Ten years ago this minute I was lying in a hospital bed, cursing my husband (silently) and wondering how the hell they were going to get his BABY OUT OF MY BODY!!!
Today, that baby is ten! TEN!
Yes, people tell you to cherish every moment because childhood is fleeting (but apparently adolescence seems to last freakin' FOREVER!) It's hard to cherish those wont-go-to-sleep-dig-in-your-heels-and throw-a-tantrum-hey-Mom-I'm-projectile-vomiting-sorry I put chewing-gum-in-my-brother's-hair-moments. I am all too guilty of wishing my kids were a little bit older, a little more independent, a little less needy.
Shame on me.
The birthday boy kissed me today (yay, 10 years old and still kissing his mother goodbye!) and walked off to his first soccer game of the season. As I noticed the top of his head at my EYE LEVEL, I realized that 6 years from now he will be driving. 8 years from now he will vote. 11 years from now he will be able to drink.
I am NOT one of those mothers that needs a baby fix every other year (thus ending up with 5 or 6 children or, gulp, 10 or 12!!!) All attitude aside (and yes, I'm already getting PLENTY OF THAT!) I enjoy my children more now that they are older. Instead of trying to figure out why they are upset or angry or frustrated, they can JUST TELL ME!
I know it will be only a few short years until communication ceases altogether (the aforementioned teenage years), so I am going to try to follow the advice I've been given.
Cherish every single moment.
Happy Birthday Xander!
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
The Differences Between Friends
My good friend and I are so alike in many ways:
We hail from the same state. I moved here 26 years ago (WOW!) when I attended college, she moved here more recently after her husband transferred jobs. That home state connection is a strong bond between us, in that both of us travel back throughout the year to visit family and friends. We often travel on the same dates, and once we were on the same highway returning home, a mere 30 exits apart.
We both have FOOD ISSUES! She and I have tried any number of hair-brained schemes to lose weight and get in shape ("back on track" are our three most repeated and most HATED words!) We've done Weight Watchers together, worked out together, done fitness challenges together... When we are good, we share low-point recipes and suggestions. When we are bad we regale each other with our food binges, each of us cheering the other on when we've hit a new high (or low as the case may be)in the amount of peanut butter M&Ms consumed.
We both enjoy movies! We love nothing better than sneaking off together in the middle of the school day and watching some awesome (or awesomely BAD!)movie. We'll both smuggle in our ziploc bag of popcorn and our contraband soda (and if we're are OFF TRACK then a large bag of twizzlers or the aforementioned peanut butter M&Ms). With some friends I feel obliged to sit silently through the movie, but this friend and I feel completely free to rank on any and every impossible plot twist in whatever we are seeing!
Case in point...We saw "Vantage Point" yesterday. Not to give anything away (SPOILER ALERT!) but these terrorists spend the entire movie killing about fifty billion people in a most UNBELIEVABLE plot. At the end of the movie, they are racing to get away through the streets of Spain in an ambulance and they suddenly see a little girl standing in the middle of the road. The evil she-terrorist shrieks "Watch Out!" while the evil male terrorist cuts the steering wheel sharply, missing the little girl and swerving wildly out of control! I yelled, "Oh right, let's not hit the little girl!" while my friend yelled "Yeah, we've only just killed everyone else in this movie already!"
You can't beat that kind of kismet.
But while we have so many similarities, it is our differences that I often dwell on.
I have always cared too much about what people think. This self-consciousness has impacted nearly every aspect of my life. I'm not complaining, I've managed to adopt a more "who cares" attitude as I advance through middle age.
My friend, on the other hand, will not hesitate to speak her mind regardless of the situation. She recently told me that she took a gas station attendant to task when he was speaking on his cell phone while pumping her gas. While I probably would have just crossed my fingers and hoped for no explosion, she pointedly told him to end his call. WHen he didn't she threatened to start the car and drive off with THE PUMP STILL ATTACHED! When he protested that she had a better chance of being hit by lightning than by her car catching fire from a spark at the pump, her reply was "If I want to take that chance I will, but I'm not going to let you take a chance with MY life!"
She is a fierce advocate for her children. She will not back down from any teacher, counselor, karate instructor or other mother when it concerns the health, safety and well being of her children. I'd like to think that I would act accordingly with my children in similar situations, but I know myself too well. I act as an advocate for my children too, but that little voice in the back of my mind is always there, warning me not to be a nudge because otherwise people won't like me!
My friend also has a kindness and a generousness of spirit which I completely admire (even if I can't understand it!) If I'm driving and someone gives me the finger, I fantasize about running them off the road and making a break for it. My friend blows them a kiss instead.
Recently, while grocery shopping she realized she had forgotten her store discount card and asked the clerk (an elderly man) if he had a card at his register he could run through instead (most of the clerks do!). He flat out refused and while they went back and forth for a time, she ended up not getting her sale prices When she told me this story, I was OUTRAGED! I railed about how awful the clerk was, how inconsiderate, what an evil, petty person! My friend just sighed and said ,"Who knows, maybe he just found out some awful news about his wife." (I would have been plotting my revenge with a grocery cart after store hours.)
In spinning the other day, she was too late to get a spot in the class. I was disappointed, but my disappointment quickly turned to anger, then rage when the bike next to me, which had a water bottle and a sweatshirt draped on it, remained EMPTY for the first 15 minutes of class. (Someone else who had been shut out poked her head into the room and I told her to take the bike, dammit!) When I told my friend about this afterwards, again, I worked myself up into a frenzy, damning whomever would be so thoughtless to claim that bike for themselves and not use it!(or for someone else...I'm still not convinced it wasn't someone in class claiming a bike for a friend...) My friend turned to me and said, "Maybe something came up that prevented them from spinning. You don't know."
I guess you would call this kind of attitude optimism, but I always lump that word in with the whole glass half empty/half full debate. My friend is always willing to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. She assumes the best about total strangers instead of the worst. To my knowledge, the only two people she has EVER expressed a negative opinion about are Oprah Winfrey (she HATES that Oprah is on the cover of her own magazine EVERY month) and Rachel Ray ("...overexposed, annoying voice and her hands are as big as catcher's mitts...").
I wish I could be more like my friend. I told her this and to my surprise she launched into all the ways that she admires me where she falls short (knowledge of current events, computer savvy, and my ability to embrace things head on).
This made me realize that it is our similarities that initially bring us together, but it is our differences that make our friendships interesting.
Here's to ALL of my incredible friends!
We hail from the same state. I moved here 26 years ago (WOW!) when I attended college, she moved here more recently after her husband transferred jobs. That home state connection is a strong bond between us, in that both of us travel back throughout the year to visit family and friends. We often travel on the same dates, and once we were on the same highway returning home, a mere 30 exits apart.
We both have FOOD ISSUES! She and I have tried any number of hair-brained schemes to lose weight and get in shape ("back on track" are our three most repeated and most HATED words!) We've done Weight Watchers together, worked out together, done fitness challenges together... When we are good, we share low-point recipes and suggestions. When we are bad we regale each other with our food binges, each of us cheering the other on when we've hit a new high (or low as the case may be)in the amount of peanut butter M&Ms consumed.
We both enjoy movies! We love nothing better than sneaking off together in the middle of the school day and watching some awesome (or awesomely BAD!)movie. We'll both smuggle in our ziploc bag of popcorn and our contraband soda (and if we're are OFF TRACK then a large bag of twizzlers or the aforementioned peanut butter M&Ms). With some friends I feel obliged to sit silently through the movie, but this friend and I feel completely free to rank on any and every impossible plot twist in whatever we are seeing!
Case in point...We saw "Vantage Point" yesterday. Not to give anything away (SPOILER ALERT!) but these terrorists spend the entire movie killing about fifty billion people in a most UNBELIEVABLE plot. At the end of the movie, they are racing to get away through the streets of Spain in an ambulance and they suddenly see a little girl standing in the middle of the road. The evil she-terrorist shrieks "Watch Out!" while the evil male terrorist cuts the steering wheel sharply, missing the little girl and swerving wildly out of control! I yelled, "Oh right, let's not hit the little girl!" while my friend yelled "Yeah, we've only just killed everyone else in this movie already!"
You can't beat that kind of kismet.
But while we have so many similarities, it is our differences that I often dwell on.
I have always cared too much about what people think. This self-consciousness has impacted nearly every aspect of my life. I'm not complaining, I've managed to adopt a more "who cares" attitude as I advance through middle age.
My friend, on the other hand, will not hesitate to speak her mind regardless of the situation. She recently told me that she took a gas station attendant to task when he was speaking on his cell phone while pumping her gas. While I probably would have just crossed my fingers and hoped for no explosion, she pointedly told him to end his call. WHen he didn't she threatened to start the car and drive off with THE PUMP STILL ATTACHED! When he protested that she had a better chance of being hit by lightning than by her car catching fire from a spark at the pump, her reply was "If I want to take that chance I will, but I'm not going to let you take a chance with MY life!"
She is a fierce advocate for her children. She will not back down from any teacher, counselor, karate instructor or other mother when it concerns the health, safety and well being of her children. I'd like to think that I would act accordingly with my children in similar situations, but I know myself too well. I act as an advocate for my children too, but that little voice in the back of my mind is always there, warning me not to be a nudge because otherwise people won't like me!
My friend also has a kindness and a generousness of spirit which I completely admire (even if I can't understand it!) If I'm driving and someone gives me the finger, I fantasize about running them off the road and making a break for it. My friend blows them a kiss instead.
Recently, while grocery shopping she realized she had forgotten her store discount card and asked the clerk (an elderly man) if he had a card at his register he could run through instead (most of the clerks do!). He flat out refused and while they went back and forth for a time, she ended up not getting her sale prices When she told me this story, I was OUTRAGED! I railed about how awful the clerk was, how inconsiderate, what an evil, petty person! My friend just sighed and said ,"Who knows, maybe he just found out some awful news about his wife." (I would have been plotting my revenge with a grocery cart after store hours.)
In spinning the other day, she was too late to get a spot in the class. I was disappointed, but my disappointment quickly turned to anger, then rage when the bike next to me, which had a water bottle and a sweatshirt draped on it, remained EMPTY for the first 15 minutes of class. (Someone else who had been shut out poked her head into the room and I told her to take the bike, dammit!) When I told my friend about this afterwards, again, I worked myself up into a frenzy, damning whomever would be so thoughtless to claim that bike for themselves and not use it!(or for someone else...I'm still not convinced it wasn't someone in class claiming a bike for a friend...) My friend turned to me and said, "Maybe something came up that prevented them from spinning. You don't know."
I guess you would call this kind of attitude optimism, but I always lump that word in with the whole glass half empty/half full debate. My friend is always willing to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. She assumes the best about total strangers instead of the worst. To my knowledge, the only two people she has EVER expressed a negative opinion about are Oprah Winfrey (she HATES that Oprah is on the cover of her own magazine EVERY month) and Rachel Ray ("...overexposed, annoying voice and her hands are as big as catcher's mitts...").
I wish I could be more like my friend. I told her this and to my surprise she launched into all the ways that she admires me where she falls short (knowledge of current events, computer savvy, and my ability to embrace things head on).
This made me realize that it is our similarities that initially bring us together, but it is our differences that make our friendships interesting.
Here's to ALL of my incredible friends!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Orange You Glad You Read This???
There was a carrot in my spinning class today.
Let me just start by stating that my spinning class begins at 6:00 A.M. Typically, Mr. Flossy is the one who gets up and goes to the gym in the early morning before work. However, one morning a week (and ONLY one morning a week!) I haul my fat, lazy ass out of bed so I can spin early and get my workout done. That leaves me all the time that the kids are in school to do the OTHER things that need to get done.
Originally, my friend Katy taught the 6am class, and I swore that I would never get my ass out of bed that early for anyone else. But then her schedule changed and she couldn't do 6am anymore (hooray! an excuse not to get up so early!) A new instructor took over. His music is great, his class is as challenging as any I've taken before and I soon realized that I would still be rolling out of bed, groping for coffee at the crack of dawn one morning a week.
Here is the downside to the class:
While there are still a handful of "regulars" left over from Katy's class, there are now a greater number of taut, lean hardbodies spinning away at ridiculous RPMs with little effort. Turns out, many of them are members of an elite club of triathletes, and this class apparently is part of their training. So while my buddies and I huff and puff through the class, trying desparately not to vomit, these freaks (come on now, what else would you call someone whose heart rate probably doesn't even hit 100 bpm while grinding out 200 RPMs at heavy tension?)glide through, guzzling down bottle after bottle of powerade and vitamin water, blotting their over-sweaty bodies with their Shape Magazine towels (and yet there are still pools of sweat on the floor under their bike..EWWW!)
Anyway, back to the carrot.
There is a woman who attends this class religiously, I have never seen her miss one yet. She is thin, taut, cut without an ounce of fat on her body. Her hair is usually pulled back in a neat braid, and though she sweats like a racehorse during class (I saw a sweat droplet hanging off her nose this morning for 1/2 a song!) she looks like she could spin for HOURS and not get tired. She sits diagonally to me and I can't help but envy how healthy and athletic she looks. Not too skinny, not too muscular, exactly what every woman would want to achieve. DAMN HER!
Then today I happened to notice that she was a peculiar shade of ORANGE! Given that it is still early spring, I came to the following conclusions:
She went on vacation recently, somewhere warm.
She invested heavily in a local tanning salon and is taking her dividends in spray or tanning bed sessions.
She bought a case of self-tanner and took a bath in it last night.
Now I am HOPING that its option #3, because I have heard that the spray tan at salons can be hazardous to your organs. We all know that exposing yourself to extended tanning sessions in either UV beds or the sun can cause skin damage.
It made me wonder:
Wouldn't it be the height of irony to be in such amazing shape that you could run/swim/bike forever without growing tired? To have a body the envy of all around you? And to end up with a melanoma because you just HAD to go for that extra tanning session?
I may be lazy. I may be overweight. But dammit, at least this blobby body of mine is as WHITE as the underbelly of a fish! I may kick the bucket from any number of other ailments, but it WON'T be from skin cancer.
Ride on oh mighty carrot, ride on!
Let me just start by stating that my spinning class begins at 6:00 A.M. Typically, Mr. Flossy is the one who gets up and goes to the gym in the early morning before work. However, one morning a week (and ONLY one morning a week!) I haul my fat, lazy ass out of bed so I can spin early and get my workout done. That leaves me all the time that the kids are in school to do the OTHER things that need to get done.
Originally, my friend Katy taught the 6am class, and I swore that I would never get my ass out of bed that early for anyone else. But then her schedule changed and she couldn't do 6am anymore (hooray! an excuse not to get up so early!) A new instructor took over. His music is great, his class is as challenging as any I've taken before and I soon realized that I would still be rolling out of bed, groping for coffee at the crack of dawn one morning a week.
Here is the downside to the class:
While there are still a handful of "regulars" left over from Katy's class, there are now a greater number of taut, lean hardbodies spinning away at ridiculous RPMs with little effort. Turns out, many of them are members of an elite club of triathletes, and this class apparently is part of their training. So while my buddies and I huff and puff through the class, trying desparately not to vomit, these freaks (come on now, what else would you call someone whose heart rate probably doesn't even hit 100 bpm while grinding out 200 RPMs at heavy tension?)glide through, guzzling down bottle after bottle of powerade and vitamin water, blotting their over-sweaty bodies with their Shape Magazine towels (and yet there are still pools of sweat on the floor under their bike..EWWW!)
Anyway, back to the carrot.
There is a woman who attends this class religiously, I have never seen her miss one yet. She is thin, taut, cut without an ounce of fat on her body. Her hair is usually pulled back in a neat braid, and though she sweats like a racehorse during class (I saw a sweat droplet hanging off her nose this morning for 1/2 a song!) she looks like she could spin for HOURS and not get tired. She sits diagonally to me and I can't help but envy how healthy and athletic she looks. Not too skinny, not too muscular, exactly what every woman would want to achieve. DAMN HER!
Then today I happened to notice that she was a peculiar shade of ORANGE! Given that it is still early spring, I came to the following conclusions:
She went on vacation recently, somewhere warm.
She invested heavily in a local tanning salon and is taking her dividends in spray or tanning bed sessions.
She bought a case of self-tanner and took a bath in it last night.
Now I am HOPING that its option #3, because I have heard that the spray tan at salons can be hazardous to your organs. We all know that exposing yourself to extended tanning sessions in either UV beds or the sun can cause skin damage.
It made me wonder:
Wouldn't it be the height of irony to be in such amazing shape that you could run/swim/bike forever without growing tired? To have a body the envy of all around you? And to end up with a melanoma because you just HAD to go for that extra tanning session?
I may be lazy. I may be overweight. But dammit, at least this blobby body of mine is as WHITE as the underbelly of a fish! I may kick the bucket from any number of other ailments, but it WON'T be from skin cancer.
Ride on oh mighty carrot, ride on!
Monday, March 31, 2008
No More Words
I was in Victoria's Secret today buying a pair of panties (by the way, Mr. Flossy is gonna LOVE 'em!) and it got me thinking about a couple of friends of mine who are TOTALLY freaked out by the word...
Panties.
Huh. When I first heard this, I of course immediately started saying the word "panties" out loud over and over just to see their reaction. One put her finger in her ears, the other cringed and threw up her hands in a very Charles Nelson Reilly kind of way. These girls are sisters, by the way, and in addition to this weird quirk, they also have phobias about, respectively, coins and Teletubbies.
But that's a blog for another day!
Getting back to the word panties. (I'm sure they are cringing right now if they happen to be reading this blog!)
Their OTHER sister, a good friend of mine, told me that she isn't thrilled with the word panties, but she doesn't have as violent a reaction to it as she does to the word "squat". Unfortunately, she happened to reveal this to me while in the car with my older son. With his empathetic nature inherited from his mother, my son immediately started saying "squatsquatsquatsquatsquatsquat".
After polling a few OTHER friends, I've compiled a list of words that my friends really don't like:
Ointment
Salve
Tunic
Folks
Bisque
Creamy
One-Cup (?)
Scrotum (can't blame her for THAT one!)
Personally, I don't care for the words smock, buttocks or pinnies (as in, "We're going to have a scrimmage between this team and that team, would one team please put these pinnies on).
I would prefer that you cover up your buttocks with a smock or a pinnie!
If anyone out there has any words that really set their teeth on edge, please feel free to post them to the comments section. I'd love to know that there are other freaks out there, just like us!
Panties.
Huh. When I first heard this, I of course immediately started saying the word "panties" out loud over and over just to see their reaction. One put her finger in her ears, the other cringed and threw up her hands in a very Charles Nelson Reilly kind of way. These girls are sisters, by the way, and in addition to this weird quirk, they also have phobias about, respectively, coins and Teletubbies.
But that's a blog for another day!
Getting back to the word panties. (I'm sure they are cringing right now if they happen to be reading this blog!)
Their OTHER sister, a good friend of mine, told me that she isn't thrilled with the word panties, but she doesn't have as violent a reaction to it as she does to the word "squat". Unfortunately, she happened to reveal this to me while in the car with my older son. With his empathetic nature inherited from his mother, my son immediately started saying "squatsquatsquatsquatsquatsquat".
After polling a few OTHER friends, I've compiled a list of words that my friends really don't like:
Ointment
Salve
Tunic
Folks
Bisque
Creamy
One-Cup (?)
Scrotum (can't blame her for THAT one!)
Personally, I don't care for the words smock, buttocks or pinnies (as in, "We're going to have a scrimmage between this team and that team, would one team please put these pinnies on).
I would prefer that you cover up your buttocks with a smock or a pinnie!
If anyone out there has any words that really set their teeth on edge, please feel free to post them to the comments section. I'd love to know that there are other freaks out there, just like us!
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