Day: August 17, 2009

Barf

/ beckie / 1 Comment

I haven’t been inside a gym since Alana was born.   I knew before she was born that my gym days were numbered, and that my most likely future scenario involved me being trapped at home with two screaming kids.   So thinking ahead, and being to lazy to contemplate the hell that is a double jogging stoller, I bought a treadmill.   After much agnst regarding what/how/when to buy (used? new? online? in a store? how will I get it home?   who will set it up?   will it be a piece of crap?   folding? super expensive?   super cheap? ect, ect) I finally purchased one in early February, when, 9 months pregnant, and with G in tow, I went to a going-out-of business sale at a local store and got a screaming deal on a good new treadmill (and had it delivered).   The extent of my trialing it was a 30 second run at 6 mph (looking ridiculous, I am sure).   Whattaya gonna do. I am sure the guy I bought it from thought this thing was sure to become a clothes hanger instantly.

Anyway, the treadmill and the trainer Jason got me while I was pregnant with G, combined with some free weights, a cheap stool, a few mirrors we mounted in our bonus room and some old camping mats have served as my pseudo-gym for 6 months now, and for the most part, I don’t really miss the gym.   I do miss the discipline of stopping at the gym on the way home (no excuses); I have skipped more workouts in the last 3 months cause I was “tired” or “busy” than anytime since I was in college.   I also hate how hot my psudo-gym gets, both from the body heat generated during my workouts and the unfortunate western exposure of the room that makes it wicked hot at 5 pm in the summer.

There are some plusses.   I can work out in whatever I want…no need to cover up or worry about being the sweaty girl (although Jason never misses an opportunity to comment). That’s saving me lots of money on cute workout clothes.   I can work on my computer without looking like a freak.   I can play my music as loud as I want or watch whatever I want on TV.

Then there’s the negatives.   G has figured out which brake stops the back wheel on the trainer and never hesitates to come in and stop me for any reason (need a new TV show, more food, lonely, daddy was mean to me, can’t find blankey, need more chocolate milk, let’s get in the pool, ect. ect. ect.)   Thanks to some of her “friends” she has also learned that it can be “fun” to run on the treadmill, so she generally wants to “play” too while I am running.   Trying to keep her from killing herself/not throwing a giant tantrum is a huge pain in the ass.   Needless to say, I take a lot of breaks.   Not exactly good for that cardio capacity.   My average running pace has dropped by almost 1:00/mi since my gym-going days.

The final insult to all of this has to be the cat.   The treadmill sits in a spot that is a favorite of Turtle’s:   next to a window where she can stealthily oversee her kingdom from the climate-controlled and safe comfort of our house.   She has always hung out here, from the time when we were just moved in and had a crappy couch in that spot, to today.     So no surprises that she is still hanging out here, either on, or beside the treadmill.

That’s all well and good;   she generally moves when I turn the thing on, and aside from some fur, the treadmill is probably no worse off for her lounging.   That is, until Turtle decided she needed to drop a few pounds too, but instead of diet&exercise, chose to go the bulemic route.   She has been busy purging all over the house.   Generally, this is no big deal as we went out of our way to install tile and pergo and other animal- and child- impervious coverings on everything in our house.   However, as you probably know if you own a cat, when it comes to barfing, cats make it their mission to barf on the most expensive/difficult to clean/important item in the house.   Of the apx 2,400 sq ft of our house, about 400 sq feet are carpeted…a guest room and Genevieve’s room are the only carpeted places left in our house.   So where does turtle barf?   yup,   you got it…guest room.   This is particularly evil because we rarely go in there, so Jason discovered a barf-filled room the other day; lord knows how many meals were purged in there before he noticed.

And her second-fave spot?   you guessed it…the Treadmill.   Of course.     Nothing like finding a perfectly formed pile of tender nibbles with REAL chicken in gravy on my $2,000 treadmill. I blame 9 Lives.   Gotta stop feeding turtle that crap.

The Culprit
2009_08turtle-barf_blog

Looks the same the second time around
2009_0817_turtle-barf-02_blog

Monsters vs. Monsters!

/ chollaball / 1 Comment

I’ve been trying to find ways to let G play with other children more. In school she is a little social butterfly, but the dynamic in school with roles and rules is different than with friends.   And its a step in her social development I think is lacking.     She is very focused on herself, or on the other kids as actors in her little plays.   This is probably every kid her age.   But it seems different when its her 1-on-1 with another person she knows well, at least it is in how she interacts with me and Beckie and Kila and Alana where its all more give-and-take.

I was initially soured on the whole experience of friends cause of our new neighbors.   Their kid is kinda bratty,their dad is kinda chatty, their mom wants us to be bff.   They kinda sensed my feelings despite my trying to be nice, and suddenly their daughter is not available.   Probably for the best, when that’s how they roll; i hate fake friends.   But I feel responsible that G’s lost a (sometimes)(slightly mean)(high maintenance)(play) mate.

At the park or the zoo now,   I encourage her to play, and I shmooze with the other kids and parents if it helps.   Single serving play-niceings are much easier for me than repeated play-niceings, and are certainly no more effort than riding the rodeo bull that is Genevieve for an hour.     But I’ve also started looking for kids that would make good friends. I reached out to the mom of a friend she has at school that is a very sweet little girl — no playdates yet but maybe it will work out. Invites to Rocky Point go first to people with kids G would like.

When my friend Noel invited us all to be their guests in Flag during the Crazy 88, I was thrilled. Noel is super guy who I’ve enjoyed riding with about 10 times, and his blog and pics are so similar to my own I knew it would be a good fit all around:   kids and kids, parents and parents, lifestyle, anal-retentiveness, waking up pre-dawn to ride…     I doubted myself more than Beckie or Amy or Noel, or G.   but, G is the rodeo bull that is Genevieve…so we made a point to arrive at a sensible hour to let the kids bond and the parents unwind.

G had seen pics of Noel’s girl Gianna, and I tried to psych her up for the trip, to try to build a notion of a relationship with Noel’s kids so she would treat them more like friends instead of props.   She was inconsolable when she left her backpack at school, wailing about how it would affect the impression she would make.   The last half hour of the ride she   couldn’t wait to meet her new friends, and repeated their names over and over: Gianna and Aran.   G is a rodeo bull, but she is a smart, sweet little girl…I knew right here that short of another thunderstorm it would be a great weekend.

The details are superfluous, but the self-doubt I had after the butthurt-neighbors-experiment vanished completely.   It seemed so normal and so natural to treat all the kids like one bunch, and Noel and Amy so easy to make it all go.   When the kids were connecting, it was really great to watch.   Aran challenged G, G challenged Gianna, and they fed each other’s pretending.   Stumbling punchdrunk around the truck after the race, I couldn’t help smiling at how they wanted me to put them in the bed so they could pretend to be dragons playing in their spaceship.     Good friends, good children, good times.     There, I said it!   I genuinely enjoyed hanging out with the kids.   Even the ones who were not mine.   Even when I had to negotiate a truce to a soccer\hide&seek battle-of-wills.   Even when I had to negotiate a truce to stoked-boy-crashing-the-goal\little-tomboy-wants-to-learn-rules.   Even when the other G peed herself and I had to wipe a tinyButt that was not of my line.   It was weird, I knew what to do, it was just like G, but a different tinyButt.   I promised Noel when he left that the kids would all be alive and reasonably unfilthy when he returned.   Yeah me!

Hopefully their family will let us return the favor and come be our guests in Rocky Point soon.