Posts tagged ‘motherhoood’
Say Goodbye to Mom Butt!
It’s amazing what growing a tiny human being inside for nine months can do to your body. While some changes can be positive, like the increase in breast size, most are unfortunately negative.
For those of you who have not yet experienced child-birth (from either end of the stirrups), things look a bit different after a woman “squeezes a watermelon through her nostril.” She will have much fuller lips than before, but in a very different way than Angelina Jolie. It will appear as though a spare tire was lodged underneath the skin of her midsection and her cute little rear end will be replaced with two flat hamhocks.
I remember talking to my mother one day, after having my little boy. I had lost most of the baby weight, by doing Winsor Pilates, but couldn’t figure out what had happened to my once perky and round behind. It vanished and left behind the infamous MOM BUTT.
“My butt is so flat”… I remember mentioning.
To which I didn’t get much of a response…which either indicates some type of agreement or a lack of a positive comment!
Keeping up with the Pilates definitely helped get my lady lumps near their pre-baby form, but they still showed remnants of motherhood. (wow, did I really just call them lady lumps?) No matter how many leg lifts or painful clams I did with Pilates, I couldn’t seem to get the sides to recede.
Pilates successfully eliminated my mom derriere, but I still wanted to get its 20-year-old shape back… if at all possible. So, in hopes of getting back some part of my youth, I ended up ordering my second infomercial workout, the Brazil Butt Lift
In an effort not to sound like one of the women in the commercial sharing her amazing success story, I will just say… This workout is a MUST HAVE for any single, married or divorced mother! (or any woman for that matter!)
It is a difficult workout, but worth every sore muscle…and you will find butt muscles you never knew you had after each workout! It kicks my a@# every time, literally. If I find myself wanting to stop, or perhaps cry at the burning sensation attacking my butt and thighs, I picture the ladies of SNL in their Mom Jeans. I can then block out the pain with visions of my new and improved mom butt in a skimpy swimsuit this summer!
Goodbye Mom Butt, Hello Brazilian Bum!
What Goes Around, Comes Around
Okay, so I have definitely heard the ol’ “What goes around comes around, “Karma’s a bitch” or “God will get you for that”….
I never really believed in all that…
until today.
This morning my son and I went to the lovely, high end retailer, that I have officially renamed Mal-Wart, in search of swimming goggles. For those of you that have not yet had the pleasure and experience of shopping at this fine establishment, as you walk in there is a McDonald’s on the left hand side, right inside the store. Lovely. How convenient.
In front of this fine eatery, sits a smiling Ronald McDonald, frozen in time, sitting on a park bench. My son decided to stop and say Hello to Ronald, as we passed by the automatic cart pusher – no thank you sir, I’m just buying one item. No really, I don’t need one, okaaaay thank you. Ronald must have picked up my disdain for him, as he later is at the very center of my karma lesson.
A half hour and $90 later, after finding the swimming goggles and unfortunately a few other items, we proceeded to the check out line to pay for our supposive great deals. Since I have been trying to give my son more independence and not require hand holding 24 hrs a day, he was walking just behind me, carrying the goggles he was so excited to use. As I put the basket on the black, moving conveyer belt, I turned around to instruct him to place his item there as well. Yet, to my surprise, there was no one there.
I glanced over at the stand in the middle of the aisle, also known as the magnet for kids and impulse buyers, expecting to see my son there engulfed in sugary sweets and little toys made in China… but nothing.
Now the panic started to settle in and the adrenaline began pumping into my veins. Where did he go? My head began quickly looking in every direction, probably with a frantic look on my face. I left my post and began searching the other aisles, all the while the panic and adrenaline increasing with each second.
Just as I was reaching my breaking point, I turned around to see my son standing there calmly!
“Hi Mommy”
I crouched down to his eye level and said while exhaling a big breath, “Do you know how I feel right now?”
His eyes widened and said shyly, “Noooo”
After telling him I was scared because I didn’t know where he was and thought I had lost him forever, he said, “I was just saying Hi to McDonald”
As we walked out of the store, it dawned on me…
I had done the same thing to my mother when I was his age.
During a shopping spree at the mall, I decided that I no longer wanted to shop with mom and look at jewelry. Instead, I wanted to go to the all important Hello Kitty Store. Since mom didn’t see the urgency in my request, I decided that I would go all by myself. I was a big girl. I didn’t need her. So off I went.
I actually remember walking through the mall looking at a bunch of items sitting in a glass case. At one point a sales clerk asked where my mommy was, to which I responded with, “Oh she’s just right over there.” Obviously not 100% the truth.
Apparently I was gone for an hour and a half. My mother eventually had to call in Mall Security, after frantically searching for me, the entire time carrying around my one and half year old brother in her arms.
As we walked out of the automatic doors at Mal-Wart, I put myself in my mom’s shoes and finally realized how scared and helpless she must have felt. I always knew it was a big deal to her, but was never really able to fully understand how she was feeling as a mother.
Okay, so my son wasn’t even missing for five minutes, let alone the hour and half of pure hell I put my mom through.. but it was enough to make me appreciate, understand and empathize with her.
I guess what goes around DOES come back around… but maybe there’s a reason why 
Hope I Can Fit Into Her Genes Someday
An Amazing Woman, in a Class of Her Own
Every year, around the first or second week of August, my family ventures from all areas of the West Coast, to celebrate the birthday of one amazing woman. This woman is a mother of two, Grandmother to seven, Great Grandmother to fourteen and Great, Great Grandmother to one -my son – and this year marks her birthday.
No doubt, there are many remarkable women in the world, but my Great Grandmother is definitely in a class of her own. This was the very first year that she couldn’t walk on her own from her room to the party and it was only a couple of years ago she started needing a cane. In her late 90′s, she would still walk two miles a day and would complain that her friends in their 80′s were too slow and a bother to walk with. Not only was she was the Head of the Computer Lab at her Community and send the family emails, but she also still enjoys her monthly glass of chardonnay at the homes’ Happy Hour. To top it all off, she holds a Guiness Book World Record for a woman her age throwing a frisbee 26 feet, 6 inches.
A Century of Memories
It boggles my mind to think about what my Great Grandmother has seen over the last Century. She saw the creation of the automobile, the Industrial Revolution, the (First) Great Depression, both World Wars, the Civil Rights Revolution and the beginnings of television, computers and cellphones. It amazes me to think that she was born before the Model T and she can send you an email telling you all about it.
Just like many years in the past, we all gather at her retirement community, where she still lives in her own apartment, to enjoy food, wine and great company under a big white tent.
This year, after lunch, each of us stood up and shared our favorite story or fondest memory of Grandma. As we all laughed, cried and showed our love, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Is that going to be me someday?”
73 years from now
I then started thinking, if I was the one sitting at the head table, turning 104, listening to my family share their favorite moments of my life, who would be sitting around me?
My son and his children
My son’s grandchildren and their children
I came to the following conclusion….
I could not even fathom the possibility! I have a problem picturing my son’s children, let alone his children’s children.
It would be very interesting to live that long, to see the world change around you and to be able to meet the members located at the far reaches of your Family Tree….
Although, a little advice my Great Grandmother shared with me two years ago, at her birthday party, will stick with me forever. She said,
“Anything over 85 is highly
over-rated..and I don’t suggest
it for anybody”
Eh, maybe she’s got something there… 
“Why Don’t You Like Fun?”
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