Muscle, muscle mom. I wanna be a muscle mom
So I didn’t go to Bachata. Again!
But this time I really do have a reason. I went to bed the previous evening and then had a hellish day with Roz. She’s currently going through a serious separation anxiety phase – at least I hope it’s only a phase, though I’m told it’ll get much worse before it gets any better – and I am on call twenty four seven now.
In the morning I can’t go to the bathroom as once I’m out of her line of sight, howling cries follow me to the bathroom and back. She won’t play unless someone is sitting next to her, and that somebody is me. She could be sitting playing quietly by herself and I go into the kitchen to get some water and the second she realizes I’m not there, cry, cry, cry. When Krys is home, she wants me to hold her while he makes faces or funny noises at her. At this stage, I’m really starting to look forward to going back to work and having some grown up company around me. Krys and I keep trying to think what evolutionary sense these behaviours have and at the moment, all we can come up with is that the cries grate on you so much that you’ll do anything to calm her own, so chalk that up. One point to baby, nil pointe to mama.
Last week I thought I was the only one who felt this way and that there must be something wrong with me. Maybe I needed my maternal instinct button rechecked or something. But Red said the same thing last Sunday. She said there is this one particular sound her son makes when he wants attention and it just makes her want to scream. She just picks him up and he plays with his toys while sitting in her lap, to keep her sanity. I actually hugged her I was that relieved.
It’s funny though the insecurities we tend to have. Red thought her son irritates her so much because she’s been back at work the last month and assumed that since she doesn’t spend so much time with him, she was getting out of tune with him. Amazingly, this is the first child she has ever been around and taken care of and I for one think she’s great at it. He sleeps, he eats, he’s big and healthy, what more could you want.
I digress, back to why I missed my bachata.
Last Tuesday, Roz and I had a date with Faye and Effie at nine thirty in the morning. In the ever endless quest of the female of the species to have great bodies, Faye had talked me into joining her for a fit-buggy class. It’s an exercise programme targeted at mums to encourage them to get fit with the baby. You take the baby in its buggy and you push the buggy up the slopes in the Phoenix park, with little stops for lunges and squats then a fast walk while pushing the buggy, around one of the sitting areas, then down a hill then lunges and squats, etcetera etcetera, you get the gist.
Anyhoo, we decided we’d walk there, do the thirty minute class, walk back and go for coffee in D&K as a treat. Roz and I were in the buggy and at the canal playground at 9:30 to meet Faye and so far, Roz was behaving. I had the sling wrap in the bottom of the buggy just in case she kicked off because I have never seen a child who hate her buggy more than she does. It took us a very fast paced forty minutes to get to the zoo in Phoenix Park and at that stage, Roz had had enough and was screeching like her hair was on fire. I told Faye to go on without me and sat down on a bench to feed Roz. Hooray for breastfeeding because if I’d had to prepare a bottle, that would have been it.
The second, and I really do mean the second I took that crazy child out of the buggy, she was silent. It’s as though someone had just turned the crying off. Sheesh! I put her back in,
“waaaaaaahhhhh!”
I took her out, silence.
Had I been watching this from a distance, it would have been hilarious
I’m sure people walking by were wondering why the tear stained, snot running down her face baby was grinning from ear to ear!
I gave her a quick feed, put her back into the buggy and avoided all eye contact with passing strangers as I hot footed it with a wailing child to the fit buggy point. I just barely made it to the class and boy, did the instructor make me feel like I needed it. Here was a woman decked out in the tightest tracksuit bottoms I’d ever seen and a trainer bra style top and she was so bloody fit!! She had her year old son in a buggy and was telling us how this program really worked for her and I thought (and pardon my French),
“Fuck! Not even in my wildest dreams do I have a hope of looking like that.”
Flat, muscled stomach, tight butt, cords of muscles in her upper arms; just looking at her made me want to take the bus home and sit on the couch weeping into a big bag of crisps.
We started with a warm up, at this stage, Roz had gotten curious and was looking at all the mums and babies. We walked very fast up one of the pedestrian lanes, up a steep slope and stopped to do some squats, Roz started whimpering and straining at her harness. Further up the slope and she started crying. I took her out and she was in my arms as we did a few lunges. Down the other side of the hill and she was bawling her head off. I had to stop and apologise that I’d have to leave the class, there was just no way she was going to stay calm. So there I stood morosely watching as the group took off. I put Roz in the sling and we walked into the city and got the first bus home.
I met Faye later in the day and she said boy was it a work out. The walk back home nearly killed her and Effie was crying for most of it. I don’t think I’ll go anymore because expecting Roz to keep silent or interested for close to two hours in her buggy is just laughable.
I woke up Wednesday morning and decided to go to the gym instead. I was still a bit sore from the walk to the fit buggy class but I had spent the night having a long hard think about getting my body back to shape. It wasn’t impossible. I’d just been gone so long from the gym that I felt defeated before I’d even begun.
Krys was on Roz duty in the morning so I had an hour. I was absolutely wrecked after it. Perhaps an hour was a big ambitious after a two month hiatus? But if you look at my tummy, you’d know why I’m dying to get back. It’s not horrific or anything, but I had promised myself that by the time I go back to work, everything will be tight, ya know?
But the treadmill, then the rowing machine then the cross trainer and then stretching…phew! I was wiped out.
It doesn’t help that I got home and showered, then back into Roz mode. She didn’t nap at all that day until half four in the afternoon. I was exhausted, she was exhausted…there was no way I would muster up the dancing mood. I lay down beside her to try and get her to sleep longer and by the time she woke up an hour later, I was hungry, tired (did I mention she had woken up every twenty minutes from five that morning all the way till eight?) and fit to cry. No way was I going dancing.
When Krys got home, he took one look at me and said,
“You have to go dancing”
Krys always tells me that the worst time to hole yourself in the house is when you’re down. He hates it when I hold a pity party for one. Apparently, he’s the only one allowed to hold those. I’m supposedly the ‘happy’ one. hello, has he met me before? queen of pity parties here! But I just couldn’t go. I wanted to stay home and simply go to sleep.
However, he has talked me into going next week, and I see that I have to. It’ll be too sad if I don’t. There’s salsa on Tuesday, bachata on Wednesday and rueda on Thursday. I’m spoilt for choice. Plus my boots deserve an outing!
Wish me luck.
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