wine and grapes and barbie parts

All is well in Kansas. I’ve been doing a lot of NOTHING, which is awesome. I started babysitting a little more since the parents I babysit for are in the process of moving. They have this three year old that is a serious trip. Let’s call him ‘G’. G’s whole purpose in life is to hurt as many people as possible, including me. I have more bruises than when I worked at UPS. Crazy huh? We went to an indoor play area yesterday and he took down about 6 toddlers. In the process of apologizing to a very shocked 10 year old (yes, seriously, 10), G turned off the lights which wouldn’t have been such a big deal, BUT they were the kind of lights that take forever to turn back on so all the kids that G didn’t already pinch, kick or hit started wailing. We left pretty soon after that. On another occasion when we were loading up in the car G started running towards this random stranger who just happened to be walking down the street. After chasing G down he started screaming for his mom and YANKED my shirt down during this tantrum. After pulling my shirt back up (full flash people) the guy told me he knew the kid’s parents. Oddly enough he didn’t seem to be phased by the incident, but of course he said he knew the kid.

I’m rethinking my decision to adopt or have kids in the future. Apparently Russia is a no no. I took this job knowing that this kid had problems because I wanted to get a little experience with problematic kids, but most days I barely get in my car before I start crying. I don’t know how the mom does it. I’ve seen her falter a few times, but she holds it together so well. I’m not sure I could ever do that.
On a brighter note I got an awesome surprise yesterday. Josh decided to drop in. . . with ANDY’S FROZEN CUSTARD, 4 tubs of it for my birthday. My LAST birthday, but I’m NOT complaining. I plan on eating it once a week even though I’m on a strict no sugar diet until I reach my next goal weight. I’ve lost about 15 pounds so far. SO I have all this wonderful frozen custard, my favorite kind, to look at and dream about.

Yesterday I tried Pilates for the first time. I went in there with an open mind and was even ok with the instructor being hands on. I love hands on instruction. Touch my butt all you want as long as you show me what I’m doing wrong. Personal space is not an issue because I have a tendency to relax or tense up during fitness classes. BUT I found out yesterday that the hands on approach can go a little too far. Apparently in Pilates where you have a neutral spine your lower back isn’t supposed to rest on the floor. You have to pretend like there’s a tiny grape there and you can’t squish it. Well while focusing on not squishing the grape the instructor told us to find our pubic planes. WTF? Of course I squished the grape after that. But after picking my lower back up again I started to look for my ‘pubic plane’. What the heck I thought. It’s worth a try. At first I thought she wanted us to find THAT muscle. You know what muscle I’m talking about. Well once I found it I put my hands, shaped like a triangle, on it and started flexing. Piece of cake. The pretend grape even seemed to be doing fine. Well she came up and MOVED my hands and told me to make a table for a pretend glass of wine RIGHT ABOVE MY VAGINA. Well like way above but it was still too close and one of my fingers was like right there. While holding up my imaginary wine on the pretend table that rested inside the triangle of my fingers I started to feel my lower back slip. My belly started shaking from laughter which bumped the imaginary table, knocked over the wine and you guessed it, squished the grape. The instructor probably knew I was a bad egg, the real kind, the moment I walked into the class, but she came over and very quietly told me that I needed to keep my pubic plane flat so I could hold up the glass of wine. That’s when she noticed that the ‘grape’ was squished. After straightening me out she told us to make barbie arms and that’s when I lost it. Not only did it sound particularly funny at the time, it LOOKED funny. The wine tipped over as the table turned itself back into a fluffy donut, which is what ALL pubic planes should look like if you ask me, and the grape crumpled beneath me. I didn’t even get my mat rolled up before leaving the room. I was trying too hard not to laugh. Back to yoga it is. At least only the names of the poses are funny in yoga. And if someone does happen to touch me somewhere off limits they won’t be shrieking about wine and grapes and barbie parts. BUT if you want a really really good laugh go try Pilates!

I was actually rather cranky after failing to make it through the Pilates class, but today I played in a tennis tournament and won my games and was instantly reminded that I am not a bad egg.




Take that Pilates!

Tonight I am going to cut loose! The boys are gone for the night and I plan on taking advantage of the evening – big salad with the good ginger dressing and a tall glass of the good stuff in a frosted glass. Robert made me a cute strawberry cheesecake (sugarfree!) with my name spelled out in strawberries and I am going to eat all the strawberries off the top and surround myself with candles and the Arabic music channel. OMG!