More Moments

Some more bits and pieces...because I don't have enough brain power to come up with a whole post....

You know all that talk about your inner child? You also have an inner parent, it's that voice that scolds you or tells you've done a good job. My inner father sounds a lot like Clint Eastwood, if you met my father that would make sense.

I'm still getting used to bugs being a part of my summer vocabulary; when I go for a walk with the girls in the double stroller invariably I walk by a forest preserve. I find myself batting my hands about in the air swatting away all those flies that seem to land in my hair or buzz my ears. What do I hear my inner parent say?

“It's all those damn hair products that you wear.”

In a gravelly old man voice.

Welcome to my head.

Last Christmas I was at a library used book sale. I picked up a copy of a DVD Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss. I looked down at pregnant belly and sensed the girth of my growing thighs and thought, 'I think I'm gonna need to do that in a little while.' Since it was a dollar I threw it on the pile. About six weeks after Carys was born I popped it in the DVD player sat in lotus position and waited to let the weight loss begin. I noticed that all the ladies demonstrating the poses were well above me in age. Most of the moves were gentle and some of the modifications seemed overly easy. After completing the DVD I picked it up and read the box, trying to discern what exactly makes this DVD specifically for weight loss. The type on the box gave you assurances that changes in diet were needed as well, other paragraphs that were obliquely telling you that doing this yoga wouldn't cause weight to drop off magically but it would help you on your way. Then I found this choice phrase, 'modified for the larger body.' Wait...

So this is Yoga for Fat People?

Awesome.

I pulled into our driveway and looked in my rearview mirror. Crap. Emma was passed out, completely. I eyeballed our three flights of stairs that we have to get up. Now I have two children that need to be carried up. Emma wakes up grumpy and I was pretty sure that waking her up and plunking her on the ground and telling her to walk up three flights of stairs was not going to go over well.

I call these my Sophie's Choice moments.

Which one do I pick? Which child do I carry up first? Which one do I leave to possible endangerment?

Having to get two children, one who is still completely immobile, up and down these stairs gives me these moments more than I’d like to admit.

Then there are moments when Emma is awake and perfectly capable of walking she just chooses not to cooperate. So I run up and put the baby down, and then run back down and haul Emma upward, either verbally or physically. Usually a seriously uncool parenting moment follows. This makes me crazy, because on top of being angry at Emma for being oppositional, flashes of kidnappers whip through my head. Or the well meaning person who will approach my child, ask her where her parents are, and then immediately call Child Protective Services on me. This is usually why I pick the baby first. Because if a baby is unattended in a car that well-wisher would be on their cell phone so fast...all I see are blurs. I figure that the conversation with a toddler would at least slow them down.

Anyway....this always leads me to the conclusion that Americans do too much alone. We should have more help.