with five kids, a grandchild, a husband and a career as a NICU RN, what else would I be doing but juggling?
One-two…one-two-three-FOUR!
Daniel and his best friend, Ryan, has the cure for the summertime (boredom) blues. Start your own livingroom rock and roll band and they demonstrated that you don’t even need the Wii Rock Brand, just the instruments.
Rock on, boys!
Sure The Bewbfest accolades are great but they are nothing compared to the latest and real achievements here under the Big Top.
Holly (the correct way to spell my child’s name and I would know since I signed the birth certificate) has completed the course work, the hours and all the operations to receive her cosmetology diploma! At last! Congratulations my sweet girl…now get out there and take the State Boards already so you can make the world prettier.
But wait, that’s not all…
Abby passed the written exam for her California learner’s permit and is raring to go and get behind the wheel and drive! The added bonus is that she took a great license photo.
Congratulations to my girls! Mommy~Dearest is so proud of you both.
No, I am not that mom who will put up with her children screaming or running amuck in public places where good behavior is expected…anymore! But I am the mom who will gladly, proudly celebrate that which makes me an awesome, phenomenal woman and joining Lotus of Sarcastic Mom and other equally phenomenal, awesome women and mothers in the Bewbfest ‘09. It was all good, clean fun as we celebrated all the glorious shapes and sizes that we are. It was all the more fun because I am the second runner-up in this year’s Bewbfest. I have to thank everyone who voted for me…repeatedly including my darling hubs (nice to know he still appreciates the girls) and my older kids. It’s nice to know that the average sized, over forty, mother of five, grandmother of one rack can stack up to the 20 and 30-something mom bloggers out there. Thank you!
Of course right about now I am imagining my mother and her fellow “bra burners” are cringing over what might appear to be blatant objectifying of my physical self. Perhaps it is a little objectifying but I see it more as celebrating and reclaiming a little bit of our physical selves. It seems that much is measured in our physical selves as women, particularly our breasts: what is considered to be the ideal size and shape, our sexuality, our ability and decision to nourish the children we give birth to and how well we “hold up” as we age. No wonder so many of us complain about and dislike our own bodies, including our breasts. To me, The Bewbfest and The Boob Emancipation do a little celebrating and reclaiming the right to celebrate part of our own physical womanliness. There’s nothing dirty or tasteless in that. It’s just boobs, our boobs and we are pretty damn proud of them. I don’t see that as setting us back but rather liberating us even further. Being the mother of four daughters and grandmother of the most amazing grand daughter it is a big deal that I model confidence and a little self-love in the body that God has given me for my girls.
I have to say that I owe my size and shape not only partly to great genes (thanks Mom and Dad), a pretty great bra but also to my joining that cult that is the Shredheads. Remember when I posted my pre-shredding picture at over 180 lbs? Yeah, I’d like to forget it too. But I’m glad I did post it and share the beginning of my shredding experience. I am even more grateful for the accountability, support and beginning friendships that the Shredheads has offered. Most of us have moved past Jillian’s 30 Day Shred and Bob’s Yoga finding running, weights and other forms of exercise equally challenging in our quest for fitness. The results among my fellow Shredheads has been amazing and inspiring. For mepersonally I have seen a significant amount of weight and inches lost and currently I am just 10 lbs shy of my personal goal. I’m not going to make the mid-July, family vacation date I set for myself to achieve that goal but I have to say that I am going to be very close. I couldn’t be prouder of that achievement too. Even better, the added bonus of all of this shredding and now jogging/walking/weights/yoga is my darling hubs is now heading to the gym working with a trainer and it is beginning to show.
Looking good in jeans,that little black dress, a swimsuit, and when I am brave enough, a bikini is pretty cool. Looking great for a forty-seven year old woiman and being told so, especially by my husband and kids is wonderful. Feeling good physically and mentally, feeling strong and feeling incredibly energetic so that I can do the juggling that I do is the best of all. Yes, I am THAT kind of mom. I am doing this for me, my hubs, my kids and my grandkid. I can’t think of a better reason.
How is a kid supposed to enjoy her dinner when she has the grandmamarazzi snapping pictures of her every move?
Enough already, “Bamma”!
…and I never was.
Well, okay, when Daniel was 2 or 3 and his sensory dysfunction was at its worst because he couldn’t articulate, I was that mom ignoring her kid screaming his bloody head off in a restaurant but who could hear him? His left vocal cord is paralyzed so at that age no one could hear him. Still I enjoyed the hate-filled, dirty, your-child-is-ruining-my-fine-dining-experience-here-at-Applebees looks from folks because obviously something was wrong with my child. I got it after a couple of times. Actually I got it not for the sake of those dining around me or the wait staff but for the sake of my son.
Although I have never shied away from taking the whole circus act out to dinner at all ages and stages when we could afford it, I realized that there is truth to the wisdom of Solomon that for everything there is a season and a time. When Daniel was a toddler who just could not deal with being confined in a high chair assaulted by the cacophony of loud voices, clanging cutlery, music that was not his choice or volume and this weird textured, smelly stuff they call food that people put in their mouths, I accepted the fact that this was not the time for him to enjoy the experience of eating out at a casual dining establishment. I was a little disappointed because it meant that I couldn’t then get out of the kitchen to sit down with my family at a restaurant but how enjoyable was it really when my son was stressed out to the point of mental and emotional anguish? Really? I am not that mom that can dig into my chicken fajitas platter, suck down my iced tea, engage in conversation with the hubs and ignore my screaming child. It clearly isn’t enjoyable for him so how the heck can it be a pleasant experience for me, nevermind anyone else around our table?
But like all seasons in our children’s lives, that time was very brief. I soon figured out how to keep Daniel happily distracted from the sensory assaults that is a casual dining establishment…thank you Hot Wheels, iTouch apps and Nintendo!…and he was mature enough to understand the expectations of how one should behave when dining with the family circus in a restaurant and eventually he gave up tube feedings to discover that the kids’ menus rock. When we can afford it, we do take the entire circus act out to a casual; dining place near you. Consider yourself warned.
So what has brought this on? Of course a recent dining experience but also a recent post by Lindsay over at Suburban Turmoil. Lindsay shared recently that she is that mom and her defense for it. I have to admit that I wanted to join the flurry of comments and wisdom being shared as a result of that post. Obviously I had my 2¢ to share but then I stopped myself. I like Lindsay and I enjoy her writing. We may differ on some things when it comes to parenting but the girl is my kind of mama. But I stopped myself also after my own dining experience last Tuesday with Daniel, Jodie, Holly and her daughter, Hazel. Hazey-Face is a very active, rambunctious and, sometimes, loud toddler. While we were enjoying our “family dining experience” at the local Chili’s, I couldn’t help notice the evil, angry looks from a diner two tables away from us. The 50-something lady seemed displeased that Hazel was there in her high chair banging her spoon on the table and loudly demanding her share of her mommy’s dinner. It was obvious that my darling, but loud, grand daughter was ruining her dining experience. She wasn’t crying, screaming or shrieking but she was loud…in a loud restaurant. Holly, who arrived at the restaurant before her brother, sister and myself, told me that the matron had been shooting dirty looks her way since she and Hazel were seated in our booth. Why? Who knows? Who really cares either? I mean it was a family style, loud, restaurant. It wasn’t the quaint, hole in the wall, dark bistro where soft, cool jazz is playing. Hazel’s antics actually were drowned out by the cacophony of activity around us. I think the lady was just pissed because she was obviously a baby and she was in the restaurant. Clearly children like her should not be seen nor heard in that lady’s opinion. I came to this conclusion as she and her dining companion got up to leave at the close of their meal. The gentleman smiled at us as he walked by. The lady, she glared as I looked up and made direct eye contact with her as I smiled in her direction.
Whatever! I mean at least I dressed up a little but then again, anything is dressing up compared to pajama pants isn’t it?
I may not be that mom but I guess I am that grandmom and for that I am glad that I stayed out of the discussion over at Lindsay’s blog.
It happened again! This afternoon I treated myself to a eyebrow wax at my favorite salon. It had been a very, very long while and it was much more than a treat a necessity as my brows had grown out to resemble two crazy, orangey-red, super-fuzzy catepillars above my blue eyes. Again the estetician offered to wax my moustache, my invisible, but desperately in need of a wax moustache. I deferred telling her that I was growing it out.
So in honor of my invisible moustache I am playing again a post from June 13, 2008, “Five O’Clock Shadow“.
It has been a BUSY week here under the Big Top. Baby Hazel commands a lot of attention (and she gets it too), Holly needs lots of help too, Zoë, Abby and Jodie all have places to go and people to see with playdates, ball games, swim parties, Wii parties, zoo trips, dance recital rehearsals and anything else and Bill needs a little TLC every now and then. With all that one might be wondering what about Laura? Doesn’t Laura need some taking care of too? I know Laura wonders about that a lot!
Well today I decided that in the midst of all the errands and juggling for today I would sneak away for a little bit of “me” time. So while out and about running to the bank to deposit Bill’s paycheck, dropping off photographs for an upcoming photography show, grocery shopping, dropping off donations to a local charity and picking up Jodie from yet another playdate, I decided to stop at my favorite salon and get my brows waxed. It had been awhile and while I did not have a unibrow, my eyebrows were in desperate need of attention. It also would be a good excuse to lie down and close my eyes for say ten minutes without interruption. Doesn’t that sound positively blissful?
So there I was in the salon lying back in one of their recliners waiting for the tech to make me pretty. While giving me a wonderful, toe-curling temple massage she confirms how I want my brows to be shaped. She then asks if I want my moustache waxed too.
My moustache??
MY MOUSTACHE?!?!
I HAVE A FREAKIN’ MOUSTACHE????????????????
“No, not today.“, I demurely reply. All the while my mind is talking to me in that high-pitched, stress out squeaky voice over the fact that I apparently have a moustache and either am too blind to see it or just fooling myself that it doesn’t exist. I get the brow wax, pay the lady and head out for my errands. Still I am bugged out about my moustache. I can’t stop thinking about it and what I should do about it so I call my own personal beauty consultant, Holly. She’ll tell me because she is brutally honest. She was open about that braid-able chin hair of mine. So I call her because aside from constantly feeding and changing that chunky, poopy baby of hers I am sure she has time to talk to me. After laughing at me for a few minutes, Holly weighs in that, no, I don’t have a moustache…not even one that is scarcely seen by the naked eye…not even under a 5X magnifying mirror…but I do have a chin hair that needs to be plucked…or perhaps braided!
Someday when she is ninety years old she will regale the grandkids and the great-grandkids and maybe the great-great grandkids with tales of how she swam in the Mediterranean Sea in her underwear because she forgot her swimsuit.
What? You thought I was going to share a picture of that? Please! What kind of bad mama do you think I am? Oh yeah…
the kind that someday when she is ninety will tell her great grandkids and maybe great-great grandkids how she used to have this crazy old-fashioned thing called a blog on the Internet and she made lots of friends whom she didn’t always meet face to face but who got together with her and decided to show off their BEWBS.Crazy, I know. But their crazy great grandmother was already a grandmother when she shared a picture of her “girls”…in a tasteful way…on the interwebs all to celebrate motherhood, womanhood and what God has given us as mothers and women… an amazing rack to render our mates speechless and to provide for our babies. Of course the great grandkids will roll their eyes, sneak a glance at their parents as if to say, “I can’t believe you brought me here to my crazy great grandma’s house!” and then oh so innocently ask me, “GG, what is the internet?”
Vote for #4, the only grandmother and actually who just might, with your help, have a chance to win. As I write this, I am actually in 3rd place. Crazy, I know. Still the “girls” are vote-worthy. Vote now! Vote for #4!
Zoë has returned from her European adventure safe and sound, and jet-lagged. Any advice on coping and reorienting oneself to your own time zone?
I have been told that #4 is pretty hawt. It’s all because of the shredding, baby! Go vote for them.
Yes, my kids are mortified. My day is made.
You know sometimes I just love my 7 year old boy because he is a 7 year old boy!
Recent Comments