacation gets real close and I start dreading its end before we've even left. Yeah yeah, I know ... not very "living in the moment" of me. Anyway ... we've got a week long vacation at the beach in Florida coming up in October, and without the baby even - just hubby and the girls and me! I think about my beach vacation at least 3,432 times a day. Now you also know why I'm working-out everyday too.
1. October 2nd. If you don't know why I'm excited for October 2, see last blog :)
MEOW!
Monday, September 7, 2009
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!
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!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Back To School Time! (AKA: The reason I'm smiling today!)
WOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Ahem... excuse my sudden burst of enthusiasm, but I gotta say that as a first time SAHM (remember what that is right?) this summer with school age children, I am pretty dang happy to have seen them off this week. You see I was a working mom for nearly all of my two daughters' lives. They are true daycare babies by nature and are used to spending their summers at daycare in their separate age groups, even if it was just after-school care as was the case with my oldest daughter the last few years. The point being that my girls have never ever spent so much time together as they have this summer and besides almost killing each other on numerous occassions, they came perilously close to being left in the "Critterworld" exhibit at the Museum of Science. I'm pretty sure I could have convinced security that it was an honest mistake on my part.
Don't get me wrong, I love summertime (a lot!) and I love being able to spend time with my kids in the summer especially. We had trips to the beach, the pool, grandparent's house, the amusement park, the go-cart track, the zoo, a few spot weeks of camp, and the previously mentioned Museum of Science just to name a few. Minus a few instances and embarrasing public scenes, most were generally fun and fulfilled the cherished "quality time" benchmarks. However, keeping an 8, 5, and 1 year old entertained for three months is not an easy task as I quickly discovered. I'm new to this being home with the kids all day thing people, and this entertaining crap gets expensive!!! Especially when you don't have that second income anymore. Seems like a sick catch 22 to me. More time, less money .... GO!
Now I know that there are SAHM's who are experts, and have all this "shiz" figured out. They get really creative, and fill their days at the park, at storytime at the library, or (gasp!) teaching their kids to cook and other really hands on stuff. Honestly, I tried these types of things (well maybe not the cooking), but it never seemed to work out. The park was a washout in June and part of July when we here in New England, were treated to Seattle's weather system for 45 days. And then as soon as the rain stopped and the sun DID decide to join is, it came out guns ablazing and with 98.8% humidity. Its not so fun taking your kids to the park at 7:00am in the morning, trust me.
The library for me was like taking monkeys into a china shop. I didn't know how quickly it would all come crashing down on me, but I knew it was going to happen. Brody, 15 months, playing in the very small children's toy area, decided to bulldoze every single Lego tower the other kids built. Needless to say, he was not making friends and continually removing him from the area made him errupt into pitch perfect meltdown after pitch perfect meltdown. The ladies in the library were not amused either. My oldest, Isabella who is 8, is pretty good in the library... by herself. However in combination with her sister, Isabella seems to go into pre-teen drama queen mode. I know her sister pushes her buttons all the time, but Bella hasn't quite learned how to take her "power back" and control her reactions. Guess she needs some more Oprah.
Speaking of her five year old sister ... besides her pestering of Bella, Sophie doesn't understand the concept of "quiet" ... anywhere! Sophie has two volumes ... loud and obnoxious. So picture two fighting and screaming girls over by the Junie B. Jones section, and a baby cutting his detructive path through other kids' Lego masterpieces, dashing their future architecture dreams for good. Then you understand why the library doesn't work for me, and why the bottle of Pinot later that night did!
Park and Library and other like activites behind us, I was basically reduced to keeping them in perpetual motion all summer long. Stimulating them in any way I could find. Whether the girls were boogie boarding on Block Island, or the baby was in the stroller at the zoo making animal sounds for three strait hours, we did it. And we paid for it. And we kept doing it and paying for it every week.
But to my dismay, it became a bit like shaving your legs ... once you start, you have to shave all the time. As I found out early on, those days where an "outing" was just not gonna happen, I was subjected to hours of "I'm bored" and "I'm hungry," interjected occassionally by screaming, yelling and crying. It was as if my girls completely forgot how to quietly entertain themselves for a few hours. I had created a couple of monsters!!!
So yes, although we had an amazing, memorable, experience-filled (and expensive) summer, I have been left exhausted with kids who can't seem to sit still for more than 5 minutes without complaint (unless their eyes are trained on the TV of course). So when they went off to school this past Monday, you might understand how relieved I really was. My wallet isn't moaning anymore, there wasn't a single "I'm bored" or "I'm hungry" to be heard all week. And wouldn't ya know, I haven't heard the Spongebob theme music for 3 days. Must be a record!
Did I mention it was Sophie's first day of Kindergartern too???? Oh yeah that. Maybe it was the years of daycare in combination with our hectic summer schedule, but where other moms might have been wiping their tears away as their child got on the bus for their momentous very first day of school ... I was smiling. Proud and sentimental yes, but smiling still nonetheless. Summer can stick around all it wants, but this mom is glad summer vacation is OVAH!!!!
MEOW!
Ahem... excuse my sudden burst of enthusiasm, but I gotta say that as a first time SAHM (remember what that is right?) this summer with school age children, I am pretty dang happy to have seen them off this week. You see I was a working mom for nearly all of my two daughters' lives. They are true daycare babies by nature and are used to spending their summers at daycare in their separate age groups, even if it was just after-school care as was the case with my oldest daughter the last few years. The point being that my girls have never ever spent so much time together as they have this summer and besides almost killing each other on numerous occassions, they came perilously close to being left in the "Critterworld" exhibit at the Museum of Science. I'm pretty sure I could have convinced security that it was an honest mistake on my part.
Don't get me wrong, I love summertime (a lot!) and I love being able to spend time with my kids in the summer especially. We had trips to the beach, the pool, grandparent's house, the amusement park, the go-cart track, the zoo, a few spot weeks of camp, and the previously mentioned Museum of Science just to name a few. Minus a few instances and embarrasing public scenes, most were generally fun and fulfilled the cherished "quality time" benchmarks. However, keeping an 8, 5, and 1 year old entertained for three months is not an easy task as I quickly discovered. I'm new to this being home with the kids all day thing people, and this entertaining crap gets expensive!!! Especially when you don't have that second income anymore. Seems like a sick catch 22 to me. More time, less money .... GO!
Now I know that there are SAHM's who are experts, and have all this "shiz" figured out. They get really creative, and fill their days at the park, at storytime at the library, or (gasp!) teaching their kids to cook and other really hands on stuff. Honestly, I tried these types of things (well maybe not the cooking), but it never seemed to work out. The park was a washout in June and part of July when we here in New England, were treated to Seattle's weather system for 45 days. And then as soon as the rain stopped and the sun DID decide to join is, it came out guns ablazing and with 98.8% humidity. Its not so fun taking your kids to the park at 7:00am in the morning, trust me.
The library for me was like taking monkeys into a china shop. I didn't know how quickly it would all come crashing down on me, but I knew it was going to happen. Brody, 15 months, playing in the very small children's toy area, decided to bulldoze every single Lego tower the other kids built. Needless to say, he was not making friends and continually removing him from the area made him errupt into pitch perfect meltdown after pitch perfect meltdown. The ladies in the library were not amused either. My oldest, Isabella who is 8, is pretty good in the library... by herself. However in combination with her sister, Isabella seems to go into pre-teen drama queen mode. I know her sister pushes her buttons all the time, but Bella hasn't quite learned how to take her "power back" and control her reactions. Guess she needs some more Oprah.
Speaking of her five year old sister ... besides her pestering of Bella, Sophie doesn't understand the concept of "quiet" ... anywhere! Sophie has two volumes ... loud and obnoxious. So picture two fighting and screaming girls over by the Junie B. Jones section, and a baby cutting his detructive path through other kids' Lego masterpieces, dashing their future architecture dreams for good. Then you understand why the library doesn't work for me, and why the bottle of Pinot later that night did!
Park and Library and other like activites behind us, I was basically reduced to keeping them in perpetual motion all summer long. Stimulating them in any way I could find. Whether the girls were boogie boarding on Block Island, or the baby was in the stroller at the zoo making animal sounds for three strait hours, we did it. And we paid for it. And we kept doing it and paying for it every week.
But to my dismay, it became a bit like shaving your legs ... once you start, you have to shave all the time. As I found out early on, those days where an "outing" was just not gonna happen, I was subjected to hours of "I'm bored" and "I'm hungry," interjected occassionally by screaming, yelling and crying. It was as if my girls completely forgot how to quietly entertain themselves for a few hours. I had created a couple of monsters!!!
So yes, although we had an amazing, memorable, experience-filled (and expensive) summer, I have been left exhausted with kids who can't seem to sit still for more than 5 minutes without complaint (unless their eyes are trained on the TV of course). So when they went off to school this past Monday, you might understand how relieved I really was. My wallet isn't moaning anymore, there wasn't a single "I'm bored" or "I'm hungry" to be heard all week. And wouldn't ya know, I haven't heard the Spongebob theme music for 3 days. Must be a record!
Did I mention it was Sophie's first day of Kindergartern too???? Oh yeah that. Maybe it was the years of daycare in combination with our hectic summer schedule, but where other moms might have been wiping their tears away as their child got on the bus for their momentous very first day of school ... I was smiling. Proud and sentimental yes, but smiling still nonetheless. Summer can stick around all it wants, but this mom is glad summer vacation is OVAH!!!!
MEOW!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Hannah Montana, Spongebob, The Wii, Etc. (AKA: Kid's Crack and We Parents Who Deal In It!)
So the concept of "the perfect parent" amuses me. Silly right? There are no perfect parents as there are no perfect people. However I think most of us try our best to make the right choices and do the right thing when it comes to our kids. Of course I fall short of my expectations frequently and continue to internally berate myself over and over everytime, all the while still trying to dust the proverbial dirt off my knees and keep on moving.
Yes, I try my hardest to meet my own parental goals as much as possible ... you know ... keep my temper in check. Try to keep my screaming fits down to 2 or 3 episodes a day ... er ...I mean week. Be present with my kids as much as I can. You know listen to them more and look at my iphone less. Get them to like healthy foods, remain active, harvest their creativity and love of reading.... yada yada yada and blah blah blah and that stuff. Frankly, I have enough of my own personal benchmarks to try and fail at, that I'm really starting to resent the fact there are people out there who seem to think I should adopt all their "perfect parent" benchmarks too.
Hogwash I say!
You want to deprive your kid of the occasional snack food because you feel that the "toxins" of the commercial prepackaged food world will will turn your child into some green glowing alien-like blob, be my guest. Go ahead and ply them with only the best all natural organically and locally grown fruits and vegetables. Feed them only soy burgers and seitan steaks. That's your choice, but beyond the EXTRAORDINARY amount of whining I would have to put up with, I always fear this kind of extremisim can only lead to a rebellous junk-food-junkie who will secretly end up getting a majority of their meals at an On The Run store. But that's just me.
Hey, I'm all for eating healthy. I personally am not fond of it, but I do my best to do so myself, and to make sure my kids make good choices most of the time. There is a happy medium between feeding your child twigs and berries (organic of course!) and giving them a Mountain Dew and bag of Doritos for dinner for cripes sakes! I do like that my kids will choose to eat raw tomatos and peppers for a snack, but I'm not gonna lie when I say that sometimes a Kid's Cuisine is a mom's best friend!
Another "perfect parent" benchmark seems to be the one who never lets their kids watch TV!!! HELLOOOOOOO!!! Now we have a huge problem. Did I mention I LOVE TV!!! Yes, there is no greater comfort or relaxing activity for me than to plop on the couch after the kids are in bed and watch my shows. The DVR has liternally changed my life!!! So how is it again that I'm going to then tell my children that they are not allowed to watch any TV without them thinking that mommy has lost her ever loving mind???? Again... moderation here people. I do set boundaries and limits on everything, but what parent hasn't found it absolutely necessary to allow thier kids their fix of Hannah Montana or Spongebob so we can cook dinner in peace. Or heck ... go tinkle! Hey call me pedestrian all you want, but I see no harm in providing a little "kid crack" when needed. Sprinkled on in the right amounts and at the right time can literally save you more pain and heartache than you have ever thought possible.
Yeah, I know its probably not the healthiest thing that I have my 15 month old watch BabyFirst TV while I feed him his meals. I'm sure I'll have to be breaking THAT habit in a year or so, but do you know how hard it is to feed this child when he's not otherwise distracted?????
No?
Okay I'll tell you. If he only has me and the food to focus on, well then he will eat NOTHING! He will toss all the food on the floor or at me, or squish it all over his shirt or stuff it in his diaper. This is on a good day. Allowing him to watch his favorite television channel while he absent- mindedly plops his food in his mouth instead of all over my carpet is literally saving me hours a week in cleaning and laundry time. Not to mention the sanity part. Yeah yeah, I know .... if I don't break this habit someday soon, he will probably be on my TV in 20 years on the 2029 version of The Biggest Loser lamenting to the camera about how he didn't know how he got so fat? *Sigh* I figure I have a little time to let this slide until I have to go and be that "perfect parent" again.
So my son has his BabyFirst TV (Dang that Tec the Tractor!) and my girls love their Hannah Montana, Zack & Cody, iCarly, Wizards of Waverly Place and Spongebob (just to name a few...ha ha) and I am the parent who happily doles out this "kid crack" in just enough doses to make all of us happy. Is this something I am proud of? Hmmmm probably not, but I don't feel guilty about it either. I know my kids are well adjusted. I keep them well balanced between TV, reading, school work and physical activity. However, somedays you just find yourself letting them sit there watching hour after hour of a Spongebob marathon because ... well .... look at all the housework you got done!!!
Oh and then there is the merchandising of it all!!! I know the Disney and Nickelodeon Machine's are using me, but I still embrace it at times. I do say no quite a lot (just ask my kids) but seeing their eyes light up when they get that Hannah Montana lunchbox or lipgloss set is sometimes worth it. A little more "kids crack" to keep them in line and on the hook is not always a bad thing right? RIGHT?????
Lastly, there is The Wii. The Holy Grail of Kids Crack, and we don't even own one ... yet. Well if it were up to my husband we never will because he is of that "perfect parent" mentallity that all video game machines are the Devil! I tend to agree with him on this to a degree. There will never be a PlayStation or Nintendo machine in our house. Those damn things ARE evil. Not only are they the most addicting of all the "kids crack", but they mess with your mind I'm certain of it! They can make you see crosseyed and you'll start playing those games in your dreams!!! I know it. I've been there. It's a dark dark place I tell ya. Heck, I play the innocent little Bejeweled Blitz game on my computer every now and then before bed. I'll look up to find that 2 hours have passed and all I've done with my time is sorted some dang shapes into groups like some futurisitic pre schooler!
However, The Wii is different. The Wii is interactive and it encourages a healthier gaming experience. I know ... the good "kids crack" dealer that I am, I've done my research. All my girls' friends have The Wii, even the friend who doesn't have cable! My girls want one sooooooo badly they're willing to give up all other Christmas gifts JUST to get The Wii. I know this kinda of willing sacrifice should be a warning to me, but I have to say that I am on board now too. I DO see the benefit ... especially to me! Gross winter day .... no school ... no way we are getting outside. Kids are cooped up and arguing incessantly. HELLO!!!! How about a a little Wii Bowling for a fun (and healthy!) diversion??? Of course, we still need to work on "daddy," and I'll keep you posted on our progress. We have a few months to break him!
So basically this not-so-perfect parent sees no (or very little harm) in the occassional "kids crack" indulgence. It serves two purposes really. Give your kids some pleasure, and give mom some free time and less stress! Now if I could only get that dang "Best of Both Worlds" song out of my head!
MEOW!
Yes, I try my hardest to meet my own parental goals as much as possible ... you know ... keep my temper in check. Try to keep my screaming fits down to 2 or 3 episodes a day ... er ...I mean week. Be present with my kids as much as I can. You know listen to them more and look at my iphone less. Get them to like healthy foods, remain active, harvest their creativity and love of reading.... yada yada yada and blah blah blah and that stuff. Frankly, I have enough of my own personal benchmarks to try and fail at, that I'm really starting to resent the fact there are people out there who seem to think I should adopt all their "perfect parent" benchmarks too.
Hogwash I say!
You want to deprive your kid of the occasional snack food because you feel that the "toxins" of the commercial prepackaged food world will will turn your child into some green glowing alien-like blob, be my guest. Go ahead and ply them with only the best all natural organically and locally grown fruits and vegetables. Feed them only soy burgers and seitan steaks. That's your choice, but beyond the EXTRAORDINARY amount of whining I would have to put up with, I always fear this kind of extremisim can only lead to a rebellous junk-food-junkie who will secretly end up getting a majority of their meals at an On The Run store. But that's just me.
Hey, I'm all for eating healthy. I personally am not fond of it, but I do my best to do so myself, and to make sure my kids make good choices most of the time. There is a happy medium between feeding your child twigs and berries (organic of course!) and giving them a Mountain Dew and bag of Doritos for dinner for cripes sakes! I do like that my kids will choose to eat raw tomatos and peppers for a snack, but I'm not gonna lie when I say that sometimes a Kid's Cuisine is a mom's best friend!
Another "perfect parent" benchmark seems to be the one who never lets their kids watch TV!!! HELLOOOOOOO!!! Now we have a huge problem. Did I mention I LOVE TV!!! Yes, there is no greater comfort or relaxing activity for me than to plop on the couch after the kids are in bed and watch my shows. The DVR has liternally changed my life!!! So how is it again that I'm going to then tell my children that they are not allowed to watch any TV without them thinking that mommy has lost her ever loving mind???? Again... moderation here people. I do set boundaries and limits on everything, but what parent hasn't found it absolutely necessary to allow thier kids their fix of Hannah Montana or Spongebob so we can cook dinner in peace. Or heck ... go tinkle! Hey call me pedestrian all you want, but I see no harm in providing a little "kid crack" when needed. Sprinkled on in the right amounts and at the right time can literally save you more pain and heartache than you have ever thought possible.
Yeah, I know its probably not the healthiest thing that I have my 15 month old watch BabyFirst TV while I feed him his meals. I'm sure I'll have to be breaking THAT habit in a year or so, but do you know how hard it is to feed this child when he's not otherwise distracted?????
No?
Okay I'll tell you. If he only has me and the food to focus on, well then he will eat NOTHING! He will toss all the food on the floor or at me, or squish it all over his shirt or stuff it in his diaper. This is on a good day. Allowing him to watch his favorite television channel while he absent- mindedly plops his food in his mouth instead of all over my carpet is literally saving me hours a week in cleaning and laundry time. Not to mention the sanity part. Yeah yeah, I know .... if I don't break this habit someday soon, he will probably be on my TV in 20 years on the 2029 version of The Biggest Loser lamenting to the camera about how he didn't know how he got so fat? *Sigh* I figure I have a little time to let this slide until I have to go and be that "perfect parent" again.
So my son has his BabyFirst TV (Dang that Tec the Tractor!) and my girls love their Hannah Montana, Zack & Cody, iCarly, Wizards of Waverly Place and Spongebob (just to name a few...ha ha) and I am the parent who happily doles out this "kid crack" in just enough doses to make all of us happy. Is this something I am proud of? Hmmmm probably not, but I don't feel guilty about it either. I know my kids are well adjusted. I keep them well balanced between TV, reading, school work and physical activity. However, somedays you just find yourself letting them sit there watching hour after hour of a Spongebob marathon because ... well .... look at all the housework you got done!!!
Oh and then there is the merchandising of it all!!! I know the Disney and Nickelodeon Machine's are using me, but I still embrace it at times. I do say no quite a lot (just ask my kids) but seeing their eyes light up when they get that Hannah Montana lunchbox or lipgloss set is sometimes worth it. A little more "kids crack" to keep them in line and on the hook is not always a bad thing right? RIGHT?????
Lastly, there is The Wii. The Holy Grail of Kids Crack, and we don't even own one ... yet. Well if it were up to my husband we never will because he is of that "perfect parent" mentallity that all video game machines are the Devil! I tend to agree with him on this to a degree. There will never be a PlayStation or Nintendo machine in our house. Those damn things ARE evil. Not only are they the most addicting of all the "kids crack", but they mess with your mind I'm certain of it! They can make you see crosseyed and you'll start playing those games in your dreams!!! I know it. I've been there. It's a dark dark place I tell ya. Heck, I play the innocent little Bejeweled Blitz game on my computer every now and then before bed. I'll look up to find that 2 hours have passed and all I've done with my time is sorted some dang shapes into groups like some futurisitic pre schooler!
However, The Wii is different. The Wii is interactive and it encourages a healthier gaming experience. I know ... the good "kids crack" dealer that I am, I've done my research. All my girls' friends have The Wii, even the friend who doesn't have cable! My girls want one sooooooo badly they're willing to give up all other Christmas gifts JUST to get The Wii. I know this kinda of willing sacrifice should be a warning to me, but I have to say that I am on board now too. I DO see the benefit ... especially to me! Gross winter day .... no school ... no way we are getting outside. Kids are cooped up and arguing incessantly. HELLO!!!! How about a a little Wii Bowling for a fun (and healthy!) diversion??? Of course, we still need to work on "daddy," and I'll keep you posted on our progress. We have a few months to break him!
So basically this not-so-perfect parent sees no (or very little harm) in the occassional "kids crack" indulgence. It serves two purposes really. Give your kids some pleasure, and give mom some free time and less stress! Now if I could only get that dang "Best of Both Worlds" song out of my head!
MEOW!
Friday, August 21, 2009
Moonkitty Lives! (AKA: Why I am here blogging?)
Well hello MOOOOOOONKITTY!!!!! You have been missed.
Who is Moonkitty you ask and why is this blog named after her. Well Moonkitty is not a "her", she is me. Or who I was seventeen some odd years ago when I created her in college. She was the most fearless, wonderfully crazy part of me, or at least thats how I have glorified her in my mind. I invented Moonkitty for my college Alternative Music radio show and it became my DJ identity. I think this was in 1991-92 but I'm not really certain of my memory and what Stay-At-Home Mom has the time to ponder anything as silly as important dates in our past? (Sidenote: In all my blogs I will now use the short hand acronym for Stay at Home Mom from now on. The reason of course is because what SAHM has the friggin time to type the whole thing out!)
Well anyway, Moonkitty, or the woman who I was in college, was as Tyra Banks would say, FIERCE!!!! Sure there were many naive, foolish and downright stupid things about me back then, but there were oh so many good things too. GREAT THINGS! Its not that I don't embrace who I am now, or don't love myself. And this isn't going to be some blog where I reinvent myself and do crazy things to escape some mundane housewife malaise. Oh no, I love my life. Well usually. However, there has been something missing for awhile now, and I think I just discovered that it isn't a "thing" at all, but a "who". The "who" is that totally confident and self motivated heroine I used to know. The one never afraid to speak her mind, take risks, embrace fear, and rarely give a rat's ass what the neighbors would think. Yes, the period in my life when I was known as Moonkitty represented a part of me I've been lacking lately and I'm calling her back damnit!
So this blog is not so much about "being Moonkitty," as it is just the first action taken in rediscovering her. Moonkitty would totally have a blog.
Yes sadly though, somewhere along the way I lost my voice. I stopped feeling like what I had to say mattered in the grand scheme of things, or that people would care at all or would like what I had to say. Somewhere along the way through my twenties, getting married, having a career and kids, my self identity kinda went into the fetal position. More worried about "being accepted"and "fitting in" all these various communities became more important than being my full authentic self. However, even within the context of this little identity crisis of mine, inside I have ALWAYS been proud of who I am, of what I think, feel and believe ...I just became too afraid that others would not be. I guess I got too self conscious and repressed, and to that woman I used to be, the loss of that self expression is like death. But I am now choosing the reincarnation of Moonkitty.
Indeed Moonkitty Lives! I'm just now Moonkitty Mama, a smarter, wiser and more life-learned woman version of that former college girl. This blog will serve as my outlet to muse, reflect and share the random, sometimes funny, sad, pathetic, silly, important and frivilous things I come across in my life. But it is bigger than just me. It is about the joys and struggles we all have as mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters, but just told through the experiences of my life. I don't know if anyone out there will read or like this blog even as I publish new entries every week or so. I'm just a one voice here on the world wide web posting among billions. My hope is that SOMEBODY finds me here and can relate to my blogs, or heck .... at the least be mildly entertained. This is my sincere hope, but I'm done being fearful about it. I'm done overthinking it, and wondering what people will do or not do, think or not think. Whether this just becomes my personal on-line diary to help me reflect on my life, or whether it ends up speaking to thousands (or more!) I'm putting myself out there dang it. Self Expressing!!!!!
Lastly, I have been wondering why my son Brody who is nearly 15 months has been "meowing" incessantly for weeks yet not uttered more than 2 or 3 "human words". Well I may be blonde (a natural one thank you!) and a little slow.... but I get it now Brody.... you are not in need of developmental testing afterall, but you are actually a genius! You've been sending me messages from my past all this time. I hear ya buddy, and I'm finally listening. Moonkitty Lives and for now she'll be right here blogging all about it!
MEOW!
Kira (aka "Moonkitty Mama")
PS: Next entry tomorrow!
Who is Moonkitty you ask and why is this blog named after her. Well Moonkitty is not a "her", she is me. Or who I was seventeen some odd years ago when I created her in college. She was the most fearless, wonderfully crazy part of me, or at least thats how I have glorified her in my mind. I invented Moonkitty for my college Alternative Music radio show and it became my DJ identity. I think this was in 1991-92 but I'm not really certain of my memory and what Stay-At-Home Mom has the time to ponder anything as silly as important dates in our past? (Sidenote: In all my blogs I will now use the short hand acronym for Stay at Home Mom from now on. The reason of course is because what SAHM has the friggin time to type the whole thing out!)
Well anyway, Moonkitty, or the woman who I was in college, was as Tyra Banks would say, FIERCE!!!! Sure there were many naive, foolish and downright stupid things about me back then, but there were oh so many good things too. GREAT THINGS! Its not that I don't embrace who I am now, or don't love myself. And this isn't going to be some blog where I reinvent myself and do crazy things to escape some mundane housewife malaise. Oh no, I love my life. Well usually. However, there has been something missing for awhile now, and I think I just discovered that it isn't a "thing" at all, but a "who". The "who" is that totally confident and self motivated heroine I used to know. The one never afraid to speak her mind, take risks, embrace fear, and rarely give a rat's ass what the neighbors would think. Yes, the period in my life when I was known as Moonkitty represented a part of me I've been lacking lately and I'm calling her back damnit!
So this blog is not so much about "being Moonkitty," as it is just the first action taken in rediscovering her. Moonkitty would totally have a blog.
Yes sadly though, somewhere along the way I lost my voice. I stopped feeling like what I had to say mattered in the grand scheme of things, or that people would care at all or would like what I had to say. Somewhere along the way through my twenties, getting married, having a career and kids, my self identity kinda went into the fetal position. More worried about "being accepted"and "fitting in" all these various communities became more important than being my full authentic self. However, even within the context of this little identity crisis of mine, inside I have ALWAYS been proud of who I am, of what I think, feel and believe ...I just became too afraid that others would not be. I guess I got too self conscious and repressed, and to that woman I used to be, the loss of that self expression is like death. But I am now choosing the reincarnation of Moonkitty.
Indeed Moonkitty Lives! I'm just now Moonkitty Mama, a smarter, wiser and more life-learned woman version of that former college girl. This blog will serve as my outlet to muse, reflect and share the random, sometimes funny, sad, pathetic, silly, important and frivilous things I come across in my life. But it is bigger than just me. It is about the joys and struggles we all have as mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters, but just told through the experiences of my life. I don't know if anyone out there will read or like this blog even as I publish new entries every week or so. I'm just a one voice here on the world wide web posting among billions. My hope is that SOMEBODY finds me here and can relate to my blogs, or heck .... at the least be mildly entertained. This is my sincere hope, but I'm done being fearful about it. I'm done overthinking it, and wondering what people will do or not do, think or not think. Whether this just becomes my personal on-line diary to help me reflect on my life, or whether it ends up speaking to thousands (or more!) I'm putting myself out there dang it. Self Expressing!!!!!
Lastly, I have been wondering why my son Brody who is nearly 15 months has been "meowing" incessantly for weeks yet not uttered more than 2 or 3 "human words". Well I may be blonde (a natural one thank you!) and a little slow.... but I get it now Brody.... you are not in need of developmental testing afterall, but you are actually a genius! You've been sending me messages from my past all this time. I hear ya buddy, and I'm finally listening. Moonkitty Lives and for now she'll be right here blogging all about it!
MEOW!
Kira (aka "Moonkitty Mama")
PS: Next entry tomorrow!
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