ZUMBA- What's all the fuss about?

JUST TO SEE WHAT ALL THE FUSS IS ABOUT

Having grown up on a farm, I always tended to “poo poo” going to the gym and actually paying for exercise. I always thought that being outdoors doing hard work was the natural way to stay healthy; that exercise should fit inextricably in with a busy active life. Since I have been off the farm for 38 years now, that is the number of years of denial this way of thinking has afforded me.

I'm not opposed to staying fit, I have just kept thinking that tomorrow I'll take a nice long walk, which I was doing with some regularity until I twisted my knee two winters ago. It's so easy to get out of the habit. So after seeing post after post from friends on facebook who are Zumba fans – no, Zumba maniacs – I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It seemed that all the people who mentioned Zumba on facebook were also saying things like “isn't life beautiful” and “what a fresh morning”.

This morning I was determined to take the plunge after seeing a poster which for all intents and purposes could have been labeled “old lady Zumba”. I called the gym to inquire about just that, and found that my first class would be free. Great.

I would say the single biggest barrier (besides my butt) to going to the gym has been my lack of appropriate gym wear. Shorts require leg-shaving, and spandex is absolutely out of the question. That leaves me with sweat pants or pajamas. I almost aborted the mission this morning because I could not for the life of me find my sweats and my pajamas were too loud and Christmassy to wear in public. Finally, donned in sweatpants that I bought in college, a camp shirt from 1995 and sneakers that are at least as old as my children and whose insoles were eaten by the dog last year, I was ready to step out into Zumba world.

It was a small class, and I noticed that only 50% of the class was older than me, which makes me think that I was incorrect about the old lady part, or worse, I was in fact right on. I was horrified to see a huge mirror before me, but succeeded in keeping my eyes only on the instructor in it. If I stayed in the back I could be as uncoordinated as I liked until the whole class turned around putting me in the front. Fortunately that was not often.

So if my facebook posts start to be uplifting and airy and full of quotes about the beauty and wonders of life rather than how beaten down and old I feel, you can assume that I'm on the Zumba train.

To Be Or Not To Be A True Soccer Mom

To Be or Not to Be a True Soccer Mom

So I read a book a while ago about predators – and I'm not talking about T-Rex - and it said that one should never, ever drop a kid off at practice and drive away, which I have done on several occasions out of sheer lack of time. Apparently, predators are paying attention to whose mom drops them off and whose stays. So if you're one of those pressed-for-time moms who swings by the soccer field to deposit your kid and then whips over to the drug store and then after the game a parent you don't know asks your kid over for a play date, you are to assume (according to the book) that there is some probability, no matter how small, that he could be a child molester. Especially if he (or she) has a mustache. The book didn't mention mustaches, but I heard once that many child molesters do have mustaches, and I have (unfortunately) had brushes with quite a few of the former over the years in my personal and professional experience, and when I think about it, a good percentage of them, maybe even 100%, have indeed had mustaches. Barring any repressed memories, I feel lucky to say that my encounters were in fact only brushes. So here I have already failed on three accounts. First, as a writer, as I have veered off on such a tangent, you would hardly know this is a commentary about soccer. Or moms. Second, as a mom, because I have unwittingly placed my children in peril, and third, as a soccer mom for obvious reasons.

I don't coach soccer. Or ref. I will never coach or ref, despite my pangs of guilt when I check off the “no thank you” box on the form that asks if I'd like to help out. And no right-minded person would want me to coach, anyway. I didn't play soccer until my senior year of high school when I got a good bike and could finally get off the farm. I rode six miles each way up and down steep hills so that I could participate in sports. Since I started soccer so late in life, I was embarrassed to admit I did not know the rules, so I just “played in the dark” so to speak. Whenever I really put in a good effort and went after the ball, I got called for some transgression or another, for which I had no idea why. I know little more in my old age about the rules of soccer than I did then, and so I'm going to leave it at that. I do have to say that I don't often yell from the sidelines much. That's good isn't it? Except for the occasional admonition to my kid to pay attention and get his head out of the clouds.

I hate to admit this to my peers, but until last week I had never actually sat and watched my kids' soccer games. Blame it on sleep deprivation or the fact that I like to socialize, but I usually wander off in search of conversation, even if it has to happen three fields away. It's such a treat each week to see who's on the opposing team, and I usually end up crossing the field to talk to friends, while paying no attention to the game whatsoever, until their kid makes a goal and I reflexively cheer for their kid and their team, and then I get the hairy eyeball from my husband who is dutifully watching the game from the correct side and cheering for the correct team. It doesn't seem to matter to him that the friends' kid is infinitely better at soccer than our kid and deserves kudos for an excellent play. Well, I may not cut the muster as a soccer mom, but no one can say that I'm a poor sport.

So In conclusion, I don't know what anyone really has to do to sport a bumper sticker that says “Soccer Mom.” I can think of a few things I feel more qualified to have on a bumper sticker, such as “Brain Dead Mom” or “Caution! Mom on autopilot - do dot follow!” or “It's past 6:30 and you're on your way to soccer – do you know where your children are?”... So even though I've survived several seasons of soccer, I still don't know what elusive cluster of traits I have to possess to be able to call myself a soccer mom. Does sitting for three or four hours at a stretch watching a ball zig zag across the field qualify me, or do I have to do something else a little more special? How about washing uniforms, or at the very least yelling at the kids to go and find their soccer socks at the bottom of the hamper and get them on right now cause we're late for practice? What if I have to pay a chiropractor because I put out my back wrestling on cleats and socks and shin guards - would that do it? Is there something special I have to wear, or a particular way I'm supposed to carry myself? I'm not going to worry about that now (not that I'm really worried at all), because I've been up since 4:15 writing this and I have to be at the soccer field at 8. At this point I'm going to focus less on being a soccer mom and more on being a nice mom.

Super Nanny Eat Your Heart Out

(written about four or more years ago)
SUPERNANNY EAT YOUR HEART OUT
I used to wonder about peoples' fascination with shows like Super nanny, and then I realized that watching other people's pitiful parenting and screaming brats served to make me feel better about my own life. As I have a history of smugly judging others in an attempt to bolster my own dwindling self-esteem, this was right up my alley. However, in recent months I feel as if I should have a Super nanny film crew with me at all times just in case they get some really good footage. Once I decided that I really needed to go to Staples after two other stores at 6:30 p.m. with five or six kids, none of whom had recently napped or eaten. As I was fumbling at the entrance of the store trying to get a shopping cart in which to contain my wild toddler, he ran screaming into the store ahead of me. The other kids, in a valiant attempt to be helpful, tackled him on the rug just inside the store. There was a huge pile of kids on the rug, and I heard a primal scream from my son that was louder than any I' Ive heard from those “other kids” in the supermarket. I was mortified beyond belief. As I shuffled over to the copier with my rumpled stack of papers, I noticed a woman giving me the most horrible look as if I were the WORST mother in the world. I kept mumbling about kids being hungry and missing their naps mixed in with nervous laughter, but her facial expression remained etched in stone. I am not proud to say that that this type of scene has replayed itself more than I would like to admit.

SPEAKING OF SUPERNANNY...
As I mentioned before, Super Nanny is my “show”. Apart from the fact that I have to fight off of PTSD flashbacks of my own British Nana every time I hear Jo Jo talk about the naughty chair, (I only WISH she had limited her discipline to a naughty chair) I love to tune in. However, Jo Jo lost almost all credibility with me on her last episode. She suggested placing finger puppets on little fingers after cutting their nails, to make it more “fun”. She clearly lives on a planet devoid of children. First, when I eventually realize that I haven't clipped a nail in weeks or months, I'm certainly not going to look for ten finger puppets. I'm lucky if I can find the child, his nails and the clipper all in the same house at the same time. Never mind the puppets.

Another beef I have with Supernanny is all the cleavage. My goodness, some of the women on that show have had seven kids and their boobs are as perky as ever, not to mention huge, and their stomachs are as flat as pancakes. One woman looked so top-heavy I can imagine it taking all her energy to keep from falling on her face. No wonder she's too tired to discipline her kids. Besides, maybe if she ate a meal once in a while she'd have a little more pep. And all the families seem to be filthy rich. I know I sound judgmental, but some of the dads look pretty young and not all that educated, yet they have these enormous houses and very well maintained stay at home wives. Everyone seems to be rolling in money. Their furniture looks brand new and their floors are sparkling. Granted if Supernanny and all of America were coming to my house I'm sure I would clean up a bit, but it looks like these people have just been left by Trading Spaces. Perhaps if the overwhelmed moms spent less time and money on their hair and more on their kids... now I'm sounding really judgmental.

I'd like to see Jo Jo drive her car up a dirt road during mud season to visit a family of fourteen living in a broken down trailer with three generations and one breadwinner. As her high heels sink in the mud while she's trying to wrestle her briefcase from rotweiler, she can smell the wood smoke mingling with cigarettes as it all wafts toward her out of the stack of sap buckets that serves as a chimney. I wonder if she would give a little shiver and surreptitiously pull her suit coat closer around her breasts before knocking at the door. If she needs help with directions, I can show her where to find a few of these places. The low-paid Super nannies who work for my former mental health agency could also throw in a few referrals. This paragraph is not meant to be judgemental in the least, only realistic. I've sat comfortably in hundreds of such homes, often nestled on a peanut-butter-and-jellied-chair, breathing second hand smoke and thinking maybe I shouldn't have quit, and felt quite at home.* Much more so than I would in any of Supernanny's mansions. *(I'll make one exception for the one where the starving pigs from the neighboring abandoned farm surrounded the house, thus imprisoning us with the murderous husband. Oh, and the one where the stoned teenagers said their mom would be right back and we saw in the paper the next day that at that very moment she was out shooting someone.

I wonder if the producers would give me a makeover and a boob job if I applied for Super Nanny. I'd take a tummy tuck in a minute, however at this stage in the game the only change I would want to make to my boobs would be to lighten my load. Gravity is the enemy when you're when you're over 40.

Thoughts on my pre-teen

I was told I had to write a letter about my daughter and send it with her to school:

Alison is a curious creature of unknown origin. She has confounded modern science and her parents since the day of her arrival on our planet. No one can argue that Alison cuts her own path through uncharted territory and her creativity and originality delight her family. Her parents have had enough sense to realize early on that Alison does what Alison does, the way SHE does it, and to get in her way is to court disaster. (I must add that her parents do maintain the right to reign her in as needed during the teen years.)

When Alison was very young, she would plague her parents with inventions. They would find three-dimensional creations all over the house and be treated to daily demonstrations of all types of new machines. Her parents nearly went bankrupt keeping enough tape, string and scissors around to quench Alison's insatiable thirst for creativity. She even invented her own country (where the men had the babies) when she was four. Alison's science experiments were unrelenting, as she was constantly mixing things together, using planes and fulcrums and levers, prisms and all manner of other paraphernalia. When she was three, her mother, exasperated, yelled at her to get to bed. “But I want to LEARN!!!” was how she replied. She got to stay up another ten minutes to play school. Alas, Alison abandoned science when she turned nine, announcing that science was no longer “cool”. She replaced her love of science with a love of literature and knitting. JK Rowling replaced Bill Nye the Science Guy as her all-time hero.

Alison's smile and delightful conversation are always welcome in the Ireland household. She has strong opinions on religion, politics, the environment and what her mother should and should not wear. Although she often seems to think her mother has a very low IQ and is almost completely clueless, nevertheless her mother knows a wonderful daughter when she sees one.

Alison is passionate about many subjects including but not limited to saving the whales, evicting humans from Madigascar to make way for the lemurs, keeping litter off our highways and making sure little brothers are seen and not heard. Her mother overheard Alison at age four, telling someone that she was going to join Greenpeace and “crush ships that bother animals”.

Although Alison as of late has adopted somewhat of a shy demeanor at school, she is anything but shy at home. She rules her brothers with an iron fist and expresses her opinions in no uncertain terms. She keeps her parents in line, as all ambitious eldest daughters should. Her parents get away with nothing. Her mother is no longer allowed to ride the shopping cart, even under the cover of darkness, whether or not Alison is in her presence. The last time she tried such a ridiculous act, she was loudly admonished and flogged with a shopping flier by her horrified daughter.

At home, Alison has shown herself to be quite responsible. She gets herself and her dog up at the ungodly hour of 5:45, gets herself and her brothers ready for school, and even occasionally wakes her mother up -although often begrudgingly- with a fresh cup of coffee before she trudges off to school with her unruly brothers in search of the school bus. She does her own laundry and homework, and occasionally washes some dishes. She makes lunches for herself and her brothers for subsistence wages. Alison proves to be very frugal, and surprisingly non-materialistic. She makes do with what she has, spends her money wisely and thinks before she makes a purchase. Alison has a highly-developed ability to roll her eyes. She thinks her mother doesn't notice. But she does.

Alison is a wise and wonderful young lady and her parents are incredibly proud to share a household with her. We love you, Alison!

Fall foliage in Vermont

My fall scene may look serene, but behind every picture there's a story, and it's not always as pretty as the picture. I took a similar picture when the trees were green. In an attempt to re-create the scene with fall foliage, I dragged the kids up the hill a week or two later. It was coldish, and the sun came out for 20 seconds every 8 minutes or so. When the sun came out, I yelled at the kids - and I mean YELLED - to throw off their coats, stand there with their sticks and stop wiggling. I was horrified to turn around and find a very friendly couple standing two feet behind me. I don't know how long they had been witnessing a crazy lady yelling at kids who were standing on the edge of a cliff. (the cliff was rather innocuous, in reality).

Summer

The Summer of my Childhood


Get up! The cows are out! The cows are out!
So much for my stolen solitude; hidden in the recesses of the farm house or the hay loft. A few golden, precious minutes... gone for today.

We all run out like firemen to a rescue, responding to the air of emergency, jumping into our boots, although complaining and groaning. Snapped to attention and organized for the event ahead. The cows are out!

Back when I was seven, when haying was a glorious, fun-filled experience. Riding on top of the wagon, when it was new – watching the strapping sixteen-year-old hired boys, muscles glistening under a sheen of sweat and hay seeds. When I was sixteen myself, and able to heft a bale to the top of the wagon, the hired boys long gone, the job of haying less a romantic venture and just sheer, hard work.

Most of the time, hay fever kept me out of the fields and in the kitchen – relief- although not so much. Picking and freezing broccoli, miles of it spread along the counter. Sometimes the neighbors stopped on their way down the hill and took us off to the pool, my mother reluctantly letting us go. By brother, seething, and rightfully so, watched from the tractor seat as we sped away in the neighbor's Volkswagen bus. We paid later in blood, sweat and tears.
Long days, long hours, lots of complaining, followed by a precious half-hour at the swimming hole before dinner – if the work was done in time. More stolen solitude, sometimes with a book at the top of a tree or the barn roof, always waiting, waiting for my name to be called for one chore or another.

Anne of Green Gables my most negative influence, along with Pipi Longstocking. Anne inspired me to walk the ridge-pole, Pippi to pick up our pony (at least I am told).
Ah, the pony. The wild little pony who used to take me galloping up the road and throw me off on the way back down. Later I learned always to walk down and run up.

My sister and I used to put on old dresses and pretend to be the Ingalls girls, running by the banks of the creek, and driving our wagon which was a large gray rock.

When weeding the garden or scrubbing oven racks, she and I used to pretend we were indentured servants, my mother the domineering land owner.

Five in the Bed (2006 or 7?)

FIVE IN THE BED...

“You could be divorced quite comfortably in a king-sized bed,” my dad announced to me one day. “Your mother and I slept in one at a hotel on the way back from your sister's, and we felt like we were miles apart.”

I have heard that kids can be a barrier to intimacy. I would say they are more like ten-foot stone walls topped with barbed wire. Nature has it's way of making sure that children are sensibly spaced in a family. My husband and I have gone through three bed sizes during our ten-year marriage. We upgraded with each new addition to our family. We now have a king-sized bed so that six elbows can jab us in the ribs even though in theory there is plenty of room for morning snuggles. It's hard to even hear your own thoughts while hearing “scootch over!” “No you scootch over!” “Mommmmyyyyyyy...he won't scootch over...” “OUCH! Watch the family jewels there, son!” Never mind hearing sweet nothings whispered from the other side of creation.

We got a cheap bed for half the price of a fancy no-flip brand, so we can truthfully say that our sex life is in a rut. We just have to decide “will it be my rut or yours?” In addition, at least one of us has to have the desire and the wherewithal to ascend the growing mountain of mattress between the ruts in order to make any intimate contact whatsoever. To a childless couple that may seem easy, but to tired parents it can be as daunting as ascending Mount Everest. All the right conditions have to be met before any mountain climbing can be done. The kids have to be in their own beds, ASLEEP. It can't be too late. It will NEVER be too early. It is always better if the dishes have been done, preferably without argument, because even the slightest tiff can ruin the mood for a tired couple. Even if all the right circumstances are in place, in fragile harmony, if one of the parties is nursing, all bets may be off for the next year or so.

Just in case anyone is wondering why we don't just flip the mattress more than once a year - well, first of all, we're just too tired. Plus, last time we flipped it I had a raging backache the next morning and every morning after that until we re-flipped it. Besides, let's face it - sometimes it's just more comfortable to stay in a rut.

The last time we spent the night at my parents' house, the kids and I brought them their morning tea in bed. Well, what a coincidence. Turns out my parents are in a rut also, although their's is smack dab in the middle of their full-sized bed. There they were, sleeping, arms wrapped around each other; I don't know if a chisel could have separated those two. It was a very endearing scene. One that not too many of us get to see any more. It all ended too soon. The threat of the next course of porridge in bed got them up in a hurry. No need for a chisel.