Divas

Bad hair days.  I don’t look good in this outfit days.   I have NOTHING to wear days.  We’ve all been there, right?  I was late getting out of the house today because there were THREE outfit changes.  Did I mention the outfit changes were for my 3 year old daughter?!  I stood in disbelief as she looked herself over in my full length mirror declaring, “This one isn’t too pretty!”  It was an adorable peach sweater with big brown toggle buttons and brown leggings.  Back to the closet.  OK, she’s looking for pretty, huh?  I pulled out a very pretty velvet striped dress with black leggings and pulled it on over her head.  She marched (with a little swagger in her hips) back to the mirror where she declared, “This one isn’t cool!”  I was dumbfounded.  Back to the closet.  OK, she was looking for cool.  Well, in that case, she better start looking for a new mom because while I can think of several adjectives to describe myself, “cool” is not one of them. 

I am not stylish, never have been.  I vividly remember shopping for back-to-school clothes prior to entering the 6^th grade.  I was at Kmart, yes blue-light special Kmart.  I was in the dressing room and had to summon the courage to ask the dressing room attendant to teach me to French roll my acid washed jeans.  Mortifying.  Fashion trends are my enemy.  I jump on board just in time to read the headlines that cargo pants are “out” or boyfriend blazers are so “yesterday.”  I do not own a pair of skinny jeans, or a skinny belt, or a skinny anything for that matter.  The only scarves I’ve managed to pull off wearing are those designed to protect you from the elements of a Midwest winter.  Last year I had to get my babysitter a gift card to Hollister and nearly lost my life.  It was so dark in that store I needed a flashlight just to navigate my way to the register, that is if I wasn’t mugged by the shirtless, teenage boy spraying asthma-inducing levels of cologne into my face.  A few months ago I watched the MTV Awards in stunned disbelief.  I know I live in the time warp of “Mommy Land” but when did wearing a box on your head become fashionable and don’t even get me started on Nicky Minaj’s outfit which was a mix of surgical mask, aluminum can, and were those shinguards???!!! 

                                          

As I rifled through Maddy’s closet searching for a “cool” outfit I wondered if she had overheard me complaining about my own wardrobe at some point, leading to this new diva-type behavior.   While I am not one to obsess about my own body image (see Kmart example above) perhaps she overheard me talking about how my clothes just weren’t fitting right since this last pregnancy.  I made a mental note to choose my words more carefully, knowing how impressionable young girls are today.  She finally settled on a pair of capris because they had pockets and a ruffled T-shirt.  Not altogether appropriate for the forecast that was calling for low 50’s but I decided to pick my battles on this one.  Just like the time she went through a goggles phase.  She would insist on wearing her swimming goggles all the time:  at the mall, at the park, on the toilet!  It was a real crowd stopper but she was so confident and happy in those goggles that I went along with it.  And I admired her gusto.  It reminded me of one of the first decorations I bought for the nursery when I found out I was having a girl.  It was a framed card that read:  If you are confident, you are beautiful.  I really believe that. 

Even though we strive to set a good example as parents, we stand to learn a lot from our children.  So before I get dressed for work today I will proudly stuff my sagging breasts into my new bra and I will not groan as my muffin top droops over the top of the pants that are still a size too small.  Now before I check myself out in the full length mirror, will someone please bring me some goggles!!!

P.S. My next Prenatal Pilates class will tentatively start Nov 12^th (on Saturdays) and my next Postnatal Pilates class will tentatively start Dec 7^th (Wednesdays).  If you or someone you know may be interested please visit www.pilatesbycarrie.com for more information!

Toy Story

Gabriel, my 7 month old, is CRAWLING!  Whenever each of my kids reaches this milestone in their early lives I always have two thoughts:  First, time to clean the carpets (we have 2 dogs, that’s another blog for another day!).  Second, time to abolish the choking hazards.  I scheduled the carpet cleaning and watched my husband move as much furniture as possible onto the non-carpeted areas of the house.  The glider from the nursery found its way to the kids’ bathroom which made brushing teeth an Olympic event.  We dragged the bench from the foot of our bed to our bathroom and then proceeded to stack it with everything from under our bed (bins of winter clothes, wrapping paper, luggage, that old slipper I had searched for last month, etc) until the menacing tower threatened to collapse on us as we sat upon the “throne.”  The living room sofa chairs were stacked upside down on top of the coffee table in the foyer resembling an urban art display, the dining room chairs were lined up in front of the stove in the kitchen (Perfect….an excuse not to cook!), and then he moved the sectional away from the wall in the family room.  OH MY GOODNESS, we could have lived for 2 weeks on the goldfish and popcorn that had been lurking under the couch and we uncovered enough “lost” toys to start a small scale Toys R Us. 

Toys.  My arch nemesis.  Sometimes I hear them laughing at me at night (literally, some of the talking toys randomly go off in the middle of the night scaring the bejesus out of me!)  Every couple of months I get toy fever.  I look around at all the toys everywhere and a hot flash sweeps over me, my heart rate quickens, I start to feel tight around the collar.  It’s like the toys are suffocating me.  I find them in the oddest places:  in my make-up drawer next to my blush, in the silverware drawer, hidden behind the curtains in the dining room.  I end up dumping all the toys in the middle of the living room where I sort through them, returning missing puzzle pieces to their proper places, tossing

 old Happy Meal toys in the garbage, replacing batteries that have rendered many toys useless, etc, etc.  I learned the hard way that this task is best performed AFTER the kids have gone to bed because inevitably they refuse to part with the plastic turtle dressed in a grass skirt that the dogs have chewed the head off. 

Once the carpets had been cleaned, it was time to move the furniture back………..but I loved the look of ALL THAT SPACE, none of it cluttered by toys yet.  I decided in that moment to have a Clean Sweep Party and invited the kids to join me.  Each child had a large Tupperware bin with their own picture on it to put their favorite toys.  Just like on the TLC show, I found a bunch of large cardboard boxes and printed off pictures from Google Images to make it easier for the kids to help me sort.  One box had a picture of a garbage truck and I explained this box was for toys that were broken (or missing their heads).  Another box had a picture of a baby that was choking and this box was for any toy that could potentially lodge itself in Gabe’s throat (think Polly Pockets accessories, marbles, tiny toy soldiers, bouncy balls, etc).  A third box had a picture of a girl who was crying and I explained that this box was for toys that still worked but that they were too old for because some boys and girls were not as fortunate as we were and had no toys to play with.  The kids had a lot of questions about this box.  Who was this girl?  Would she be happy once she got our toys?  Would they be able to give them to her in person?  I guess I hadn’t thought this one out and I skirted around their questions urging them to start sorting through the land-fill sized pile in the middle of the living room.

It was fun at first.  “Uh-oh, Mom, another choking hazard”, Tyler said holding up the top to one of Maddy’s 25 chapsticks.  “Why don’t you put that one in the garbage box, Buddy.”  And so we sorted.  My heart was touched each time one of them put a toy in the “Give-To-The-Sad-Girl Box”.  I was shocked at how generous they were being and slightly sad to see them place some of their once-favorite toys in that box.  This went on for about an hour until the kids lost interest and went running off to play with some of the “new” toys they had discovered in the pile.  When my husband walked in from work, he tried to quickly escape the horror that had become our living room.  Not wanting him to miss out on all the fun I insisted he come help me finish up.  He knelt beside the give-away box and the surprise on his face mirrored the sentiments I had been feeling all afternoon long.  “Tyler wants to give away Robbie the Robot?!”  he exclaimed.  “Why would Maddy put her first baseball bat in the giveaway box?!”  “What are ALL these baby toys doing in here…….oh, well, I guess Gabe isn’t really a baby anymore, huh?”  One by one he rescued the kids’ favorite toys from the give-away box and re-distributed them to their Tupperware tubs of toys to keep. 

And then it hit me.  Number 1:  Next time I get toy fever I will have to wait until my husband is asleep as well.  Number 2:  Maybe the kids were not to blame for the avalanche of toys in our house after all.  Maybe it was our own unwillingness to part with these precious symbols of their childhood because it meant that they were growing up and one step closer to not being dependent on us anymore.  True, when I picture my husband and I in our elder years, hair graying, sipping coffee (probably decaffeinated Sanka or something), sitting on our porch swing (why does every daydream of being old involve a porch swing?) I do NOT see a 50 year old Tyler and 49 year old Madelyn bickering in the background or a 47 year old Gabe trying to steal their toys.  But it is impossible to imagine our house without the sound of their squeaky voices, running feet, and the kind of uninhibited laughter that makes you laugh out loud right along with them.  That is one of the many reasons I started keeping a gratitude journal.  Before I go to bed most nights I take 30 seconds to write down a few things I’m grateful for, or my reflections on the day so that long after the kids have moved out of the house I can look back at the yellowing pages of that journal and remember the days when they were young.  The entry for 10/5/11, the day of the Clean Sweep, says it all:

1)  The kids are growing up                                    

      --Tyler took a shower ALL BY HIMSELF

      --Maddy got dressed ALL BY HERSELF

      --Gabriel crawled FOR THE FIRST TIME

2)  The kids are growing up  

The Race of Life

My husband and I ran the Morton Arboretum 5K this weekend.  We signed up months ago, both desperately needing a deadline, a goal, SOMETHING to motivate us to keep in shape despite the craziness that is raising 3 kids under 5 years old.  It worked.  When an overcast day threatened to keep us inside or the couch and our DVR full of this season’s newest premieres beckoned us from the family room, we decided to run instead (neither one of us wanting to embarrass ourselves on race day).  Two days before the race we still hadn’t found a babysitter for the kids and were not sure if we would make it.  Then my Aunt Maureen (AKA Fairy Godmother) stepped in offering to meet us at the Arboretum.  The night before the race we had second thoughts again.  My husband, returning from a bachelor party and me, up with a teething Gabriel, met in the kitchen at 1 AM.  Should we really wake everyone up at 6:30 AM to leave for the race tomorrow?  ……………..Yes.

I hit the snooze on my phone alarm at 6:15 AM.  That extra 5 minutes would later prove to almost thwart our efforts entirely.  We got dressed in our race clothes and then began slowly waking the kids one by one.  First Tyler who was most chipper in the early morning hours.  Then Maddy, NOT a morning person.  And finally Gabe (I can count on one hand the number of times I have willingly woke this child up in all his 7 months of life).  He squinted up at me from his crib with a disoriented expression of “WTF?!”

The temperature read low 40’s so we ran around grabbing the kids’ coats and the “Bundle Me” wrap for Gabe’s carseat.  Breakfast consisted of dry Cheerios in baggies and cups of milk to inhale in the car.  So much for the Race Day Smoothie I planned to make for us.  I grabbed us a few granola bars, oh and a bottle for Gabe, and ran to the car.  We were late.  We were ALWAYS late.  Even when I left an extra 10 minutes in our morning routine.  There were the last minute diaper changes for Gabe, the missing pink gym shoe of Madelyn’s (that I once found in the refrigerator, certainly a prank pulled by Tyler), the lost car keys.  You name it.  Once we actually leave the house, the 25 feet we travel from the garage to the car in the driveway is full of temptations for the older kids.  There is Dad’s open toolbox to rifle through, a spider web to inspect, dandelions in the front yard to pick, etc, etc, etc.  “HURRY up!  Get into your carseats!  You guys, we’re LATE!  Tyler where ARE you?!!!”  It’s the same story every morning.  I once tried to leave the house without saying “hurry up” once.  Impossible. 

We pulled up to the Arboretum on race day to hundreds of cars and thousands of people.  We were directed to a parking lot at least a mile away from the registration tent.  Many people were already sporting their race numbers and jogging or stretching to warm-up.  It was 7:35 AM, the race started at 8:00 sharp,  and we hadn’t even parked.  Looks like there would be no warm-up for us.  I hopped out of the car, abandoning my husband with the three kids in a long line of cars waiting to park, and jogged to the registration tent.  It was 7:45 AM (looks like I got my warm-up after all).  I found my Aunt Maureen.  I frantically called my husband.  He had just pulled into a space and was getting the kids out of the car.  Madelyn had just fallen in the grass and was whining in the background, “My pants are WET!”  It was 7:48.  We might not make this.  I heard the announcer asking everyone to take their places—“The race will start in 5 minutes.”  At 7:56 I saw my husband jogging with the baby (in the non-jogging stroller), a tired and sleepy Madelyn and Tyler being dragged along behind him.  We had 4 minutes to find the starting line and take our positions.  As usual, someone needed to use the bathroom, only this time it was my husband.  I paced outside the Porta-Potty while the Rocky theme song started to play and the announcer informed us there were just 2 minutes to go.  We jogged to our places (me near the 9 minute milers and my husband near the 7 minute milers) and seconds later we were off and running!

The first mile was almost entirely uphill.  My lungs were screaming, my quads on fire.  At the first mile marker I realized I had hardly looked around at the beautiful scenery.  I started to take it all in.  The clusters of trees formed canopies for us to run under and some of them were changing colors already.  The water on the ponds was sparkling under the morning sun.  On our path I noticed fallen leaves, empty water cups, a dead chipmunk (and for a second I wondered if one of those eager runners at the front of the pack were to blame for this fresh road kill?!)  Then as usual my mind started wandering.  Because physical therapy has been my occupation for the last 10 years, I began evaluating everyone’s running mechanics.  The man in front of me was clearly an over-pronator and I frowned at his poor choice of running shoes.  The woman to my right held her elbows at least 12 inches from the side of her body creating unnecessary wind resistance and taking at least a minute off her time.  There was someone wheezing so heavily behind me I wondered if they had brought an inhaler with them or where the nearest medic was.  Focus, Carr.  Ah yes, the trees, the fresh air, the……..did I tell Aunt Maureen where Gabe’s diapers and bottle were????  This is how my mind works all day, every day.  A constant inner dialogue.  I passed mile marker 2, then 3 and had enough energy left to sprint the last 100 yards and finish strong.  I re-united with my husband and we compared times, neither of us quite meeting our lofty goals and blaming the hills.  But we were proud of ourselves nonetheless  as we filled each other in on the run from each of our vantage points.  And it hit me.  Life is much like this 5K.  It is a bit of a race.  Some of it is a blur.  There are a million distractions waiting to steal our true enjoyment of it all.  We are our own worst enemies, often expecting too much of ourselves.  But it’s not about the pace we set, or the place we come in, or how we measure up to everyone else.  It’s about what we take time to notice along the way.  Like the way Maddy crawled into Gabe’s crib this morning when he was fussing to play with him, or the way Tyler helped Maddy put her coat on before preschool, or how content my husband looked last night watching football surrounded by our 3 crazy kids.  As I glance around my messy house right now, I vow to spend less time spinning my wheels about chores or laundry or cooking or work and more time to notice the things that REALLY matter in this race we call Life.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta run---I'm late to pick up the kids!