The Grinch Who Stole New Year's!

I really enjoyed the holidays up until New Year's. We kicked off the season with 22 people and Thanksgiving in Jamaica. It was a great way to get in the festive mood for the weeks to come. I rode that high through decorating for Christmas and hosting a dinner for 30+ people at our house. Last year we weren’t home for Christmas so this year I really decorated with two trees, poinsettias, and decorations of some sort in every room on the main floor. I was really in the spirit and it seemed like every day had a party, a get together, a lunch, a movie or a combination of the above. So it was good times – sort of.

My sister and her family were supposed to come into town but my nephew got sick so they had to stay home hoping to come out later. But there was no way my mom was going to miss Christmas at the house with Parker so she arrived Christmas Eve. I don’t know WHAT she caught from my nephew or on Amtrak, but upon arrival she complained about not feeling well, laid down on the floor in my family room and was knocked out for the night! Larry was like “What the hell did you do to her?” For the next week she coughed, blew her nose and primarily stayed rolled up in sheets, waking only to take medicine eat or force herself out to do something with us.

A few days later here comes Larry – he’s hot, he’s cold, his stomach hurts, his stomach doesn’t hurt, he has a headache – now HE was sick! My house went from holidays to The Walking Dead as they dragged, coughed and sniffled their way through the house, returning to the crypt after only a few hours up. All I could think of was how many blankets, sheets and comforters I’d have to fumigate when it was all over. But at least I had my little road dog happy and healthy to roll with me – WRONG.

Park had been so well through it all. She even survived the “too much jumping in her new bounce house upchuck” on Christmas Day. All was well – we went ice skating, to birthday parties – she was hanging with me. Until New Year’s Eve. I was determined that we not stay in the house with the sickos all day so at 9:00 a.m. we went to the public skate session again. But it was cold out – and despite clothes, a snow suit, a helmet and gloves, she uncharacteristically started to feel cold on the ice. Usually she’s begging to take her coat off. Now she was cold and wanting to leave early. By noon she was sniffling and her nose was running – son of a b*****!!! Now EVERYONE was sick!

I got her home and resigned myself to doing absolutely nothing for New Year’s Eve. My sister was going to try to come up but we had to put the kibosh on that for fear the cycle would start all over again. We didn’t have big plans but were at least going to get together with friends. Mom was pretty much in bed all day and Larry was a close second to that schedule. At 5:00 p.m. it was me, Park and every version of High School Musical on the Disney Channel. By 9:00 p.m. I figured what the hell, since we’re not going out and everyone is sick, I might as well start taking the Christmas stuff down. I snatched off every ornament and ripped the tree skirts off of the trees, dragged the greenery wrapped around the staircase bannister, threw the baubles and pinecones into a box, put the fake poinsettias in bin like a coffin – by the time I was done the only thing hint of the holidays was the two naked trees. Larry came out of his coma at one point and was like “What the hell happened?” Christmas – and every memory of it was gone!! I felt like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and Larry was Cindy Lou Who going “Why Santy Claus, Why???!!!”

I wasn’t trying to erase the holidays but, since I wasn’t celebrating New Year's I figured I could at least be productive, clear everything out and start the year with a clean house! Then I could enjoy the what’s left of the holiday. I’d still have four days left - maybe everyone will have recovered by then and we can finish like we started – with a bang. But wait is that now MY throat feeling itchy???!!! Ugggghhhhhh!!!! Happy New Year!

Dump Diver: A Husband, a Tooth and Sainthoood

Today my husband reached Saint Status. Parker has been saying that her tooth has been loose for a while now. At six year’s old, she’s had yet to lose them when all of her friends have lost theirs. Her annual doctor’s appointment showed that she’s grown four and a half inches this past year, jumping from the 48th to 70th percentile in height – a big leap for someone with gigantor cousins who have been in the 99th percentile since birth. She was on track with everything except her teeth and I feared she’d have baby teeth until 5th grade. Her doctor assured me all was well and then said “She’ll probably lose them all at once.”

Fast forward to today. I managed to complete my third ice-skating class without knocking any of my teeth out and Parker’s tooth started to wiggle a lot during her class. By lunch time at Panera, she bit down and it started to bleed. Parker, who had been anxiously waiting to join her peers in the toothless league, started wailing about wishing she still had all of her teeth – I think the blood freaked her out and she reverted to baby status hopping right onto my lap.

She calmed down long enough to tentatively get into the car and head to her friend’s Christmas party. By arrival she was back to normal showing everyone her loose tooth. I was frantically sending Larry texts about having to pull her tooth when she got home because I could not bear to do it. As I’m texting away Park comes over with a smile on her face and a conspicuous hole in her mouth – her tooth came out on her own! Problem was, it was no where to be found – I think she ate it with her pepperoni pizza.

I took pictures texting them to family members and she proudly showed her smile to Larry when we got home. Then she complained her stomach hurt and she had to go to the bathroom – and she had to do number two. Larry runs in there like a surgeon yelling back to me “get me some plastic silverware.” No… no!!!! I began thinking, do not tell me this man is going to dissect a bowel movement to find her first tooth. I thought, that is a saint; that is a man who worships his daughter; that is my husband! That’s the kind of man you want to marry: one who dives in a toilet just for a tooth. Five minutes later he emerged defeated with sweat on his face and a tightly wrapped plastic bag with plastic ware. The tooth was no where to be found.

As I screamed at him to double wrap the bag, Park complained again of her stomach hurting, at which point he yelled to me “You’ve got round two!” So much for Sainthood! I said a few choice words back to him and we resumed our very human lives – he ran back to watch the football game, Park celebrated her milestone with the Disney Channel, and I found another thing to write about.

Over Sold: In Trying to Protect My Daughter, Have I Made Her Afraid of Everything?

I try to be honest with my daughter about everything and that includes things that come on the news. I try to tell the truth in terms that a kindergarten student can understand, but I am starting to think I am over selling things.

When I see another poor young woman’s destiny lie in the hands of a psychopath who takes advantage of the fact that she is lost, has drunk too much, etc. I warn Park about the dangers of alcohol and drugs and how, although it is certainly not a young woman’s fault, crazy people will target your weakness and take advantage of a situation. Her take a way “Mommy, I don’t want to go to college because someone is going to force me to drink and I don’t want to!”

Every time she sees someone on a TV show who is sick or hurt she goes “Mommy are they dead,” because I’m always telling her about foolish acts that lead to despair. I feel like the father in The Croods, where every story he told ended with “.., and then they died!”

When I counsel her to choose a mate carefully and not tolerate anyone who hits, hurts or abuses her, her take-a-way: “I’m not getting married;” “I hate boys” or the latest “I’m going to marry Daddy.”

I’m proud of the fact that I’ve tailored a life that allows me to work from home and set my own schedule, giving me the freedom to volunteer at her school, take time as I want, schedule my day as I see fit and most importantly, be there when she gets home from school. Her take-a-way: “Daddy works, Mommy I don’t know what you do!"

When I try to convince her to be a big girl by ditching a bath and taking a shower, I show her by bringing her in with me to demonstrate how easy it is. Her take-a-way: She loves to shower, but ONLY WITH ME! So now she showers AND sleeps with me! Larry has her like Gulliver still in her converted crib-to-bed. Although, to his point, she still fits, I’ve tried to bribe her with a big girl bed of her own of which she informed me she will never sleep in unless it is in our bedroom. Who needs a house when we could have apparently gotten a one-bedroom apartment and been fine!

What I am actually attempting to do is to get her to make good decisions, to be wise about her choices and to choose her friends and situations with great care but sometimes I think I am having the opposite affect and will have a kid who never wants to leave the house.

And yet, when we are on vacation or playing with her friends she is fearless. She wants nothing to do with me – only stopping to ask permission to go with her friends, order food, or get back in the pool. I can go an entire day and barely see her! She’ll jump in ten feet of water, go down the gigantic water slide and is apparently so fast and fearless that she was asked to be on the swim team.

This is not the same little girl that comes home to me, that doesn’t want to marry, go to college or take a shower. This is an independent little spirit that runs the world when she is not up under Mommy. I guess there is a reason you kick them out of the nest, so they can make their own, hopefully wise decisions without a parent’s panic. That being said, I will try to think a little more before I speak. I will try to encourage her to fly not only when she is away from me but when she is with me; after all, with her in my shower and my bed, it is starting to feel a little cramped!

Ice, Ice Baby: Lessons from the Rink

Yesterday was the end of Park’s first session of ice skating lessons. She did a tester course in the summer but this was the real thing. For six weeks I have watched her attempts. When upright, she is a pretty fast skater – but she seems to prefer to spend more time rolling on the ice. I don’t know if she’s doing it on purpose but she seems fascinated with BEING ON THE FLOOR – and it drives me crazy. She doesn’t just fall, she lays there, studying the markings for the ice hockey games, feeling the cold on her hands, playing with whatever object the teacher threw out for them to retrieve.

I guess I want her to excel at this and she seems quite content to idle by, taking in the scenery as she occasionally listens to the instructor. Sometimes it’s a slow crumble down to the ice, sometimes it’s a spectacular crash. Each time I want to scream at the top of my lungs GET UP, but she’s quite happy laying there thinking about it. I don’t care if she is ever an athlete but to see her so comfortable at laying there drives me nuts. I like that we try different things – and she LIKES ice skating. After every class I ask if she is still on board, does she want to keep doing and it and she never hesitates to say yes. She even gave up dance classes to do this.

Maybe it’s me. She is clearly happy just being out there, enjoying the moment. I’m the one in conniptions on the sidelines. I’m thinking she’s complacent with being adequate and she’s thinking “yeah, more fun time (literally) on the ice.” I have been told I am a perfectionist. I really, really don’t see myself that way, I just don’t want to embarrass myself so I try to get things right. People say I am really smart – first grade at five, college at 20, masters at 22 – but it was only because I was rushing through school and wanted to be done early, so I worked at it – In reality I was really just a strong B, maybe at times B+ student. Maybe I just need to chill the hell out with my expectations for my daughter and for myself.

So I’m putting my money where my mouth is – yesterday I signed up for adult ice skating lessons. I have been on skates three times in my life and each time I ride the side rail for dear life. But perhaps I need to learn like my daughter to be comfortable in falling; comfortable in letting go and not trying to be perfect or rush through just to get it over with. Perhaps I need to simply live in that moment right then and there and not worry about the next one.

The best thing about it – our lessons are at the same time. So instead of seeing Mommy focusing on what she is doing wrong she will see Mommy simply being human – stumbling, learning, trying,and not taking that imperfection past that one moment when it happens. Most importantly, she’ll see me falling, and perhaps, like her I will learn to just get up with a smile on my face and keep moving forward.

Oh No She Didn't

The other day I went on my third school trip in four weeks – this time to a museum. These trips always seem to fall on the same day Park has an after school activity. Since I was going on the trip she skipped the school bus. So I drove her 20 miles to school, went on the trip, drove her 20 miles back home, fed her, then left for ice-skating lessons. By the time we got home I was exhausted and I just wanted to rest. Park then asked if we could play. I’m thinking, isn’t that what we’ve done for the past 10 hours?! So I went into this diatribe about how it was a long day, all that we did that day, how I just wanted to rest and no we could not play together.

While I was talking, Park was writing in her notebook. After my soliloquy she paused and drew a big heart on the page and then asked how to spell my name. I was so touched as she wrote each letter thinking what a sweet girl I have. After she finished the last letter I said “Oh Parker!” And then she looked at me, took the pen and scratched my name out – slowly! And said “That’s what you get for not playing with me.”

This kid, like all kids, has no idea what parents go through – with my back still sore from my failed kick-boxing class, I planned three things around her birthday celebration, worked an event for my church and wrote a script. I’m friggin’ walking around like a question mark trying not to miss a beat for her activities. I walk around in my “I’m going to the gym” clothes while my body looks like I’ve never set foot in one. For me dressing up is putting on red lipstick, but the only people who notice are my daughter’s classmates who beg me to put it on when I visit. One of the few times I managed to throw on a skirt, my neighbor chastised me for still wearing a slip – that she could see hanging below my hem.

So I walk around in my mom clothes, accented by red lips, running around from one child’s activity to the next. When I’m not doing that, I’m working from home, trying to get it all done before she gets home. So, in a nutshell, my earth orbits around her sun, while she scratches my name out of a heart.

But I know she loves me and just wants us to spend time together. In a few years that won’t be the case, she’ll stop being so consumed in my world and run off to play with her friends – while I beg for time with her. So I’ll take the art work with a grain of salt and spend a little time on the floor rolling around – with my bad clothes, my red lipstick and my wild, expressive child in my arms.

Living Not So Well Lady: One Bad Day at the Gym

Every Wednesday evening I take this kick-butt cardio kick boxing class and every Wednesday I am very afraid. Our teacher is like a drill instructor and at 149 beats a minute without breaks, she tells us that we are her slowest class. Her class is HARD; let me put it this way – she trained in Tae Bo with Billy Blanks. She says she is a drill instructor and I am pretty sure she means literally as I certainly feel like I am in the army – and she definitely makes us drop and do push-ups.

I try to keep up by staying at the front of the room. I sweat, hop and pant my way through every step. We’re all moving and praying that she doesn’t see any one put their hands on their hips or we’ll all have to do 20 more of whatever we were doing. By the end of class I am literally stinking but I feel exhilarated. I feel proud that I once again made it through the class – it’s just not as easy as it used to be.

Last week I don’t know what I was doing or trying to prove but I think I jammed something – so much to the point that I felt like I was two inches shorter. I felt like I was in one of those Lifetime movies where “a freak accident leaves someone paralyzed” as I gingerly tried to maneuver around the next couple of days. Turning my head required turning my entire body in the desired direction; putting on shoes meant trying to retrieve them with my toes and tossing them up into my hands to put on rather than bending, and it felt better walking sideways rather than straight ahead. I felt really pathetic when Parker offered to help me walk! It has been a week and I am still walking tentatively and have not been to the gym since. I finally waved the white flag and made a doctor’s appointment for Friday. I thought this was something I could shake off with rest and taking it slow, but the old body doesn’t seem to recover like it used to.

In my 20s and 30s I lived on the Upper Eastside in New York. There used to be this gym called Living Well Lady right at 86th and Lexington where the instructors, all dancers, would smoke cigarettes, eat potato chips and sip soda while waiting for class to start – they were about a size 2. I was right along with them as I’d treat myself to a box of Entenmann’s chocolate chip cookies and a can of chocolate frosting as a treat for after step AND aerobics class. It was so easy to go from class to class, hopping, kicking and jumping and then eating a diet of chocolate, hamburgers and fries. I could do that with ease, stay a size 6, and hit repeat. Now I do a bad move in the ONE difficult class I take each week and feel like my body is broken!

What used to be cured with a quick rest now takes a week of monk like stillness to only slightly improve. Yesterday I made myself take a walk because you know at this age it takes one day to gain weight and one month to get it off. I was going so slow I felt like I was walking in reverse. But I trudged on – and I guess that’s the solution. Keep moving through it. I will never be that young girl flying through aerobics classes again – the veins on my hands and rings around my neck remind me of that. But I can meet myself where I am.

I’ll keep fighting the good fight, keep exercising and making doctor’s appointments so that I can recover from whatever trauma I inflict on my body and keep hoping that everything stays in place – at least until the next class.

The Apple Ain't Nowhere Near this Tree!

Let me tell you how I was in college – quiet. People knew me because I had a gorgeous 5’10” green-eyed sister whom everyone knew. But the same three or four friends I met freshman year, were the same friends I left with. Same with high school, three friends until the end. Don’t get me wrong, I had a LOT of fun with those friends, it’s just I was never the center of attention; everyone else was. My business partner always gets on me because I am never in the photos – I think I do it intentionally. I prefer to be behind the scenes and it’s worked out nicely for me.

I’ve made a conscious effort to tell my daughter to be an independent thinker, to walk to her own drum. I tell her about drugs, drinking and violence against women and to be responsible for her body. I tell her that she might see two mommies or two daddies and that love comes in many forms. She gets mad when she sees litter saying “Mommy, someone is being bad to the earth,” and I smile thinking “Good job mom.”

I want her to be a better version of me. I don’t want her to be a wall flower like I was, but she takes it to the extreme. It’s like she is the complete opposite of me. She’ll puts on shorts, high heels, lipstick and a wig and want to go outside. She mixes and matches her bathing suits, preferring to wear bikinis when she can. She begs me for lipstick and I visibly see her demeanor change when a boy is around; she gets all girly and silly and I want to scream “get it together!” You warn your daughters about little boys, but I have a feeling I’ll have to warn a few moms to protect their sons from my daughter. She can be raucous and loud where I was quiet and shy.

I still try to sing the childhood songs I made up for her when she was a baby but she will drop me in a heartbeat for Ariana Grande or Iggy Azaelea. I put her in ballet and tap hoping to introduce her to dance. I didn’t want her in hip hop because I thought it’d be too grown. For three years I watched her clunk through some painful movements during recitals. She always got cheers for personality over performance. Yet, without a lesson she has managed to match the Ariana’s “One Less Problem” video in one attempt.

And don’t let her see another cute kid. When she went to my niece’s camp performance, Park was outraged when a cute little girl (who oddly enough everyone thought was her sister) performed and got attention, later telling me she challenged the girl to a dance-off and declaring “Oh – it’s not over!” She still brings this up, months later as if there is a dance-off waiting to happen. My brother-in-law still blames me for my nephew’s lack of coordination. I am the known non-dancer in the family – even my mother won a dance contest on the Katie Couric show!

When we go on vacation everyone knows her, certainly before they know me or Larry. She’s the kid people from Canada wanted to take photos with when she was a baby. When I go to her school, parents tell me even the older kids know Parker and she cracks them up. My daughter is a sweet girl but she can be wild and un-tame. She is that kid that always looks a mess at the end of the day as she comes tumbling off the bus. She is so unlike me – no one knew who I was in high school and this kid has eighth graders who know her name.

But I’ve decided that’s ok. Although I don’t see any resemblance of me in her, others do. They say they see it in her attitude, personality and actions – so maybe she is like the woman I’ve grown into as an adult. Sometimes I have to shake my head and go “where did this little girl come from,” and then she asks for a magazine to use the bathroom and I think, oh yeah, she’s mine!

School Trippin'

I have been waiting for two years to go on a field trip with my daughter’s school; a privilege that starts in kindergarten. I already had my police background check and fingerprinting done, which is customary these days and I was ready to go. I even thought of counter-actions I could perform to combat the death-stare Parker would surely give me if she saw me so much as talking to another child in her presence. I’ve had plenty of experience with that volunteering in her classroom – the cold stare, followed by the hung head, followed by tears; but I was ready to spread equal love while making her feel special.

The day before the trip the teacher told me that neither she nor the assistant teacher from their class would be going. I could have sworn I saw clouds cover the sky and a raven land on my roof as she said that! Was this an omen? Nevertheless, I was determined to carry on with a positive attitude.

Got to school and got a little nervous as one new kid pointed gun fingers at me. Another kid told the teacher and the student immediately put them back in his holster while others regaled me by telling stories of the guns their dads had at home. I guess she’s in a class with pro-NRA parents! Two little boys got the “you’d better behave or you will never go on a school trip without your parent personally bringing you” talk and I began to imagine a wild day full of me chasing kids through the zoo and quite possibly making the news.

All of the kindergarten students loaded onto ONE school bus. Well, I have not been on a school bus in decades and forgot all about that one seat with the hump on the floor – of course that is where I sat, with my knees to my chest, with two girls from another class who were clearly disheartened they had to sit next to an adult. Why wasn’t I with Parker you ask? Why wasn’t I with my darling girl who practically sits on my head at home, and who last year wouldn’t want me to so much as look at a classmate? Why she was in the back with her two girlfriends not thinking about Mommy being snubbed upfront.

We made it to the zoo and we were off! And while I imagined chasing kids across acres of land with some potentially ending up in a cage somewhere, our group was surprisingly well-behaved. It helped that the teachers were experienced pros. While I as a parent, always worried about how I was talking to someone else’s child was like, “Darling, stand over here; sweetheart, don’t do that,” the teachers had those kids in line in short-order with a few stern words and a look that seemed to solve any problem. My favorite line from a teacher that day was “listen the first time;” I have since used it 1000 times at home; obviously Park listens to me the 3rd or 4th time! The weather was great and it seemed as if all the animals were out celebrating – the lion pride, pandas, elephants, great apes – you name it, we saw it. One teacher had her Fitbit with her and we clocked 11,000 steps in about three hours, so there was a side benefit as well. Of course I got back to school and was so tired and exhausted that I went for McDonalds including the Oreo McFlurry with extra-extra Oreo thus negating every single step, but I consider it my reward for my effort – and I did get the Happy Meal which was probably on 17,000 calories vs. 25,000.

So the day wasn’t so bad after all, other than being really, really tired, we had a great time and I’d do it again, which is a good thing as the next trip is in two weeks!

Slow Jam the Mammogram

Slow Jam the Mammogram

Not that long ago I had a mammogram; that turned into a comprehensive mammogram that turned into an MRI. So you know when that happens you’re already as nervous as crap, and as my sister says, I’m a “pre-worrier.” I worry about things in the future – finding a Montessori high school for Park (who is in kindergarten), wondering if I’ll have to replace my bed when I’m older because it’s so high and I don’t want to break a hip climbing in; shoot, I even insisted on putting a full bath on my main floor in case I got too old or sick to climb the stairs and needed to live in what is now my office. That’s just how I am. I like to plan so I won’t be caught off guard and I guess I thought that included my health. So when they kept sending me back in for tests, I was trying not to go over the edge.

So I get to the place for MRI in time for my 7:00 a.m. appointment and they can’t find my referral. I hadn’t had breakfast as I figured I’d be in and out. Two hours later, I am still sitting there nibbling on two saltine crackers that a minister shared with me, trying to fight off a hunger headache while keeping my mind from going to defcon 1. When I finally get called in, I am hungry, tired and aggravated, THEN I discover they need to give me an IV. I HATE needles! But there’s more - after, they took me to this huge metal contraption where I am told I have to lay perfectly still, face down with the offending breast in a, for lack of a better word, hole, for a half hour so they can capture the image! Of course the minute they said something like that everything on my body started to itch and I wanted to sneeze. I knew this was going to be interesting. I got as comfortable as I possibly could and got ready.

But wait a minute – what’s that I hear in the headsets they put on me? Was that LUTHER, begging to “hold me tight, if only for one night?!” I was thinking, what in the world is going on? Apparently they pump in music to relax you during this stressful experience and we were about to slow jam this mammogram! Clearly, they hit the “black mix” button for no sooner had Luther left than Heatwave was loving me “Always and Forever.” It took everything in my being to keep from cracking up and/or waving my hand in air!

The whole experience took me back to the Wegman’s where I live where, while shopping you can hear Earth, Wind & Fire asking “would you mind, if I touch, if I kiss if I held you tight, in the morning light,” all while getting eggs! The DC-area can be a veritable R&B mix of music that you hear while doing basic errands - shopping, sitting at the gas station and apparently even when you get an MRI! For a half an hour I had my own little “Quiet Storm,” a veritable concert of 70’s and 80’s R & B music that calmed my fears, relaxed me, and actually gave me a few laughs.

When it all came out in the wash, I was lucky - I had dense breasts – all of that for dense breasts! If I’m going to have dense breasts they could at least be large! Dense breasts mean a follow-up mammogram, which I had today. It is a comprehensive mammogram where they take about 107 images and have a radiologist review the results. No MRI, no IV, no music. I stared at the eggplant walls in dead silence, while they pressed my breasts into various positions. While standing there, I felt a sense of nostalgia for my MRI as I imagined being back in that room, with my headsets, Jimmy Fallon and the Roots in the background as Brian Williams starts with “Aww yeah…” - and I cracked a smile. Mammograms will never be the same again!

P.S. My mammogram was fine and I am back to regular screenings. To all my women friends October is Breast Awareness Month – get your mammogram!!!!

Flabby and Fabulous?

Went to my doctor’s appointment this morning and was so proud of myself as I dressed in my workout clothes which would serve the dual purpose of not adding more than one pound at my assured weigh-in, while also making it easy for me to jet to the gym immediately after. When my doctor first greeted me she said “I almost didn’t recognize you; you look like a teenager walking in here!” “Oh surely you jest” I joked as I floated into the exam room to defrock – still high off of her words. The doctor entered the room started her exam and upon closer examination said “Oh – you’re starting to get a little flabby. All of your weight is going here – as she gently grabbed my stomach – and look, it looks like your arms are getting a little soft; your legs are strong but your thighs look like they too are getting soft – you have to be careful about that.” Then she started detailing how hard it was to get rid of “turkey wings.” Did I say this was my OB/Gyn?! Yes, all of this was being told to me while my legs were in stirrups with strange metal objects being inserted in and out of me! I couldn’t exactly move, so there I was, held prisoner as the doctor gently expressed that I needed to go to the gym more often. I was embarrassed to say that I went quite often as it clearly wasn’t evident. She threw me a bone by saying “Your face hasn’t rounded out and you still look young, like you’re in your 30s” mind you, moments ago I was a “teenager” walking in her door; l guess I aged 20 years just by de-robing!

This was the same doctor that told me to get on the stick if I wanted another baby; because even though I had my daughter so late in life, my body was young and healthy and she actually thought I could pull it off if I tried. How did I go from that to “get thee to the gym” in one year’s time? Well, I didn’t think too much about it because you can be sure my butt was at the gym for two hours after that appointment. Fortunately I ran into an instructor while I was trying out equipment I hadn’t worked with since the millennium. She was also a trainer; after I told her what happened she simply said “You look good; we all have to work on something. You know what you have to do to get in better shape; you just have to make up your mind to do it.” And she’s right. It’s mind over matter; it’s making a decision to do and be better. It’s giving it a shot instead of giving up. I could have gone home and eaten chocolate after my flabby diagnosis – but I worked out two hours instead – and then had chocolate – ok, baby steps.
At least it got me thinking – and writing again.