Exercise or My Son?

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Midnight Mama

Feelings of giddiness and anxiousness competed in my stomach as I found myself back at the gym. A short while after vowing to wait to start working out again until my 2-year-old daughter was in preschool (due to her crying inconsolably at the babysitting room), I was back.

An email had popped into my Inbox the day before with a simple subject line of, “Workout Plan.” The sender? My husband. Where I lacked in fortitude to take Avery to the gym’s babysitting room (what we euphemistically call the “play room”), Bob stood strong. He had a flawless plan, he said, and we were going to the gym after work.

Per Bob’s master plan, I would drop our 5-year old son off at children’s yoga while Bob took Avery to the play room. This way, I wouldn’t have to see the pained look on my little girl’s face as I left the room or–more likely–pull myself away from her crocodile tears. Upon arriving at the gym, Bob walked one direction; Robert and I another. And that’s where the exercise plan once again began to crumble.

You see, the basement where my son’s yoga class was being held was not creepy in itself; it was the fact that no other parents or children were in the room when we showed up that was a little off-putting–given the white-haired, pot-bellied man in his seventies who stood at the front of the class drawing a picture of Mickey Mouse on a whiteboard. It must be Mr. Joe, I thought–the substitute teacher that the front desk ladies had mentioned.

It looked like I wouldn’t be exercising that night after all. No way, no how was I leaving my son unattended in a basement classroom with cartoon man, no matter how nice he seemed to be. I guess my renewed exercise routine would have to be kicked off by 5-year-old yoga as taught by a senior citizen. Jeez, he had us doing facial yoga. Facial yoga! What the hell is that? It reminded me of the time another senior citizen taught yoga at my old Manhattan apartment complex and we spent half the time giving ourselves foot massages. (I am certain there are plenty of amazing 65+ yoga teachers; I have merely not had the fortune of yet meeting one.)

So there you have it: one more attempt at real, vigorous, fatburning, body-relaxing exercise completely anihilated. But you should have seen the joy sparkling on Robert’s bright-eyed face. He was doing yoga with mommy! He was exercising like a grown-up (or so he thought anyway) at a real gym!

The outcome of this thwarted exercise plan? I haven’t set my foot back into the gym since.

So if you should pass me on the beach this summer and you notice a little muffin-top spilling over my bikini bottom should I get up the courage to wear a two-piece, I hope you will do me the small favor of cutting me some slack. Lord knows, I’ll understand why I may not be the only mom on the sand with a less-than-perfect body. But my son at least will be the happy kid practicing downward facing dog on the towel next to me.

Posted in Wellness, Womanhood | Tagged | 3 Comments

A Day of Doing Absolutely Nothing

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Midnight Mama

It was a Saturday morning and I had plans to take the kids to the zoo since we were without dad/hubby for the weekend–something a little special to help the time pass.

But then the text message came in from Mimi (grandma), who was planning on going on our outing with us: She was waffling about whether to go. As I lay on the floor in my pj’s helping Robert build a Lego fourteen-wheeler, I pondered a new plan: a tempting, totally unproductive, delightfully simple one.

What if we had a day of no plans at all? What if I just followed the kids from room to room and we spent the day lazing about the house in our jammies?

Forget the zoo! Maybe we’d go out later to somewhere simple like the bookstore if we felt like it, but maybe we wouldn’t. For once, we wouldn’t run out the door to make a lesson or an appointment. We wouldn’t try to get dressed and packed and buckled in before it was time for Avery’s nap. We wouldn’t meet friends at the park or run up to the grocery store. We’d just sit in our PJ’s for as long as we felt like it, and do whatever activity struck our fancy.

And that is how we spent our day. Legos, PlayMobil, and peanut butter toast. Puzzles, laundry, books. A game of “hotter-colder” as we hid small toys from each other and had to guess where it was. Mine went under the white measuring cup on the drying rack; Robert’s went in the bread box.

When finally we were dressed and fed and ready to leave the house for a trip to the bookstore, with a snack bag in my hand and two children in tow, I made a discovery.

I HAD LOCKED MY KEYS INSIDE THE HOUSE!

Turns out, we wouldn’t be going anywhere at all. So I put that snack bag on the patio and gave in to an afternoon of doing absolutely nothing right after a morning of just the same. There was trampoline jumping and t-ball; bike-riding and superhero games. Clearing out the garden, and drawing with markers at a little craft table we pulled outside from the porch.

When dinner came, we ate chili and cornbread (thank you to Mimi for saving me from cooking).  We read books and laughed when we learned that “Mr. Funny” went home from the zoo and made himself a nice hot cup of cake. As I sang songs to the kids in the dark at bedtime, Avery asked me to hold her hand and Robert insisted on rolling out of bed onto the floor to cuddle with me.

I squeezed Avery’s pudgy little fingers and gave Robert’s back a stroke, feeling thoroughly and completely happy for a day of nothing–filled with absolutely everything. Sometimes we moms need that.

Posted in Mommyhood, Spirit | 2 Comments

I Hate Coupons

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Midnight Mama

It’s time that someone finally said it: coupons suck.

I know, I know, there is an incredible thrill that you experience at the store register when you watch the cashier lop some chunky amount off your bill and turn your purchase into a great deal. Believe me, I LOVE that feeling.

Unfortunately, with the total lack of organization–and the complete inability to shop in a planned rather than “oh-shit” reactive fashion–that have overtaken my life since having kids, the number of times I’m able to capitalize on those “great deals” that keep showing up in my mailbox or being handed to me as I leave the register are fewer and fewer.

Sadly, if I counted the number of times I’ve been able to use the coupons that have found their way into my household this year, it would fall to far less than ten. So you know what I’d like to say to all these really generous, unself-interested entities?

STOP SENDING ME COUPONS!

Stop sticking circulars on my doorstep. Stop mailing me those awesome $25 rewards I get for using your credit card but then find a year-and-a half later in my wallet with an expired date. Stop giving me those damn percentage-off coupons as I exit the store, after having laid down $200 on my child’s spring wardrobe. Even if I could afford to come back in 13.5 days as you suggest to spend MORE money at your store, I will never remember to do so or find the time!

Frankly, receiving coupons just depresses me. Every time you give me one, I am reminded that my life is on the edge of reeling out of control and that unlike all my friends and neighbors who have a coupon folder tidily stashed in their trunk, which they remember to sort through just before their preplanned shopping trip, I am just a wannabe economizer with one more area of life that I can’t quite keep up with.

So please oh please, keep your darn coupons. And for those of you who have been selling me clothes with those little ziploc baggies of extra string and buttons, you can keep those too. I’m tired of stowing them in my junk drawer.

Posted in Confessions | 5 Comments

Is Being a Good Mom Good Enough?

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Midnight Mama

Every once and a while it happens–you have a moment of absolute clarity that will stick with you for a lifetime, or so you hope anyway because you really do deserve to have your memory serve you well when it comes to a moment of mommy uplift.

I had one of these moments the other day as I was loading my car, in the Target parking lot, full of goodies for my son’s birthday. As I situated the bags of blue-and-yellow construction truck wrapping paper, precurled ribbon to match, and the sunglass-wearing, singing-pig birthday card into the back of my little SUV, I found myself falling into a familiar thought pattern. “How lame I am! Do I have to start every (self-employed) work day late?!” Guilt, disappointment, and feelings of failure bounced around in that crowded head of mine.

And that is when the precious moment of clarity came. A very calm version of myself came to the fore and hit me over the head with an invisible 2×4: It’s not that I accidentally muck up the start of my workday because I just can’t get my act together: it’s because at a very deep level I will choose my kids over work and lots of other stuff too nearly every time.

Even though I work, even though I have hobbies, even though I want my friends to remember I exist and my husband to see me as attractive  (if only I could find the time to blow dry this damn mop of hair), my number one priority is this:

BEING A GOOD MOTHER.

Like that, the most obvious reality of all dawned on me. Kids take energy, resources, and time and that means everything else in your life suffers a little.  The sooner we moms stop holding ourselves to some expectation that we will be able to dot all the i‘s and cross all the t‘s in the nonparenting part of our lives, the sooner we can just embrace the chaos and see that being a good mom is good enough.

I may be falling short in every other category of my life or teetering on the edge of inconsistency on most counts most days, but what I truly felt comforted by in that moment of clarity was that at least I’m not a failure as a mom. Not even close. Sure, I feel guilty plenty and I mess up. I get grumpy, I feed them junk food, and I get them to sleep entirely too late. But my kids are happy–truly happy! They are loving, smart, curious, and kind.

I am giving them the childhood I would want them to have. And if that means I fall a little flat one day at work or I lose some “essential” productivity or I forget to respond to an email and that makes me look sloppy, then so be it. You can’t be everything to everyone and some priorities have to rise to the top. So from now on when I start to slip into the routine of criticizing myself for letting the house descend into chaos or my workday start too late or end too early, I will remember that that’s okay. It’s not by accident or poor self-control or stupidity. It’s because I want–at a cellular level–to put my little ones first.

Posted in Career Girl, Mommyhood | Tagged | 2 Comments

No Trophies for Good Mommies, But Salsa Offers Its Own Rewards

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Midnight Mama

by Sandra York

There are no gold stars in parenting. There are no Grammys, no Emmys, and no certificates of achievement, appreciation, or even completion.

This fact becomes clearer each day as my eldest nears adolescence.  Parenting begins to feel like an exam. Let’s say a physics exam. One where they sit you down at the desk, put pencil and paper in front of you, blindfold you and tie you to the chair. Yea, that’s it. Oh and by the way, you won’t get any answers right even if you can write with the pencil held in your mouth because there are no right answers. Good luck!

We are geared from early schooling to be rewarded for our achievements. And for those of us who did well in an academic environment it was a positive cycle. I did my work, I got an A or won a prize. I got my picture in the newspaper or became captain of the volleyball team.  I worked, I learned, I struggled, and voila! I succeeded and got some sort of acknowledgment of that success.

Not so with parenting. Back to that physics exam where you are blindfolded and even if there were answers, there are no right ones. And even if you could pass, there would be no public acknowledgment by way of ceremony or certificate until you are dead. And you have to find your own way to keep going and doing well until you are. But how?

For me the answer goes back to my long history of plane travel. When they give the emergency lecture that no one listens to, note that they say if the oxygen masks descend and you are traveling with a child, secure your own mask first before assisting the child. This may seem horrible, but it is practical and sensible advice and should apply to more things we do as parents. Really, if I can’t breathe, how can I help my child get off that plane? If I can’t hear anything but the barrage of things I “should” be doing for my children, how can I move forward? I have to take care of myself so that I can take care of the children, be stronger for them, for myself, for the world.

And the way I have learned to take care of myself is salsa classes.

Salsa. The music, the dance, the gallantry…how can you help but smile. And, I am out of my comfort zone. I have to get dressed up, put on make up. Might even have to pull my mane out of that scruffy pony tail and, I don’t know, say, find a brush. And there’s the more important complicated business. I have to arrange for a sitter, make dinner and be sure to spend quality time with the kids before I go. But once I am there, I feel invigorated. I am challenged.  It reminds me of learning how to type. How is it that my fingers know which letters to hit without me telling them to do it? ASDFG. There they go. I get out of my own way and I can type. Salsa is like this: once I stop looking at my feet and thinking, suddenly I can dance. Oh but it’s not all rosy sophistication. I’ll never forget the time I bashed my lanky elbow into a guy’s nose. His head flew back cartoonishly and I thought, oh god, call the ambulance. I haven’t seen him near me on the dance floor again.

Salsa brings me joy and reminds me that I am a human being, full of faults and imperfections, but still teachable and full of possibility. It reminds me to let go, listen to the music, trust my instincts. To smile and be gracious even when I step on someone’s toes or get stepped on myself. It reminds me to listen to the beat and pay attention to the world. It reminds me to use my manners and to expect good manners from others. And the dance is its own reward.

And when I return home, I am tired—exhausted—but ready for tomorrow. I go to sleep with a smile on my face and a rhythm in my ears with full knowledge that the impossible physics test doesn’t exist. I’ve gotten a gold star for the day. The next day I pay attention to my kids. I listen. I even play Monopoly…the long version.

Sandra York’s latest challenge is competing in olympic distance triathalons.

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