Test 2

My blogging app appears dead. 

Signing off forever. 

Physics and body image

Everyone who has taken any intro to physics know

Force= Mass x Acceleration

Sadly a quarter or two later you learn about how stored energy works.

Last night was a physics word problem come to life at my little Fit4Mom workout class. 

My mass accelerating created enough force to snap the resistance band that my partner was holding for me and it snapped back unleashing all of that stored energy hitting her hand and whipping back to give a big lash on her back. I was so worried for her, concerned about her pain and hand, guilty and embarrassed last night that I came home and cried on Michael.  

Now getting the word that her fingers aren’t broken and ligaments look OK I can focus on those last two emotions especially the embarrassment.

The root of it is in the fact that it is hard for me to look at my body objectively, even when I am my fittest self I struggle with seeing myself with love and kindness and when you add the 20 lb that I can’t move since Miranda was born it is a real struggle. I work hard, and especially since I have a husband who I feel secure knowing he loves my body and children who I want to always feel good in their own skin, I work hard to be kinder and to be appreciative. And it usually works OK. I actually oddly feel better about my body naked than I do dressed and had recently convinced myself that was a sign of ill fitting or uninspiring clothing. 

Now, I know in my head that it could have happened to anyone. Furthermore there are women in this class who are 5'11" and certainly weigh as much as I do unless they are severely underweight. But I am feeling HUMILIATED. No one made any indication that my fatty self had caused the accident and i was not self absorbed enough to worry about it much last night but today I'm so so embarrassed. And struggling to regain perspective on my self image. I really don't want to go back to class and, albeit immature, I keep finding myself wanting to or actually self sabotage  with food. I hate that my self image is so fragile and really hate how quickly any progress can be dashed. There is nothing I want more than to get a handle on my own shit before my kids get cognizant of the idea that there should ever be anything to dislike about your body. And I will keep working on it because it really does matter to me that Michael and I lead the way for them. But holy shit this incident highlighted what a thin (excuse me healthy) rope I walk on the path of good self image. 

 I feed a person using just my body and I lift cabs off of my baby with one hand. Why do I give my body such a hard time?

Todd-splaining

At a birthday party last week Señor  Bossypants was explaining how to properly use the gift he’d chosen (a monster truck) and emphasizing how much it would benefit the birthday girl if he showed her by playing with it. I joked that he was man-splaining to us but thinking about it I realized that wasn’t right or fair.

Four birthday party food groups: cake, cupcake, rice Krispy treat and chocolate 

He was todd-splaining (and I don’t mean explaining it to Todd, which he also did, but it is toddler explanations). He is in the adorable yet sometime exasperating apex of a deep command of language and newly developing awareness of how and why things are the way they are- whether perceived or real. This seems to create an enthusiasm that WILL NOT BE contained and ideas which MUST BE evangelized. I love hearing how he is putting together complex issues in his- like when he was telling us that yogurt melted and became smoothie. The ideas that it is obvious he’s chewed on for a while and is ready to explain to you.  Todd-splaining can be a bit tiresome being explained to in focused and wholly incorrect detail. Like when your little backseat driver explains how you shouldn't have turned because the light is red and you explain about right turns- then hearing about how you should go on a red light but then have to discuss that some right turns have special rules. Can be exhausting. 

But hot damn if the messenger isn't too cute and too earnest to argue with sometimes. 

I understand now!

I finally figured out the value of Instagram in my life. 

It allows you to unfollow the Facebook friends who gross you out with their politics while still being able to see pictures of their pets, children and food!

Thank god!

Pet

Children

Food

If you let them read books

One area that I exercise my privilege is that I practice almost no restraint when it comes to buying children’s books. We’ve started going to the library, which I love and appreciate and genuinely use for my own reading endeavors, but if I’m honest it is more as a civics lesson than anything for kid’s books*. This being the case, Andrew has approximately 10,000 books in his room. His baby sister has (as this post is being written while feeding her before bed) three. 

 

We just don’t want to clutter her pretty head with all those words and ideas.

 

HA! But seriously, this was a parental oversight and/or failure on my part. I naively thought that we’d migrate Andrew’s more baby-ish books to Miranda. This hasn’t worked for the titles in his room. Similar to his parents, Andrew has a penchant for hanging on to books that he will likely never read again. The other factor which we need to put our foot down about is that as I buy Miranda books they have a sneaky tendency to migrate to Andrew’s room. This started out sweetly because we’d all do stories together in his comfy chair before naps. However, it feels like it has become a one way funnel.

So it’s time to remedy this one. We will try the following action items.

1.     We will install a proper bookcase/shelf in Miranda’s room rather than the basket we currently use. Her library should look more official.

2.     With all the hypocrisy we can muster we will get Andrew to do a bit of a book purge.

3.     He’s got to return books to her room when we are done reading them or at least the flow of book traffic needs to be more even. I actually would prefer that no one member of the family OWNS any books himself, rather that the whole family has a library, but I understand that we all four have certain titles that are special to us.

 

…maybe there is a book on book sharing.   

 

*Cutest moment - we checked out a dinosaur book which had the other titles in the series on the back. Andrew became obsessed with finding the other books so when we returned the first book we talked with the librarian and he found them elsewhere and placed a hold for us. Now we’re swimming in dinosaur library books.

Things

Things I think I like but don't.

Outdoor movies. 

Fairs. 

Farmers markets. 

Walks. 

Things I shouldn't like but I do

Trashy television. 

When my lips and brows are freshly waxed. 

Things I want to be better at but don't chose to put effort into

Doing hair and makeup, dressing cute. 

Career building. 

Sewing. 

Learning a second language. 

Things I feel like I should know but don't and am not clear how to learn

House crap. 

How to know when to fix something yourself or when to get help. 

How to find and hire professionals. 

Time management. 

How to deal with unwanted body hair. 

How to determine the need and when to go to the doctor. 

Things you can directly link to any mental health episode I might have in the near future

Traffic. 

This presidential election. 

Birthday blast!

The birthday bonanza was a success!

Day out with Thomas 

This wound up not having a birthday vibe at all. It was cute enough. If you want to save yourself the semi-steep admission ticket you could have had an almost equally cool experience by packing a picnic and watching Thomas come and go. But it was a fun afternoon. 

Baby #2- failed to pack her anything to chew on so she got an empty ice cream cone. 

The birthday party

His party was SO FUN. His interests are shifting at the moment and his two passions in life are construction vehicles and more recently dinosaurs. So rather than pick one we did a trucks and dinosaurs party. We'd been feeding his construction love with a storage tub full of mulch which he drives his little trucks in. We doubled down for his party and filled a kiddie pool of mulch and buried little dinosaurs. I collected more trucks from a thrift store run and borrowed a few from my mom. He was in hog heaven. We also set up the sprinkler maze Michael built which has been at all of his birthday parties. Everytime I checked in on the birthday boy he was deep in an activity (typically digging) with one little buddy or another. It was the sweetest thing, he had so much fun. I don't know what to do about how much everyone in our life spoils him but that's a sweet problem to have. He is an appreciative kid for a two/three year old so for now I think it's cool. 

Actual birthday

Today we took Miranda to daycare and had a day with Andrew. We went to a trampoline place for toddler hours. Andrew and I jumped for over an hour. We both LOVED it. We may have to make it a mother/son regular outing. 

Then we went out for breakfast for lunch. 

We were pretty birth day'd out (Michael and I) but capped the day with a leftovers  dinner and one more happy birthday song with his truck candles (they also got to go in the bath with him- he was a fan). 

**bonus: this year he was super in love with his captain zoom birthday song. I got a cassette tape of this song from one of my aunts on my fourth birthday and thanks to the Internet was able to find it again in 1999 for the first of my friend's children. Since then I've gotten one for basically every little one year old I know. Now including my Andrew. And this year he loved it. It made me pretty happy. 

Another awesome thing: my aunt was able to drive her wheelchair down into our backyard and got to be at the party! It was her first visit to the new house and I was so glad it worked out. 

Additional win: Michael reminded me about our family birthday plate and it was even somewhere that I could find it! Now it can stay out for September, October and December.