Help! I've Shredded and I Can't Get Up!

I just started Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred. I consider myself in shape. Just need to shed a few unwanted pounds. But I work out five times a week, on the average. CLEARLY I am not doing enough. Or am old sack of potatoes. Because half way in, (a 25 minute workout, more or less) I was FEELING THE PAIN. Pain, I tell you. It was my body screaming, "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO MOVE TOMORROW IF YOU CONTINUE!" But I did. And I'm sore. And Drew has a sprained ankle. Not from the Shred. Can someone please come over and scrape us off the floor and watch our kids? More soon. (If I can lift my arms to type, that is.)

My Family is Crazier than Your Family

I know. I know. It's been a LONG time. And it's not that I've had nothing to say. I'm just coming to the end of my reign of unemployment, and I've been trying to maximize the time I've got left. I'm going to miss it. I'm going to miss THEM. Being a SAHM isn't always a picnic, but I've had a GOOD run, and I wish I could be with them longer, especially the Lil' Rascal, because she's only going to be two. Just a couple more years would be perfect.

But this post isn't about that. And believe me, I have enough job issues and Mommy Guilt for many a post to come. No, this post is for exactly what I said I wouldn't do. I mean, I shut down a whole blog because of all the venom I was spewing. But sometimes, just sometimes, a family trip can bring stuff up (and I don't mean the vomit in my mouth!).

So, the following is a list of hours of therapy it will take to repair the damage done by some of my family:

Mom's incessant need to answer both her cell and home phone, no matter what activity she's in the middle of doing? Half an hour

Tolerating her husband's sporadic outbursts of stupidity and/or verbal abuse? Three hours

Having to listen to my SIL's verbal diarrhea, which includes, but is not limited to: overuse of the word "wonderful", overpraising her children, AND telling her children they excel at whatever my girls were being praised for (us: good job eating your dinner, Diva. Her: "Oh, honey you're such a wonderful eater, too. Everything you do is so wonderful..." Seriously?!!)? Five hours

Watching my father virtually ignore the most precious creatures to ever enter into his life in order to (again, this list includes, but is not limited to...) look at Susan Boyle on YouTube, talk to his local family members who he sees all the time, show people his latest paintings (I get it, but still...), and OBVIOUSLY, take pictures of these precious commodities instead of interacting with them? Six hours

Hearing that my brother got upset with my father because he donates money to the foundation honoring his dead wife, saying that he should instead give the money to his children's college funds, because said dead wife abused him?!!

Priceless

A Fleeting Moment

I've had some difficulty swallowing all that is Facebook for the last week or so. Just fed up, I guess. I'm OH SO MUCH MORE enthralled with Twitter. A place I don't have to block anyone (but I do anyway, those Christian pro-life right-wingers, who, for some reason, want to follow me). A place I can just be me.

But then something happened on Facebook that made it all worth it.

My "lil' sis" from cheerleading friended me. Only her info said "male". WTF?!!! Did she have a sex change? Was she a transgender? So, of COURSE I ADDED HER! And looking into her profile further, I discovered that she was living with a woman, and under her interests was "poop". Ok, this is weird.

So I stewed on that for a few hours (no pun intended) and messaged a friend who is also Facebook friends with him/her/whatever. Then I went back and looked at the profile.

Nothing to see here, folks. The woman she was living with? Her. The "male" is the character she is posing as on her Facebook page, either fictional or her pet (I don't want to put it exactly, because I don't want all my reader(s) to Google her.) I figured this out because the female she was "living with" had a photo of her and her dad. And while I might not recognize her after 20 years, her dad looks almost the same, just more grey hair.

So, for a brief instance, Facebook was good again. The excitement of finding out that a girl you once knew was a boy would have made it ALL WORTH IT!!! But no, it's still the same ol', same ol'... Me posting my oh-so-interesting observation about a flock of Canadian geese. Bonnie M.O.T. noticing some red shit over Detroit. People finding out what kind of stripper-mom they are, or what their real age is.

I'm not saying that I'm not going to continue to DO IT, I'm just saying...

Irony is a Whore

I finally have a really decent idea for a post, I mean, ideas are FLYING around in my head. Stuff has happened and I need to share. It involves a recurring dream, an ex-boyfriend, and the realization that I know what it all means.

But, noooooo.... I can't write it because I can barely see due to excruciatingly dry eyes. I can't explain it. Something is amiss with my eyes though, and all I've been told to do is administer drops (five or six times a day). It doesn't help. What? Did I turn 40 and my eyes decided to say, "Fuck you! You're old now!"

Anyway, gotta go apply a warm compress (or a hot poker...); be back soon.

Fear, Modesty and the Vajayjay

The other day we took the kids sledding. Well, Drew took the Diva sledding with some friends and their boys, and I came later to take pictures and keep the Li'l Rascal happy (tough job some days). Anyway, when Rascal and I got there, we joined in the fun, I videotaped Drew going down QUITE a big hill with my fearless Diva daughter, and they even convinced ME to take a turn down the hill. Again. Let me reiterate. BIG HILL. I haven't been sledding in... hmmm. That got me thinking of my own childhood. The only time I ever went sledding? We lived in Atlanta, and my brother and I took a cardboard box down the (very steep) driveway. But by that time, I was old enough for the fear to have set in. The fear I speak of is the fear that was drilled into my brain my whole life. My mother will say it was all my father, but she must have had a modicum of control over our upbringing, so I blame her just as much. Here is the short list of the things I was programmed to be afraid of:
heights
roller coasters
moving fast doing anything (skiing- NEVER, sledding- only as previously described, skateboarding- we got them, and then my dad sold them out from under us)
raw fish
smoked fish
not wearing your seat belt (this one I'm ok with)
bugs
water sports
boating
motorcycles
riding a bicycle in the street
I could go on. But do I really need to? You get the idea. So thinking of this paranoid upbringing, I know I'm doing way better by my kids. After all, I let the Diva go sledding with Drew, didn't ask questions or show any freakish concern when visiting the sledding hill. I just cheered her on and took a turn myself. I did SCREAM LIKE A BABY the whole way down the hill, but I WAS going pretty fast...

Anyway, thinking about my "fear factor" upbringing led me to thinking about another aspect of my upbringing. Prudishness. Is that even a word? My parents kissed in front of us. A lot. And believe you me, I didn't want to see any more than that, but I was raised by two pretty prudish people. And it probably turned me into at least a self-conscious person, if nothing else. Put it this way (and I hope this is not TMI), I never saw my parents unclothed. I don't know if I ever even saw my mom in her bra until I was much older (like out of college), and we were in a situation where we had to change in front of each other. With my own children, however, this is not the case. I mean, they follow us into the bathroom. (What did my parents do? They must have stuck me in a playpen!) I'm not going to live my life hiding myself. The human body is natural, and I think my daughters will benefit from my husband and I not shying away from the inevitable. They will see us nekked. And it's no big deal. There's no shame in that.

Which brings me to... tonight's conversation with the Diva as I'm putting her to bed. So, I tuck her in, and she looks up at me and smiles.
"Guess where my hand is?!"
She pulls down the covers and shows me. Hand in underpants. Yikes! What do I do or say now that won't traumatize her?!
"Oh, ok, Div, take your hand out of there?..."
She giggles, holds her hand up to my face. Says something about how she had her finger in her vagina.
"Um, do you want to wash your hand before bed? I know that might feel good, but since you peepee out of your vagina, you might want to wash your hands. (WTF?!!! I have NO IDEA what to say here.)
So we go to the bathroom, because she DOES want to wash her hands (after sniffing it a few times) and she looks at herself in the mirror and says (I shit you not), "Finger in the vagina. It feels GOOOOOOD!"
I had to smile and laugh with her, because what else could I say?!
Then, on the way back to bed, she has me smell her hand, which now smelled like soap. And I gave my THREE YEAR OLD night-nights and prayed she would sleep well.
Of course I waited too long to get the full story down verbatim, but you get the gist.
Boy, my parents would have had a heart attack. Or something. Still, how to handle these situations? No matter what kind of parent you are, there are clearly no clear answers. Or are there?

WTF?!

Apparently I have flagged my own blog as having objectionable content. And I don't know how to unflag it. So I have to ask my reader(s), are you seeing some f**d up garbelty-gook at the top of the page too?

I am adding a new blog to the blogroll. I follow her on Twitter, but now I read her blog too. Barefoot Foodie... she is too funny! And expecting a baby girl next month (which she will be posting the birth on YouTube). Despite my new found love for Facebook, I am getting back into Twitter too, because there is some funny shit out there, and I have OH SO MUCH TIME on my hands...

Holding My Breath

Just until tomorrow. When I will find out everything will be alright. Until then, I'm just going through the motions:
Laundry, dishes, playing with the girls, cooking, Reality TV, Facebook, starting (to read) a book bigger than my head, chatting with girlfriends, cleaning the house, avoiding work, taking long baths, etc., etc.

We have been back from Cali for a week, and the trip was WAY better than I expected. When visiting in-laws, I do tend to expect the worst. But because we stayed with MY FRIEND, it was so relaxing and fun in the evenings. All red wine and kicking back... that's the way to travel. The girls were great. Besides their first McDonald's, there was another first... The Little Rascal decided she wanted to sleep with The Diva. And it was great. BIG LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL! We can now travel without worrying about cribs!

And we're back home, and all is well (or it will be, after tomorrow), and The Rascal is back in her crib, where she belongs. And it's snowing (again). And I'm trying to relax... and breathe.

Eight Days to Go

If you are a man, you need not read any further. Go work on a car or something. This one's for the lay-lays.

I only have one thing to say today...P.M.S. Not the normal amount of PMS, but it seems I've skipped a period (and, no, I'm not pregnant... I know for a FACT), so I've been feeling this way for a month or more. When will it end?! Can I PLEASE just get my period already?!!

It should come as no surprise to me that I'm irregular. One time, in college, I went eleven months without a period (that was a bit of a shocker... worrisome to say the least). But now that I'm older and I've had a couple of babies, you'd think I'd be all done with that. This isn't the first time this has happened since having kids either, but this time is particularly frustrating because I feel my body reacting to food (ingesting large amounts of sugar) and water (retaining some days, the opposite of retaining on others) as if I were getting my period.

Finally, my mother went through "menopause" at age 35. I put it in quotations, because since then, I've learned from my OB-GYN that she must have had what is called ovarian failure, because women don't EVER go through menopause at that age. At any rate, I was always worried that I wouldn't be able to have kids if I waited too long because of that issue, but much to Drew's dismay, we got pregnant on the first try (or earlier!), so clearly I didn't experience any failure in that department.

If I don't get my period soon, I really will bite someone's head off. Aaaargh!!!!

10 Days To Go

I'm counting down until I turn 40. I didn't do this for 30, or any other age, for that matter. But I thought it would be fun, and with starting the new blog and all that. I'm thinking that I should impart some wisdom (and/or general crap) that I have gathered to get me to this point in my life. Some of it will be happy, happy, joy, joy, but some of it will be WTF?!!! Today (big shocker), I'm feeling that I should start off with a little WTF. (It would be helpful to note here, that I have just been on a Mom's night out with some of my friends and I am misspelling every other word and having to go back and fix it... I may get lazy and start sounding drunkish.)

My first order of business in the countdown is to say WTF to loose skin. Oh, you may not want to read any further if you are young and spry, but, yes, as one gets older, it APPEARS that one's skin LOSES ELASTICITY!!! I thought that shit only happened to old people. Not people like me, a mom of a three year old and a one and a half year old. But here's how I found out. The other day, the Lil' Rascal (the younger of the two) was trying to climb up on the chair/couch/whatever to read a book with The Diva and me (The Diva being my oldest). Well, she was having some trouble, as climbing is still fairly new to her, so she grabbed a handful of my sleeve. Well underneath the sleeve was my ARM, and the bitch grabbed some of my skin! Considering I work out on a fairly regular basis, who knew that this was even possible?!! Well, it was, and now I have a little black and blue mark where she pinched me. It really isn't a big deal. I know this. But upon looking at the "owie", I did notice that my skin seems to be lacking in the elasticity of my youth. Is it the weather? (Butt cold) Is it lack of moisturizer? Is it (gasp) my age?!!

Oh, elasticity, what has become of thee? Why hath thou forsaken me?!

P.S. I'm really bad at the whole counting down thing. So I maybe should have written this post earlier?! Later?! Not sure, we'll see if I turn 40 on my actual birthday. Should be interesting!