Week in review

This week was a very full week . . . a busy week, an embarrassing week, a tiring and exciting week.  Let me tell you about it:

I felt proud.  I watched Annabelle at her first swim lessons.  I watched her push off the side of the pool and swim to her swim instructor.  I watched her jump from the side of the pool into his arms too.  I also listened to her whisper, later in the week, when we saw her teacher at the public pool,  ”Mommy, Joseph said hi to me!” Her first crush, maybe?  She says she can’t wait for her next two lessons.

I felt busy.  As mentioned, Annabelle took two swim lessons and she also took a ballet class.  She also had more than a few playdates and she dragged Levi and me to the pool more than a couple of times too.   Add to that that we’re celebrating Levi’s one year birthday tomorrow and that my mother and mom-in-law are coming in from out of town . . . . It’s been busy.  I feel like a mommy-running around-without her head on.  Planning a party, cleaning the house, and trying to rearrange furniture for guests.  I’ve definitely crossed a new threshhold this week with crazy.

I also felt embarrassed.  After dropping Annabelle off at ballet class, I decided to be uber-productive mommy and multitask myself away.  I ran over to the cake shop to order an icecream cake for Levi’s birthday.  Which took forever.  Meanwhile, outside it started to pour.  I had about 20 minutes left before I needed to pick Annabelle up from class.  I decided to be ambitious.  So I ran into the grocery store.  I purchased, oh, about a hundred dollars worth of groceries.  I even purchased a 24 pack of toilet paper  (hey, we’re having guests and a party) and a huge “Happy Birthday” monster balloon for Levi.  It was  a very big balloon.  But, when I got back to my car, rain still pouring, I discovered that I didn’t have my keys with me.  Uh-oh.  I crammed my groceries into the back of our umbrella stroller, threw the rest of the groceries up on the roof of my car and ran through the rain back to Annabelle’s ballet class.  There I waited and waited and waited for Annabelle’s teacher to wrap up class (gosh, this lady gets carried away); then I waited and waited and waited for Annabelle to get her stickers; then I waited and waited and waited for Annabelle to strip out of her leotard and get into her clothes so that we could run out of the studio back to the car.  The entire time I felt like I was on speed, like I was a monster mom, repeating over and over, “Hurry, hurry, hurry!”  Definitely not a zen moment.  The groceries turned out to be very wet but quite fine.  Monster mom chilled out.  At home, I enjoyed a very nice glass of wine while the kids watched Nick Jr.

“Yowsas!”   I felt the newness, with an ouch factor of 10, of my first bikini wax. Okay, so this is a little personal, okay, even more personal than I usually get here, but I thought this story might benefit those of you who are considering a bikini wax.  I’d been watching old reruns of Sex and the City on TBS and saw an episode where Carrie goes to L.A. and gets waxed by a tech to the stars.  She winds up “very waxed” with a brazilian wax that makes her a wee bit too sensitive.  I wanted no part of that kind of waxing.

But, While at the pool this week, I looked down and to my horror, I had, well, more than a few stray hairs.  I decide that while I like being “au” natural, even down yonder, that it might be a good idea to tidy things up.  So I made an appointment for a wax and the next evening, off I went to a most painful but comical experience.  If I had had the pleasure of observing me getting waxed by the Asian technician, from say, the next room over where ladies were getting pedicures, I might think that it sounded something like Steve Carrell’s character in the 40 Year Old Virgin.  And yes, the tech laughed at me through the entire waxing, though in her defense, it’s hard not to laugh when the woman you’re waxing laughs when she is in pain.  It was like, RIIIIPP!!!  ”Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!  Ha, ha, ha!!”   Yes, I laugh when hair is ripped out of my body.    I’m weird, I know this. But oh, the things a girl will do to avoid being “hairy down there.”

Meanwhile, I felt aged, in an odd way.  In yoga class that is.  Since Levi’s birth and my ppd diagnosis, I’ve been practicing yoga just about everyday.  I’m pretty flexible because of it.  So when our teacher told us to move into plow pose and I easily swung my legs over and behind my head and let my knees touch the floor behind me, I wasn’t expecting to feel my palms sweating with a rush of heat over my chest, my arms, and my face.  I thought that perhaps I’d experienced a movement of kundilini up my spine.  Wow, I thought, this could be a major yoga moment for me; I thought, I must be feeling my energy move up my body.  So after class I asked our teacher.  She made a face and said, “Well, I haven’t heard of that happening before.”  And then, “Where are you in your cycle?”   Apparently, I had had my first hot flash.   Shit.  I guess I’m no yogi master.  No kundilini moving through my body.  Just age.  And let me say that I am not looking forward to menopause.  If what I felt in yoga is what I am going to experience night after night after night when my body goes through “the change,”  uh, uh, I think I’d rather not.

And yet, I also felt young, in an annoying way.  I’ve started getting into tasting and drinking wine.  I’ve never been much of a drinker but when my husband started bringing home a yummy dessert wine week after week, I decided to start branching out, trying different reds and whites.  I discovered I’m not a fan of sparkling wines or roses and that my favorite wines tend to be reds.  Anyway . . . getting back to the age thing.  I’m twenty-nine.  I realize that this is not very young nor am I old.  And I suppose I should feel grateful for what I am about to share, but I’m not.  I feel annoyed.  Every time I go into the grocery store or wine store or even when I order a glass of wine while I’m out for dinner with my husband, I get carded.  Yes, yes, I know, you’re probably thinking, well, enjoy it while it lasts.  I mean, just 3 months ago I was worried about wrinkles and getting older.  But this whole getting carded thing.  It’s just embarrassing.  Especially when the carder repeatedly looks at my license and then my face and then back at my license and then looks at my two children, like she is checking to see any resemblance between us to see whether I really am old enough to have two babies.  It’s just so humiliating.  And this isn’t a new thing either.  Since having Annabelle, I think I’ve been mistaken for her nanny more than a few times.  Nowadays she looks a great deal like me so I get looks less and less.  But getting carded just sucks.  I hate it.  But I don’t want to “look old” either.  I’m not going to stop wearing makeup, dress frumpy, or do whatever it is that keeps people, like my husband, from getting carded.  You know what, I bet it’s because I smile alot.  I look too damn happy to be my age.  Little do they know that I’m taking a great antidepressant.

Last, I felt real empathy for a friend of mine who is going through a difficult time.  I can’t say what the problem is or who the person is but I’ve been listening and listening and listening, not knowing what the heck to say.  But what I feel?  I feel sadness, utter sadness, the way I think this other person feels it, for what is happening in his/her life.  And it sucks because there is absolutely nothing else I can do but listen.  I realize that listening is “doing something” but it is frustrating still to be able to take no action to help.

So, how was your week?