Maintenance

Have you ever gave thought to how much work we put toward our physical upkeep?  I'm not talking anything major like botox, or boob implants.  I am talking about the day to day stuff that we do to keep ourselves beautious.  Back in the day, all I had to do was shave my legs and keep my hair cut into a cute style.  Not anymore!  

Now the requirements are.... haircut with foil highlights to cover incoming grays, expensive hair products to make hair shiny and full (somewhat like a dog's hair), legs and pits shaved DAILY, bikini wax (or otherwise its ingrown hairs....OUCH!), eyebrow wax (unibrow...not attractive), pedicure complete with toe hair pluck and vigorous heel scourge, manicure (when I actually have nails...which is, like, never), lip wax (I called my sis on this one to ask if she waxed lip.....answer was "what are you crazy?  Of course I do!  Duh!"), expensive eye cream that probably doesn't work, moisturizer that is designed to give you a effervescent, youthful face (yeah, friggin right), special zit wash for the face, special zit cream for the zits that made it past the zit wash, sunscreen, lip balm, teeth whitening toothpaste, mouthwash and strips and don't forget that 10 hours a week of exercise to attain that perfect bod!  

What do men do?  Well, I can only speak for my hubby........his daily regiment......shower, shave, brush teeth, brush hair, pit shit (aka deodorant), some cologne.  That's IT!  No zit creams, or eye creams, or highlights or pedicures or anything else.  And guess what....he looks great!  I am starting to wonder if all this crap I do and use has any benefit at all.  

Ok, wait...I'm sure it must HELP, even, umm, a little bit....I mean good grief, can you even imagine what I would look like without the total workup?  THINK - Grey hair, unibrow, hairy pits, legs, and crotch, body odor slightly smelly, a zitty and wrinkled face and the creme de le creme, yellow teeth.  Attractive, huh?  Makes you wonder where does one go from here? I guess a tummy tuck, boob implants, liposuction, and permanent hair removal is the obvious next step.  Welllllll........maybe I'll stick to what I got right now.  It ain't so bad after all!  

ED in '08: The State of America's Schools

This is quite disturbing, check it out...

Prozac Nation

Let me begin by saying that I am a firm believer in the phrase "Better Living Through Chemistry". Before you go thinking that I'm some kind of freak who wants to legalize marijuana (actually, I do!) let me clarify by saying that if my child has a fever, I am right there with the motrin. If their throat hurts I PRAY that they have strep so I can get an antibiotic to cure them. When I gave birth to my oldest, I TRIED going the no-drugs route (at least to start...) I sat on the birthing ball (don't ASK!), I tried a hot shower on my contractions, I tried to "...take the edge off" with Nubain... In the end, I was SCREAMING for the epidural.

Drugs? Hand 'em over!

So now my life is classified between Pre-Prozac and Post-Prozac. Pre-Prozac I was a babbling mess about a week before my period arrived. One day a month I would call my husband in hysterics, telling him what a failure I was at everything and how I couldn't believe he married me. I remember one January 31st when my hormones were particularly rampant claiming "..my New Year's Resolution is to be dead!" Lovely,

Post-Prozac I'm not radically different, but I will say it takes the edge off those sensitive PMS days (PMS stands for Poor Mr. Flossy Suffers!) My lows are nowhere near as low as they used to be. Rather than getting frustrated as I try to corral my kids through the gift shop at the zoo and biting one of them (guilty!) or screaming "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU????" at the top of my lungs, the medicine keeps me on a much more even keel. As Fitfreak aptly describes it, it's Mommy's Little Helper.

Today my first grader was fooling around and he smashed a glass hurricane vase that sits in the center of the dining room table. It's not the first time he's been warned not to touch it (this is actually the THIRD!) and when I heard the smash, the first thing I did was of course evaulate whether he had been cut (he hadn't). Then in a voice as calm and cold as ice, I sent him to his room for the afternoon.

When telling a friend about the incident she commented, "I can't believe you didn't go into his room and break something of his. Wait a minute, that's the old you".

The old me (or Pre-prozac me) would have probably done just that. And berated him at the top of her lungs. Maybe even spanked him.

As I said, "Better Living Through Chemistry".

Mommy Guilt...Movie Guilt.

My husband would be the first to assert that the stay-at-home-mommy job is one of the toughest in the world. Sure, I don't have to DRIVE for 3-4 hours each day to go to a job that SUCKS! I don't have to deal with incompetent people who ask stupid questions and don't know their asses from their elbows (well, sometimes I do, but they have the handy excuse of being 6 and 9).

Getting the kids up, dressed, fed, backpacked and out the door is an exhausting challenge. True, I have several hours to clean, do laundry, food shop, run errands, catch up on bills and emails, work my part-time Pampered Chef business and a thousand other things before the little rugrats run OFF the bus, grab a snack and head off to Lego Robotics, TaeKwonDo, Soccer or just sit and do homework. Then it's dinner on the table (predictably there are only 4 dinners that everyone eats: Steak, Roast Chicken, Spaghetti and Sausage Soup) Even bedtime, the light at the end of the tunnel, brings challenges with getting teeth brushed, medicine administered, stories read, homework finished and lights out. (Inevitably, someone wants a "snuggle" which means I'll accidentally fall asleep in a twin sized bed and wake up completely disoriented only to find that...its time to go to bed.)

So yes, being a suburban hausfrau is not the easiest job in the world, though some might argue. So why is it that I feel guilty when once in a while I choose to forgo the laundry and bills and food shopping in favor of...a MOVIE???!!??

The first time I did this, I felt positively DECADENT. A movie??? In the middle of the day??? In the middle of the WEEK???? How could I possibly even think about it? Luckily, Fitfreak came with me and helped alleviate the guilt. Nothin' like another hausfrau to help justify your decisions.

Now to give some backstory, movies used to be my life! My husband and I would go to the movies every weekend, sometimes even 2 or 3 times a weekend. Once the kids came along, movies in the theater were a luxury we could only infrequently afford (let's see, babysitter $40, movie $20, Movie snacks $10, Post/pre movie dinner $50 = ONE HELL OF AN EXPENSIVE MOVIE!)

Going to the movies during the week costs me $7.50 (bargain matinee!). I sneak in my own popcorn and diet soda, so there's no fee for food. And it's definitely a cheaper option than spending $$$$ at Target, or joining the Ladies Who Lunch for a weekly lunch complete with a bottle of wine (or two).

It connects me to my pre-child past in a way that not much else can. But Mr. Flossy loves movies as much as I do, so I hesitated to tell him that occasionally I indulged in a little cinematherapy.

He found out last night, though, when I let it slip that I had seen 4 of the 5 Best Picture nominees. This sad/angry look flashed across his face, and that's when the mommy/movie guilt kicked in. He doesn't begrudge me my movies, he just envies me. And knowing that his job is no picnic drives that guilt home even more.

So will I forgo future mommy-movie dates? I can't say that I will. I'll just keep my big fat YAP shut about it.