All the Pretty Things

 4 Responses »
May 112012
 

So I’m standing in the grocery store check out lane with Buttercup, patiently waiting our turn to pay when I made the mistake of actually skimming the headlines and blurbs about various celebrities relating to their weight, how they either lost it or keep it off, and why this should matter to me. And you. Because emulating Angelina Jolie did wonders for Octamom.

About that…

My eyes dart from one blurb to another and as each one gets seared into my brain and the only cohesive thought I have is that Buttercup will never be allowed to set foot in a grocery store again for fear of psychologically damaging her in an effort to pick up a gallon of milk.

BEYONCE SHOWS OFF HER NEW MOM BODY

 

Beyonce shows off her New Mom Body right next to a blurb parading empty promises.  CGI, airbrushing, crash diets, and really creative camera angles will work for us Regular People, too, it seems. I’m assuming that means I should clear our the guest room for the personal macrobiotic chef and his entourage, right? Oh, but where will the nanny take care of my child while I workout with my personal trainer in my home gym for six hours a day so I can get to headline-ready shape before  filming starts on my next blockbuster?

Wait…you mean that isn’t how this is supposed to work?

 

 

 

LOSE 13 POUNDS IN SEVEN DAYS EATING CAKE!

There’s only one way I can think of this actually happening…and that’s how I ended up in therapy the first time.

Next?

 

 

GET A BETTER BODY! CELEBRITIES SHARE THEIR CONFIDENCE BOOSTERS!

Because focusing on inner beauty and feeling good about the reflection in the mirror no matter what the scale says is exactly how y’all got onto the big screen to begin with, right?

 

 

 

DROP 47 POUNDS BY MEMORIAL DAY AND WALK OFF JELLY BELLY!

 

Hold the fucking train, people. They mean by Memorial Day of 2013, RIGHT?

 

 

 

THE BRIDESMAID STAR ON LOVING WHO YOU ARE!

FINALLY! A moment of clarity! A publication willing to buck societal expectations and instead celebrate who and what we are now instead of promoting the bullshit promising us that We Too Can Lose Six Pounds in Four Days and Feel Great!

Maybe other publications will start to do the same! Maybe a new generation of young and impressionable girls won’t be subjected to the planetary version of high school hell and come out on the other side the better for it.

Maybe…Look!

Ladies Home Journal is jumping in with more insight on the subject…

 

WHY CAN'T WE SEE OUR REAL SELVES IN THE MIRROR?

Seriously?

I dunno…I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that could possibly have something to do with the contradictory messages about self-worth and body image and their direct correlation with the engrained importance of Other People’s Opinions in our psyche regarding how society perceives us to look? Maybe it’s the fact that our value as women is measured by today’s media using our measurements and not our achievements? No, wait! I’ve got it….

It’s because we were so busy eating cake for breakfast and losing 47 pounds by this Thursday that we totally forgot to clean the mirror, isn’t it? Silly us…

Oh that isn’t it?

 

 

WHO WANTS TO PLAY "FIND THE FAT CHICK?"

 

I’m being facetious, obviously. I think Melissa McCarthy is a talented actress with an adorable voice and I love her confidence. She also, in my humble opinion, happens to be gorgeous. That being said, I’m thinking product placement and the fact that the only reason I noticed the bottom rack (on multiple magazine racks, I’d like to point out)  is because I was on my knees taking photos of random magazine covers for a blog post about how those mean old magazine covers called me Fat and Unhappy. And that’s when the cashier gives me my total and tells Buttercup how beautiful she is.

“I know,” she responds with the confidence she inherited from The Husband. Then she catches herself and notices that I seem to be waiting for something. She clears her throat. “Thank you.”

And we head for home, my four-year-old already learning that society appreciates the pretty things.

 

The Bitch and the Lullaby

 9 Responses »
May 072012
 

“Mama, I can’t sleep.”

“Shhh … just close your eyes and relax, baby.”

“But mama, I tried that already. I caaaaaaaaan’t sleeeeeeep.”

“Maybe if you try longer than three seconds, it just might happen.”

“But Ma…”

“Shhh … Daddy’s already asleep. Want me to sing you a lullaby? Whichever one you want, baby girl.”

She finally stops her fidgeting and snuggles closer to me. “You pick, mama.”

Without hesitation, I launch into the first bedtime lullaby session in recent memory. She’s almost five and while I’m holding on to her wanting to co-sleep for as long as she will let me, she stopped asking me to sing her to sleep a few years ago. I softly sing that she is my sunshine, my only sunshine, as she relaxes even more into my body.

I smile into the dark.

 

 

The day didn’t start this sweet. Buttercup has been home sick from preschool for over a week now with a low-grade fever, congestion, vomiting, and lots of whining brought on by the horrible Tucson allergy season. Nebulizers and medications and trips to the allergist and waiting in the Walgreens parking lot for more prescriptions have been par for the course lately. So has an attitude that makes me fear the day she realizes she has hormones. The kid hates being sick.

This morning she woke up happy. But somewhere between getting out of bed and sitting down to pee, the stars must have fallen out of alignment because the child shot right passed crabby and hit bitchy in ten seconds flat. Her eyes narrowed and she glared up at me from her perch on the toilet with a look that gave me every confidence in the world she’s ready to hold her own on an elementary school playground. Then she announced that she couldn’t pee.

“What do you mean, you can’t pee? Do you mean you don’t have to go yet?”

“No,” she spat out. “I have to and I just can’t.”

Um…okay….

“So try harder?”

“I am, Mama! I. Just. CAN’T.”

And the stand off began. I had things to do today and lots of shit to attend to before I ran out of time. BFF Heather was going to be coming over later to tag along on another one of my doctor appointments this afternoon while her fiance was set to play dollhouse and watch princess movies with Buttercup. I wanted to make sure I had a bra on before they showed up in four hours.

“Do you hurt in your belly?” I ask.

“No,” she grunts back.

“Does your vagina hurt?” I ask.

“No, my bagina does not hurt.” She says back, her teeth clenched. “I just can’t go.”

Satisfied she doesn’t need a trip to the pediatrician and this is just the world’s most original tantrum, I leave the bathroom and make my way to my shower.

“Fine,” I call back as I walk away. “Sit there as long as you want to. I’m not scheduling my day around when you decide to stop being a drama queen.”

I’m answered with furious tears and sobbing. Turns out she hadn’t expected me to leave. And yet she’s still sitting there after I return, dressed, teeth brushed, flossed, hair done, and make-up applied. Kid knows how to dig in her heels, that’s for damned sure. So I called her bluff.

“I guess we need to go to a hospital.”

“NO!”

“Well, if you can’t pee, that’s not a good thing for you body. And that means I need to take you in so the doctors can fix you.” I pause for effect. “I’ll go get my purse and the car keys so we can leave right away.”

Her eyes are wide. She’s blinking. A lot. The wheels in that head of hers are turning furiously. And just as suddenly as she flipped the switch to bitch, she flips it back to sweet angel as she finally let the iron hold on her bladder go. “Wow, guess what, Mama! I’m cured!”

I gloat inside of my head and rejoice with her as we finally get started with our day.

 

 

 

“Mama, I love you,” she whispers. Her head is on my chest now. Her voice thick with the sleep that’s about to consume her.

I ask her to please never take my sunshine away, and hug her closer.

 

 

The Vicinity of Wonderful

 2 Responses »
Dec 302011
 

This is it. My last post before 2011 fades away and 2012 becomes the year that we all joke about the end of the world. I had planned for something Deep and Meaningful. But that was before I remembered that the in-laws were going to be here from Michigan and that would mean day-long outings and running out of room in the refrigerator for yet another set of restaurant leftovers and a frantic search through my non-existent draft folder in the hopes of finding something Wonderful that I might have been saving.

I looked. I found plenty of Somethings. But none of them were anywhere near the vicinity of Wonderful. Some were kind of Meh and a few gems were complete Disasters. More like an exercise in free-writing while high on expired Nyquil than something I’d like to share with the world.

So that leaves me to come up with Something New. And I’m hoping it’s Deep and Meaningful.

I’m supposed to talk about those as-of-yet unbroken promises I haven’t quite narrowed down to committing to for the immediate future. And buy some new running shoes so I can get to that new gym with the brand new membership I’m supposed to rush out to buy so I can fight for an elliptical machine until most have decided to wait until next January to try again, right? Or am I supposed to look back on 2011 and the stories shared, memories made, and goals achieved?

I could do that, except maybe I won’t. Not because I’d rather avoid the imminent panic attack next December when I finally fall asleep wondering if the world will still be there for me to wake up to or if social media will be alive and well and pointing fingers at the Mayans for being total drama queens. And that’s because this (read: the me having a Conspiracy Theory-worthy panic attack) will probably happen. I’m just wired that way.

I won’t wax poetic about the end of the old and the start of the new simply because, for me, I feel caught in limbo. Between what and what, I have no idea. I just know that this feels like my last post of 2011 no more than the first one did and that this was the first year that my birthday was really just another day and maybe 34 is the year that the passing of time becomes nothing more than a measure of how fast my child is growing and not a direct reflection of myself or that last grey hair I pulled out.

If I didn’t have a checkbook with what will probably be a month’s worth of ruined checks during the 2012 honeymoon period while I retrain my brain to write the new year, I’d probably forget that anything has changed.

Buttercup and I were out shopping the other day when a store employee asked Buttercup how her Christmas had been. After the expected excitement and squeals and Santa Brought Me’s, the employee smiled and asked Buttercup what she was doing to bring in the new year. Buttercup wrinkled her nose and blinked.

New Year? The look on her face told us both that she had no concept of what was being asked of her. She simple stood there for a moment while she tried to figure out for herself what this New Year was and how exactly one was supposed to Bring It In.

Finally, she smiled and her eyes brightened.

“But it’s not June yet,” she said, “and that’s when my new year starts. I’ll be five then. I’ll probably have a birthday party with my friends. Right, Mama?” And  I told her that yes, she very probably would.

Just Call Me Erma

 No Responses »
Jul 132011
 

I’ve had people tell me I’m the Latina Erma Bombeck with a dirty mouth. Okay, I’ll take that. The Divine Ms. Erma is the one who set the comedic bar just high enough for the rest of us to have to work to reach it. Pardon me while I grab my step stool…

I remember my father having one of her books in his little library. Having been raised in a household with four sisters and then moving on to father five girls probably set the man up for a serious need to find a way to laugh at the hormonal hell he was living, so really, it all makes sense. I was old enough to read and tall enough to reach the book shelf but not quite old enough to know when I was supposed to laugh because relating wasn’t exactly in my vocabulary.

Then I grew up. Got married. Pushed a baby out my hooha. And suddenly the world of Bombeck became hysterical. So when I found the Army of Ermas site, I naturally tweet-stalked its creator into letting me guest post. Turns out Stacey likes her writers a little on the saucy side and she asked me to officially join the crew.

Hello PLATFORM!

My first post as an official Erma can be found here. Pretend I’m the new kid in class and you feel obligated to ask me to play with you at recess so the teacher doesn’t get pissy I’m being left out. In other words: Go. Read. Comment. And?

Thank you.

Mamavation Monday: Independence Day

 2 Responses »
Jul 042011
 

Today I declare my independence from:

*The laundry: It’s America’s birthday. Me sorting whites would just be plain rude, don’t ya think?

*My scale: I used to weigh myself every day. And when I finally conquered my eating disorder, I had reduced the need for scale validation to once a week. Today is my day. And I’m taking it off.

*Self-doubt: What if? Can I? Am I good enough? Will I ever? Who needs that playing on a loop inside their head?

*Dusting: How else can I teach my kid the joys of writing in the  inch-thick layer of desert sand that always seems to reappear five minutes after I clean?

*Eating my feelings: Writing them is a little easier on the waistline.

*My Etsy shopping addiction: I think I need a 12-step program. Unless the powers that be have added an Etsy subhead to the Compulsive Shopper label and forgot to tell me.

*Self-criticism: Today will be a good hair, no make-up, I Feel Good in this Outfit Day no matter what the mirror says.

*Time: I’m always running out of it. Today, I’m not paying attention to it.

Reality: Buttercup lives in a world of princesses and fairies and magic and pretend and it’s usually her daddy who plays along. Today I suspend thinking like a non-fiction writer and embrace my daughter’s imagination.

Excuses: If I have time to sit on my ass and write a blog post or an essay or a query letter than I sure as hell have time to dedicate 30 minutes to a yoga session or some Zumba.

Which reminds me…Happy Birthday, America. If you’ll excuse me, I have some important things to attend to.

What have you declared your independence from?

 

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