R & R

I found myself in a rare position today.  Sitting with my feet up for a solid 30 minutes.  For a multi-tasker “Type A” like myself this is unfamiliar territory.  Even if I were to attempt this on a daily basis I wouldn’t last longer than 5 minutes.  First I would notice the pile of toys in the corner begging to be sorted and re-organized.  Then I would remember the inflatable swimming pool was still out back killing the grass.  Or there was a load of laundry needing to be folded.  Or dishes needing to be put away.  Even while watching a movie I find myself making the next week’s meal plan and shopping list or painting my toenails.  I don’t want to be like this but it’s in my blood.  So what was different about today that allowed me to lie supine for so long without interruption?  I was at the dentist office for a cleaning. 

As the last 6 month’s worth of plaque was being scraped from my back molars I got to thinking about how I could really maximize this rare moment of lying still.  In my daydream, I assembled a team of people who were working busily on me. 

My favorite pedicurist from Coldwater Creek the Spa was giving my feet a makeover

while the kind Vietnamese woman from the nail salon down the street was waxing the Magnum PI-style stash from my upper lip.

My hair stylist was giving me a cut and color

at the same time my favorite aesthetician from Frank Gironda was giving me a facial.

Then I realized that all this beautifying would take far longer than the time allotted for my 30 minute teeth cleaning.  I was snapped from my fantasy by some devastating news.  I had 2 cavities and needed to return for a 90 minute appointment some time in the next few weeks.   Hmmmm, maybe I could assemble that team after all!

Coke Bottles

I was standing in the checkout line at the grocery store the other day with Tyler, Maddy and Gabe.  The checker was a woman in her 70s with the thickest glasses I have ever seen.  I know that sounds mean but I am a member of the “four eyes” club as well so I am allowed to make this observation.  In fact I just saw my eye doctor last Saturday and he informed me that my vision was about 10/400 (vs the gold standard of 20/20).  After I removed my contacts for the dreaded “puff of air shot into your bare eyeball test” (there has to be a better way by now!) I felt like I needed a walking stick to find my way back to the exam room.  I digress.  So just as I make the observation of this woman’s Coke bottles I turn to see Tyler staring straight at the checker, his eyes as big as saucers.  My own blind eyes bulge from their sockets and I vigorously shake my head from side to side as I shoot him a look that I hope he registers as “If you utter one single, solitary word about this lady’s eyewear you will be grounded for life!” No dice.  “Mom,” he says refusing to break his gaze from her magnifying lenses that could, if the sun were at the right angle, most likely start a small campfire, “why is this lady’s glasses so big?”  Mortified, I turn my gaze towards hers in slow motion, secretly hoping she’s just as hard of hearing as she is near-sighted.  Her face is a blank slate as she slides my jumbo pack of Pampers across the scanner.  Whether or not she heard him I will never know (and if you are out there kind checker lady, I am so sorry) but I have a feeling I will be making these apologies for several more years!

Numbers Game

I went for my yearly gynecologic exam last week.  The nurse who rescued me from the waiting room after an excruciating 25 minutes (how do they get away with that?) and brought me back to the exam room where I waited for another 15 minutes had to be about 22 years old by my estimation.  She opened her laptop and began the usual spree of questions:  Are you on any medications?  Do you have any allergies?  Have you ever had an abnormal pap smear?  When was your last period?  With the exception of that last question I answered her questions easily.  My baby is 4 months old so calculating my last period took a bit of brain power.  Then she asked, “Do you drink alcohol?”  I felt my face turning beat red as I debated how to answer the question.  You see, since having my third child I have been “treating” myself to an occasional alcoholic beverage.  At first I told myself it was because I wasn’t allowed anything for nine months (actually 41 weeks but who’s counting).  Several weeks into my third child’s life I told myself a beer at night was helping my milk let down.  Now that Gabe is almost 4 months old I realize that an occasional mid-day or early evening beverage can really take the edge off my rapidly fraying nerves.  Back to the question.  Maybe I can dodge it all together with some humor.  “Well, I do have three children,” I snickered.  Old stone face didn’t even grant me a courtesy laugh.  “How many drinks do you have per week,” she retorted.  “Maybe 3 or 4,” I replied, shifting nervously in my seat and quickly doing the math in my head to see how much I had under-reported.  “And do you exercise?” she asked.  OK, now she was hitting below the belt.  I am, after all, a Pilates instructor.  Make that a Prenatal and Postnatal Pilates Specialist.  I spend hours every week perfecting my lectures and updating my website and marketing my classes.  But that’s not what she is fishing for and I know it.  I have been meaning to exercise more, really I have, but it keeps getting pushed to the bottom of my to-do list.  I tell myself I should wake up 30 minutes early each morning to fit in a quick jog or some Pilates but with Gabe still getting up every 3 hours at night I am EXHAUSTED and would pay a hundred bucks for just 15 extra minutes of sleep in the morning.  “Maybe 3 or 4 days per week,” I answer, this time calculating how much I’ve over-reported.  I’m sure this nurse gets “false reports” at least a dozen times per week.  I consider coming clean or at least bargaining:  If you take 15 pounds off that scale you weighed me on at the start of this appointment I will double my drink answer and halve my exercise answer.  But, alas, I sit quietly and say nothing vowing to drink less and exercise more. 

Picture Perfect

One of the most stressful events of parenthood has to be getting the family pictures taken.  First you try to strategically plan the time of day when everyone will be their happiest (the more family members you have, the more impossible it is to find that magic hour).  Next comes the outfit planning.  You want everyone to coordinate but not be too matchy-matchy.  Finally the big day arrives.  By the time the kids are bathed, dressed, and looking picture perfect you have 5 minutes to make yourself presentable.  In the car on the way there you have everyone practice their smiles, promising rewards and surprises for all who cooperate.  You spend the entire session begging and pleading for a “nice smile, not your silly smile.”  “Hug your sister right now or you don’t get a sucker.”  And it is embarrassing the amount of baby talk that comes out of your mouth to get the little one to smile (“yes it is, peek-a-boo, ah,ah,ah-chooey”).  Why do we do it?  What are we trying to prove by displaying these picture perfect images throughout our home?  Take the picture below. 

 Thirty minutes prior my mom (thank you, Grandma for coming along!) was removing a splinter from Tyler’s finger, twenty minutes prior she was mending a nasty rugburn Madelyn suffered when she was running through the studio and tripped on a threshold.  Ten minutes prior I was actually driving the baby around the block in my car to get him to stop crying.  Ten seconds AFTER this exact picture was taken, the baby had an assplosion that blew out of his diaper saturating the photographer’s white bed spread and leaking onto Tyler’s dress shirt sending Tyler into a panic.  While he was spiraling out of control, Madelyn started crying and begging me to pick her up.  I had just taken the baby’s diaper off and cleaned him up when I tried to get Madelyn to calm down by picking her up but she screamed because apparently some poop had gotten on my finger.  The photographer picked the baby up to put a new diaper on and he peed all over the front of her shirt.  Every time I see this picture I am reminded not of the picture perfect children portrayed in the photo but of the chaos that took place before and after the camera flashed.  The chaos that is a natural part of my life.  The chaos I have come to embrace because it is real.  And that, my friends, is perfect.

P.S.  If you are in the market for a great newborn photographer or DSLR instructor check out the links page of my website at http://www.pilatesbycarrie.com/

Car Magnets

I’m always looking for new ways to market my Prenatal and Postnatal Pilates classes.  Someone suggested purchasing large car magnets with my logo and contact information so I could be a driving advertisement of my services.  I am reminded of a time when I was driving alongside one of those Red Bull energy drink cars.  You know the ones, with the giant can of Red Bull affixed to the roof of the car.  I sped up to get a look at the poor sap who had to motor around town in this ridiculous vehicle and to my surprise he was YAWNING!!!  I don’t know what I was expecting, perhaps someone bouncing their head off the dashboard or driving with their feet as they chugged another can of “crazy” but definitely not someone dangerously close to nodding off at the wheel of their energy drink car advertisement.  Likewise, if I decide to take the plunge and announce to the world of fellow drivers that I am a Pilates instructor I have to be ready to play the part at all times.  I have visions of drivers pulling alongside my Honda Pilot expecting me to be in a Pilates teaser pose at the red light or working on my ab series during stop-and-go traffic.  Instead they will see me exercising my lungs as I yell at the kids to stop arguing.  Rather than following the Rules of the Road like a normal, law-abiding citizen they will find me swerving into the next lane as I crane my neck into the back seat to pluck Gabe's binkie back into his mouth, take used chewing gum from Maddy's mouth, or pass the next snack back for Tyler's mouth!  Or worse yet they will observe me blowing a red light doing 20 over because, once again, we are late.  They may expect to find me munching on a celery stalk instead of ordering “the usual” from the drive-thru window at a popular fast food chain.  On second thought maybe the magnets should wait until I can play the part….like when the kids are in college.

P.S.  My next 6 week Prenatal Pilates class will tentatively be on Saturdays from 9:00-10:30 AM starting June 25^th (we will skip July 2^nd).  The next Postnatal session will be on Wednesdays from 7:30-9:00 PM starting this week, June 15^th.  If you or someone you know is interested visit my website at www.pilatesbycarrie.com for more information!

Schooooool's Out For the Summer! (or is it?)

The other evening I was driving home from my sister’s house with Tyler in the backseat.  The windows were rolled down.  It was a windy night and you could see the clouds flying past the full moon.  “Mom, look, the moon is flying!”  Tyler yelled from the backseat.  “No, buddy,” I replied, “The moon doesn’t move.  The earth rotates……” I stopped.  I thought about it.  I was stumped.  I looked in the rearview mirror praying that Tyler had forgotten the topic and moved on to one of his many other daily observations.  He had not.  He was waiting for my answer.  I panicked and quickly scanned my brain for a grade school pneumonic that would help explain the basics of astronomy to my 4 year old (and myself for that matter).  My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas!   No, no, no, that was to remember the names and orders of the planets.  Shoot.  Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can’t Handle!!!  No, no NO!  I learned that one in physical therapy school to remember the names and order of the carpal bones in the hand.  I have a Masters Of Science in Physical Therapy yet I cannot remember if the earth rotates around the moon or if the moon is also rotating.  (For the record, the moon orbits the earth and the moon and earth system also orbit the sun as a pair….ah, yes, of course.)

It’s like the time we were at the zoo and approached the fenced off area of a vaguely familiar looking UGLY animal with a long snout like the hose of a vacuum.  “Ewwww, Mom, what’s this guy called?”  Tyler yelled out in front of at least 5 other families.  All eyes on me.  Think, think, think, Carrie…you know this!  My eyes darted from side to side like a first grader cheating on a spelling test as I scanned the fence for one of those plaques that listed the name and species of the animal as well as a little blurb about their purpose on this planet (other than to make parents look dumb in front of their toddlers).  I was thinking anteater and contemplated using the “phone a friend” lifeline when a five year old shoved in front of us and yelled, “Hey, Mom, look it’s an aardvark!”  Saved by the brat whose parents were probably zoo keepers I told myself in consolation.

On the last day of preschool Tyler came home with a sunflower seedling in a Dixie cup with instructions that, as a member of the Sunflower Club, he was to plant the seedling and take pictures of it growing throughout the summer and bring them back to school in the fall.  (For my true feelings on plants see the Happy Earth Day blog entry).  I do not own any gardening equipment so my aunt was kind enough to come over a few days later with a shovel and trowel (apparently I also need to take Gardening 101 as I could not tell you what a trowel is) some potting soil and Miracle Grow and then told me it truly would be a miracle if the plant grew as its long stem was now lying at a right angle to the dirt having lost the support of the Dixie cup.  “Mom, how will it grow?” Tyler asked.  “We will water it and it will get bigger,” I said.  “But doesn’t it need the sun to grow?” he asked.  Dammit.  Apparently they had advanced the curriculum since I had attended preschool some 30 odd years ago.  The words chlorophyll and photosynthesis spring to mind but arranging them in an intelligent statement is out of the question.  “That’s a good question, buddy.  Why don’t you look it up and get back to me.”  I remember all the times that someone told me that…my parents, my teachers, my physical therapy clinical instructors.  Could it be that they, too, didn’t know the answer and were trying to “save face” like I am right now?

School may be out for millions of kids this week but as a parent of a curious toddler, I am afraid I will never be done learning or teaching.  However, I take some solace in the fact that I can simply type my questions into the Google search engine instead of getting windburn from flipping through the pages of the Encylopedia Britanica like my parents would!