The worst day ever in the history of days. Ever.

Parkie, the Park Rat, the Tiny One. My third-born maniac she-child. I love her. This kid is just so crazy and funny. And I have gone crazy enough that I think everything's funny these days, so we're a good pair.

If you dig back through the archives of this blog (Don't. Please. Lord only knows what sort of first time parent psychosis I splattered all over the universe in this blog's early days), you will certainly find posts where I fret about Phook's relatively modest language acquisition process. By which I mean she was totally normal, but on the back end of the normal range when it came to being able to say new sounds and then words. She ultimately never did a single thing outside the normal range, and currently speaks like a thesaurus. But at the time that she wasn't saying quite as many things as a huge random sample of her peers (by which I mean like 2 other kids I knew who had older siblings), I was losing a lot of sleep over it. Stupidhead me.

Parkie is the opposite of that. She's the kid who makes other people freak out about their own toddler's language development. Because she's 2.5 years old, and she says shit like this:

• "Actually, I'm not touching the breakable decoration. I'm just looking at it very carefully."
• "Mom, can you please move your forearm? I'd like to snuggle there. Thank you."
• "I would really like to have some lemonade or some tea. Or hot chocolate. But I do not want water, because it is boring."

She doesn't bust out stuff like this to a chorus of shock and awe. We're utterly used to it. She just speaks like this. Always. I have no real memories of a time when she didn't. She was certainly speaking in complex sentences by the time she was 18 months old.

It's really weird. When I stop and think about it, at least. It's really weird.

And funny. The thing it is most is funny. Because if you have a big vocabulary and the capacity to verbalize all the nonsense that flies through your two-year-old brain, you can slay the bastards. Which she does. I would say she is highly understandable to strangers in about 95% of her speech.

The only thing that lingered as a token of babyhood in her speech development was that for the longest time, she could not pronounce the 'S' sound on the front of most words, basically whenever the 'S' was followed by a consonant. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but in practice it was just about the funniest thing ever. Funny in an "I'm a parent, I think this sort of shit is funny" kind of way. Now I'm going to record some s-free Parkie statements for posterity. If you cannot understand my phonetic spelling, just add an 'S' sound to the front of the confusing word to figure out what she's actually saying.

• Mom, don't read me that one! That's a really kary tory.
• Holy mokes! That's a lot of no! Phook doesn't even have kool today!
• Hey, that's a pretty flower. Can I mell it? 
• Can I go to 4K? Can I ride the kool bus?
• Mom, I'm hungry. Can you please get me a nack?
• Are you really gonna bury me in that no bank, mom? 
• Dad, you're a tinky goat!
• Can I have another moothie? A trawberry one?
• Can I have a coop of ice cream?
• Will you wing me outside mom? I can get in the wing all by myself!
• Why is that bird called a wan? Why is that wan honkin' so loud?
• Hey, let's go down the lide!
• Why is Uncle Growler's real name Noot?

You get the idea. Truly (and I know this is just one of those things that is specific to me as the parent of the actual child in question), this has charmed me to no end over the last year or so. If you've encountered me in person in the last year, I've told you something charming my child said that included the absence of the 'S' sound. You know how with every kid there is just something they do that is so uniquely charming in the way they do it and you will forever remember that that was the cute thing they did? Well, for Parkie, it was the letter 'S.' Or lack thereof.

Do you know where this is going?

OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD....

Today, she woke up, and she could say the letter 'S.' Just like that. She said to me, "Hey mom, can I have a smoothie for breakfast?" Clear as a bell. I am not lying when I tell you that there are literally scores of people I know in real life whose death you could have announced to me, and I would have mourned their passing less. It is just so terrible.

The thing is, this Parkie has never been much in the way of being a baby. She did everything fast, like her siblings before her. Only in hyper-speed. I can't remember her acting like a baby in terms of temperament. No whining or clinging or fear. I see her with peers and she seems like a teenager in comparison. It's just so weird. But, she couldn't say that 'S.' So she was a baby.

I called Big K in hysterics. I demanded he hurry home and impregnate me. (In a chaste, hand-hug sort of way, Hode.) He declined. The thing is, I don't want another baby either. I don't. I've got shit to do and it doesn't include another pregnancy. What I want is for Parkie to stay little. I want her to be a perma-baby.

Today she busted out with that letter 'S' and reminded me that my wish will absolutely not be granted.

Of course I acted rationally and chose to soothe myself by sitting down at my computer to look at baby pictures of my children, weeping and gnashing my teeth all the while. I am really good at making good choices when it comes to stopping the runaway train of my emotions. By which I mean, of course, that I am not.

Woe, woe, woe.

I don't know what else to say. Except that this person, this baby, appears to be a little girl.

Oh how I love her.

Irrefutable evidence of mid-life crisis found in Wisconsin

Alternate titles considered for this post included the following:

• Do you know how many profile shots I had to take to get one that I would willingly post publicly?

• Would you stage an intervention if you knew that this person was also on day 5 of a 20-day tooth whitening regimen?

• While is is rare for a person to develop a streak of vanity in their mid-thirties, it in fact can and does happen.

• Of course I put in that earring just to take this picture. 

• Boy is it obnoxious to do your hair and make-up for the sole purpose of standing in your dining room and taking pictures of yourself. 

• After all that work, it's a shame you didn't think to change out of your sweatshirt.

• Why yes, that nude lipstick is inspired by Nicki Minaj. And I am really pissed I can't find the right shade. How does she get that super-matte look, and can a regular person pull it off?

• That. is. a. nose.

• Sometimes people get themselves into the weight room and make freak-like strength gains, and they want to tell this to passersby but it's just not cool to be that guy, so they put some streaks in their hair in a color not found in nature in the hopes of conveying that they want to be perceived as slightly cooler than your standard mom type, and hope it does the trick. They fail.

• There is possibly nothing in this world more annoying and presumptuous than an old, white, middle-class lady thinking she's taking something of a fashion risk when in actuality she's just kind of a tool.

And, my personal favorite:

• What? You didn't even notice the pink streaks in my hair and it's not that big of a deal? Okay. Good talk.

Also, I made a cobb salad, and it was a work of art:

Now that's something worth telling the world about. It was magically tasty. Credit goes, of course, to the bacon, with an honorable mention awarded to the gorgonzola.

I'm happy to bring you Friday, sponsored by the totally logical pairing of hair and salad.

Peace out, homies.

Another thing that is pissing me off

This is a touchy subject, so I probably shouldn't blog about it.

Ha.

I have had 2 experiences recently that have pissed me off with regard to the way we treat others here in 'merca.

The first was at the doctor's office recently. I had not yet established myself with a doctor here in my new town, and I had an acute thing. I called the office where my kids' new doctor is, and was able to get an appointment with a nurse practitioner that same day. I loved her. I really did. I won't bore you with the details of our conversation, but she was really great. Like, it was the most positive medical experience of my life. Except for this one thing. She was recommending I establish myself with an Internal Medicine doctor as my primary care provider, and I asked her for recommendations for particular doctors in her system. And she gave me the names of her favorites. And then she recommended two more doctors, but warned me that they spoke very heavily accented English. So if that was a problem for me, I should steer clear. She said this with no self-consciousness whatsoever. I told her I was fine with accents and moved on.

The second experience was when I had this sales lady in my house recently who was trying to get me to switch from cable to AT&T U-verse. Since our cable sucked so terribly bad, I was buying what she was selling. So she's at my kitchen table, and we have to call into some call center to set some shit up, and she says, "If we get someone with an Indian accent, we'll just hang up and call back." She said this with no self-consciousness whatsoever. I told her I was fine with accents and moved on.

But these were creeper experiences. In the sense that in the moment, I was shocked but not acutely enraged, but as time went on and I ruminated about them, my feelings crept up on me and I became more and more enraged. I've been thinking about this steadily for 3 weeks now, getting progressively angrier and more ashamed as time has gone on.

Why does this not count as racism, at least in these people's minds? They would certainly never say, "Well, that doctor is black, so if that's a problem for you, you should find someone else." Why do people not see this as discrimination, and, well, fucking awful? Why do Americans always have some group that it is "okay" to hate?

I have seen several posts on facebook from people that say things like, "Press 1 for English. Press 2 to go back to wherever you came from. Press 3 to learn English, because that's what we speak in America." Or something like that. I officially want to murder anyone who propagates this kind of shit. Consider yourself warned.

I don't know a damned thing about race relations from a scholarly perspective. I don't know elegant solutions for solving problems of discrimination. I just know this shit is wrong and it pisses me off.

Now I know the counter-argument here, which I assume people would feel particularly justified in making in the context of their healthcare, which is that if they have a hard time understanding their provider, there can be errors and misunderstanding in terms of serious medical shit. I get the point you're driving at, but, well, I still think it's bogus. It can be challenging and incredibly brain-intensive to speak with someone with a heavy accent, but I guess I just think it can be overcome. If you hear the accent and automatically put your brain into "I can't understand this person and therefore I am done listening" mode, well, you're screwed. But if you hear the accent, know you have to try a little harder to understand, and then focus on what the person is saying, well, hell, they are SPEAKING ENGLISH, which is your native tongue. It can be done. If we try.

The vast majority of us who call ourselves Americans are some mutt-ass combination of immigrants, myself included. As such, some of our ancestors came here at some point and were, more than likely, the victims of discrimination. Each new wave of immigrants got kicked in the teeth by the wave of immigrants who came before them who got kicked in the teeth by the wave of immigrants who came before them. When viewed in that context, no one I know personally has any greater claim to being a "real American" than a doctor from Bangladesh.

So can we stop being dicks about this? Having an accent does not mean someone doesn't belong here. It doesn't mean they're not smart. It doesn't mean they're undeserving of our respect or our business or our trust.

I am not any great example of perfect racial sensitivity.

But seriously, people, we need to do better. It is a demographically bad bet to think that "white" people are going to remain the majority in this nation and to think that if we are big enough jerks to people with accents, they'll somehow go away.

Nope. We need to suck it up and slow down and not bristle as soon as we hear an accent and actually try, um, listening. And if we can't understand something someone says to us, politely and with kindness ask them to repeat themselves. And I'd go so far as to even apologize for our own inability to understand our native tongue when it spoken by someone who doesn't look like our mom. Because I'm telling you, there was a time when someone couldn't understand your ancestor's accent. Right here in America. The country that you think is yours and doesn't belong to accented English speakers now.

Ugh. Seriously. It is not okay. It pisses me off when people in America gain a position of perceived ownership and security and then decide to be dicks to people who they perceive to not have this position. It is a fairly misguided position for a bunch of mutt-ass immigrants to take, don't you think?

So, yeah, this has been pissing me off. I really wish I would have had the wherewithal to say something biting in those two contexts when I recently had the opportunity to challenge that discrimination. But I've thought it through and the next time this happens I will be ready with a remark that makes it clear that I view that kind of casual statement as really shitty shit. It just is not okay. America is YOUR home only because someone with an accent once decided to make it THEIR home. I hereby encourage my fellow Americans to remember that.

Some friendly observations

I believe I have mentioned previously on this blog that I enjoy people watching. And by "enjoy people watching," I actually mean, "I am a total creeper." My sister knows this about me and calls me out on it constantly. We'll be out to dinner somewhere and I'll have trouble focusing on the conversation I'm having with her because I'm so busy staring at other people and eavesdropping on them. And she's all like, "Hode. You're doing it again."

Whatevs.

I don't know. I just really love observing the human race.

Mostly, I hate people. Like I am staring slack-jawed at people thinking either a) "You are dumb." or b) "I actually want to kill you."

I know, I know. It's terrible.

I can also be moved to tears by things I witness amongst my fellow humans, but it's just statistically a lot less likely.

The Phook has Spring Break this week, and today I endeavored to take my small people to the Children's Museum. (We got a membership for Christmas from Big K's mom. Bomb shack, that.) Although our local public school system had off last week, several private schools other than Phook's must have also had off this week. Or neighboring districts. Or a homeschooling convention is in town. Or something. Because that place was teeming with tiny people and the breeders who spawned them in a way you don't normally see on a Tuesday morning.

Do you know where I'm going with this post? 

I hope so.

Because I'm telegraphing this shit. Hell, I'm sending up flares.

Yup, we're going to Judgment Town.

Dude, I hate other parents.

Not all of them of course. Not you. But just so very many of them. I hate other parents so much I even hate former versions of my parenting self. I probably will never re-read the archives from the early years of this blog, because I'll hate my early parenting self. And another 10 years into the future, I'll probably hate the current version of my parenting self.

But today, today I hate everyone else. I of course do also hate other people's children (not yours, of course), but today I'm going to focus on the parents. Because I hate parents more.

Some brief notes on the subject:

1) To the dear lady with the super-spendy digital SLR camera, I would like to say, "You are a stupidy-stupid-stupid pants." It's not that you were rocking the SLR like your child was the only kid in the Children's Museum. That's basically fine. It's that you were attempting to take extreme close-up shots of your little gem AT THE WATER PLAY TABLE, and essentially growling at the other children who were PLAYING IN THE WATER NEAR YOUR CAMERA. There is a time and a place for really nice photos of your kids taken with high-end equipment. It is NOT at the water table in a PACKED Children's Museum. It is just not. Either commit the precious moment to memory or bring one of those indestructible waterproof cameras.

2) To the mom with a lone 14-month-old child, I would like to say, "Stop carrying luggage everywhere you go." Seriously lady, that "diaper bag" would not fit in an overhead bin on a commercial aircraft. You are knocking over toddlers everywhere as you swing it around and you don't even know it. I know that shit (yes, actual shit) can explode really quickly and really forcefully with a kid that age, and I'm a big fan of preparedness. But that level of preparedness is over the line. You have options. 1) Use a locker, if you really feel you need that much gear onsite. 2) Put an extra outfit in the car, and bring in a little bag with the absolute essentials in it. 3) Know that you will still someday be covered in your tiny human's bodily fluids in an unfathomable way regardless of whatever the hell you have in that bag. Do yourself (and your back) a favor now and figure out how to travel light. I used to be a version of this parent. Now I travel with one of those little flat Kleenex travel packs in my jeans pocket with some emergency supplies in my car. And I am a much happier woman for it. If your kids can see that you are not toting a buffet of snacks and amusements, they learn to be moderately pleasantly deprived at all times. As soon as your kids are old enough to pull this off, fucking do it. Make them know that you do not have a waffle iron in one pocket and a jug of syrup in the other. Your back will thank you. (And, um, if your kid has special needs and that bag was full of lifesaving equipment that I can't even begin to comprehend, well, I'm really sorry for being an insensitive fuck.)

3) To the she-beast mom who snarled at Phook, "There's another chair over there" when she asked with EXCEPTIONAL politeness if she could please move her family's coats to take a seat in the art area, I WILL KILL YOU WITH FIRE. No, really, I will. I will grab you by the back of the skull and I will crush your cranium like it is an overripe melon. I actually sat helping Bigs and Parkie paint while visualizing your gray matter splattered over pavement for no less than 9 minutes after you did this. Really, I did. I'm kind of still visualizing it actually. My kid was really nice and really polite to you and you spoke to her with catty dismissal. YOU CANNOT DO THAT. That is MY PHOOK and I will attack you like a lionness if I have to. Just don't talk to my kid like that. Just don't. Save your frontal lobe from my wrath.

(I'm going to stop here to acknowledge that I have some rage issues. When I am mad, my first instinct is to respond with physical violence. I hereby acknowledge that this is not a desirable trait. Rest assured, I haven't thrown anything at my husband in at least 18 months. Which is probably a personal record.)

4) To all moms everywhere, myself included, I would like to say, "Ladies, maybe it is time to recognize that scarves are not the holy grail." Hell, I like a scarf. I like to put on a shitty outfit and then add a scarf and think to myself, "There. Now I do not look shitty. For I am wearing a scarf." I mean, there's obviously a lot of merit to the argument that a sharp little scarfy-scarf livens up an outfit and gives the standard mom gear a mild air of still giving a shit about one's appearance. And I know a lot of ladies who can seriously rock a scarf. But once we're all doing it, maybe it is time to move on to a new enhancer of personal style??? This becomes glaringly obvious when one is in a Children's Museum teeming with moms who are almost universally wearing scarves. I don't know. It's just an idea.

5) To all the people who have had the privilege of naming someone in the past 8 years or so, I would like to say, "You are really funny." I will not name names here (quite literally, of course) because of course some of your kids have these names, and I do not mean to insult an individual child or parent's taste in names. I seriously consider the act of naming to be a huge privilege and responsibility. But there is something about the current trend of child-naming that I find utterly hilarious. (I so want to name names.) There's this weird old school/new school thing happening and also this leaning toward what I consider to be pretentious-sounding names that, when applied to an individual child, is not especially problematic or hilarious. But when you hear them all being chorused about in a kid-centric context as each mother warbles after her young, you kind of want to lie down on the floor and scream-laugh at what we are naming this generation of children. At least if you're a really mean-spirited jerk like me that's what you want to do. If I had had my way, Bigs would be named Thatcher. So I'm not exempt. But Big K shut me down on that shit.

6) To new parents I would like to say, "I am officially not one of you anymore." I have been noticing this with increasing regularity lately as I overhear (okay, eavesdrop on) other people's conversations. New parents have this thing where they just frickin' perseverate on the dumbest shit. Endlessly. My favorite form of this is when I hear new parents perseverating on their kid's socialization. When the kid is six months old. You know what a 6-month-old needs to socialize with? His/her mom's boob. (Or the rough equivalent.) Seriously. That's it. The only relationship a 6-month-old needs is the chance to attach with his/her parents. And yet, there they are. All the new moms losing their shit in public about how worried they are about their infant's socialization because they're planning to be a stay at home mom and someone has told them that their kid won't be as much of an expert socializer as the kid who goes to daycare. So they're already panicking about this. Do you know what I say to you, lady? My two-year-old kid who I have been stay-at-home-moming for her entire life dove out of her seat at a restaurant today to scream at the server (a total stranger), "Hey, guy! You know what? I have a RACCOON HAT!!!!!" And then proceeded to put on her raccoon hat for him. Your kid will be fine. If you're not a weirdo, your kid won't be a weirdo. I mean, they'll be a weirdo in their own little weirdo way in which every kid is a weirdo, but they won't be a weirdo weirdo. So settle down. Now that little example illustrates to me that I am no longer in the camp of "new parent." I just don't give a shit about, well, pretty much anything anymore. I mean, of course I give a shit about all the real stuff. I have just figured out what the real stuff is. And it is decidedly not a) your kid's fixation on dinosaurs 2) your kid's access to violin lessons at age 2 or d) your kid's unwillingness to wear anything other than the color green at age 4. Also, when I'm at a park/playground/outing/event with another mom and her kids, I no longer spend the entire time talking about kid-related stuff. In fact, I try to talk about all other topics known to man as much as possible. Oh sure, I of course shoot the shit about kid stuff, but my closest friends and I at this point tend to talk about politics and pop culture and our extended families and the larger issues of family life. And also the concept of being a mom, in a non-kid-centric way. If that makes any sense. A more selfish version of mom talk, I guess, where it's about ways to balance your non-mom self with your mom-self. And not so much about sneaking vegetables into brownies. (Ain't nobody got time for that. Just eat the vegetable. Or go to bed. Boom.) I can't read the early years of this blog because I can't bear to relive this version of me. We all have to be that parent when we start out on this journey. Because we're scared shitless. So we perseverate on pointless shit that we think we can control or should at least attempt to control when really we should be more confident in ourselves because we just GAVE BIRTH TO A HUMAN BEING and we are awesome. But it takes awhile to figure that out.

And now that I have thrown the better part of humanity under the bus for nothing much more than my infernal desire to scratch a judgmental itch, I'd like to give props to the following patrons of the museum:

1) Freakishly naturally beautiful mom in the Brewers t-shirt. I love you and your style.

2) Mom who was seriously pumped when her kid was coming down the treehouse slide. You were cute. Seriously.

3) Grandma lady with pink and yellow extensions in your hair. I love you.

4) 4-year-old girl wearing a scarf a la mom. It looked good on you. Totally new material for the pre-K crowd. Work it.

And that about wraps it up. And that's all for today's installment of Judgy McJudgerson's random musings.

Pelican

We drove to Florida. We met my BFF and her family there. We went to the beach, the park, and the zoo. I made approximately 60 sandwiches. And it was delightful.

 

 

Also. This is true:

 

Also. I am a pelican trapped in a big lady's body. Or I was a pelican and now I am a big lady. Or I am a big lady and some day I'll be a pelican.

I'm not sure which of those is accurate, but it's one of them. Decidedly feeling very blessed to have taken a trip to my natural habitat.

Fit and Fat: Part Deux

A couple three years ago, I went on a fitness bender with Hode. It was really pretty great. I felt great. I don't know if I looked great, but I felt like I looked great. Which is all that matters. And then like 12 minutes later, I found myself preggers with Parkie and I was gagging in the weight room from something other than exertion, and I bowed out of our little fitness regimen. And then I had a baby. And then I had 3 kids and I was really exhausted for a number of years.

So I've spent the past couple years in a state of relative fitness malaise. I mean, I have always kept active. How could I not have kept active, chasing these little manimals around? I walked my dog a lot. I played in a volleyball league. And a softball league. Once in awhile I'd have a flirtation with a fitness DVD. But I have not purposefully worked on my fitness in a focused way for 3 years. I went through a period of feeling very taxed and as if it was very important to be gentle to myself physically. And it was right and good.

You know where this is going, right? That really obnoxious post where some asshole talks about how they've been going to the gym regularly for like 10 minutes and now they're amazing. Bingo, buddies, bingo. God I hate reading/hearing people talk about their fitness. Truly, there is nothing more annoying in the world to me than the musings of fit people. Except possibly my inability to purchase cute shoes in a size 13. And Republicans. Also Republicans. (Except for you crazy Republicans out there that I actually like, of course.)

Anyhow.

'Round about the end of December, I investigated a local fitness facility. A real neat one. Lots of fun for the whole family, a big pool, and childcare. And after I found myself a discounted rate and discovered that Big K's work has a (relatively lame) fitness reimbursement program, it's costing me $25/month. For the 5 of us. Okay, friends, 5 people can barely drive to the local convenience store and get a popsicle for that much money, so I considered it a valid expense for a month's worth of fitness and swimming and classes and arts & crafts time for 5 fuggin' humans.

I have gone to that place and exerted my carcass essentially every day since we joined that clown show. Sometimes twice. Yes, twice.

The list of crap that sucks about me is long and audacious. One thing that does not suck about me is my ability to motivate when I decide I am doing something. I am really, really good at that. If I could bottle that shit and sell it to all you procrastinators out there, well, I wouldn't be so pumped about the $15 monthly reimbursement from Big K's employer.

I have been getting up at the godawful hour of 5:30 a.m. Now. Let me be clear. I am NOT A MORNING PERSON. Mornings are my nemesis. I do not do mornings. Ugh, bad, hate. Mornings. Ugh. Mornings. Ugh. But I have been waking up IN THE MORNING. And then I go to the gym and bust it for an hour or so. I do this because I do not want to cough up the $2/hr/child fee for childcare there, although I have taken advantage of it a handful of times. But when my ship comes in, I will absolutely have my young in the care of 19-year-old deadbeats while I engage in lengthy yoga sessions followed by refreshing swims followed by really long, hot, silent showers. But for now, it's a few bucks I can save, so I'm saving it. Which means I am getting up at the buttcrack of dawn. In the morning.

I like going there. A whole heck of a lot. I do all sorts of shit. I do strength training. I run. I do water aerobics. I do TRX Suspension Training (#hell). I do the elliptical. I screw around with an exercise ball until my core feels like I've been laying over a fire pit. I frolic around an indoor track. I stretch my absurdly perma-cramped calves. I work on my shitty balance. It's not quite as scattershot as all that makes it sound, but I do a lot of shit and I go really hard. When I am running, I sometimes get close to breaking into actual tears and I feel very much like this, but when I hop off that treadmill, I feel very much like this. So I keep doing it.

Yeah. It's fascinating. It really is. It's amazing how good it feels to feel strong and confident. (Please note I did not say "skinny and pretty.") I am by no means a natural runner...it's pretty much the hardest thing on earth for me and I am terribly slow and it is terribly painful for me. But I am naturally able to get really strong really quickly. I cannot explain my delight at doing something absurd on a weightlifting machine, walking away, and then watching the eyes bug out of the head of the dude who follows me on the machine. And then mutter under his breath and drop the weight down a single cursory peg because he has to or else his little man business will shrivel up right then and there while the freakishly strong chick watches.

One day I came home and whined to Big K and said, "It is just SO HARD for me to run." And he looked at me and said, "It is just SO HARD for runners to get anywhere near as strong as you are." I fell in love with that bastard all over again right there. And one day, I was showing him my big-ass biceps and I said, "They're getting pretty big, right?" And he nodded in agreement and said, "Yes they are." And I said, "For a girl." And he said, "I didn't add that qualifier." Swoon. Yes, that's right. My version of romance is having my husband tell me I have pipes like a dude. And given that his version of the ideal female body is Serena Williams, things aren't going too badly for him either.

So, yeah. I am making some gains. I am feeling really healthy and positive. And Big K is working out too. Last night he came home bitching because it takes him so long to round up enough plates to leg press 840 pounds. Sets of 840 pounds, that is. And the other day, I watched the man bench press 400 pounds. It was like something out of a comic book. There were like weird veins and muscles and strange colors not normally seen on the human body and a lot of animal-like sounds. It was really weird. I enjoyed it.

I think we should probably try to find some sort of obscure circuit for husband and wife weightlifting teams. Because we'd be killin' that shit. The K's are animals.

Speaking of being an animal, I also love how fitness is just another realm where I can engage in my favorite pastime of casual anthropological/sociological study of humankind. I won't go into it too much because I've got plenty of thoughts on this for a separate post, but man is it fascinating to watch humans in a gym. We are total animals. (WARNING: THE REMAINDER OF THIS PARAGRAPH IS DISGUSTING. SKIP IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE A PART OF THAT.) One day I was killing myself on the treadmill and I was fighting off one of my children's sundry viruses, and I felt slime start to run down the back of my throat. And it took every ounce of my social norm-ing and composure to not just spit on the floor of the gym. To be clear, I am not a gross person. I do not do gross stuff as a matter of course. I'm not even very good at sweating. But in that moment of dying on that treadmill with slime in my throat, I was primal. I was absolutely willing to spit slime on the floor in front of people. At the risk of sounding like a real crazy bitch, I love that feeling.

So, yup. Fitness is happening. The K's are into it. I am scaring dudes at the gym. I also accidentally scared my sister. I showed her what is happening to my arms and her eyes bugged out of her head and she said, "Jesus, Rosie the Riveter, I'm scared of you. What the hell are you DOING?" That shit straight up made my day.

And now I come to the Q&A portion of this post. By which I mean that I will write some Q's, and hopefully you will provide me with some A's.

Q: I am struggling with hunger during this time of absurd muscle growth. And by struggling with hunger, I mean I am eating a granola bar before I work out, 2 eggs with toast and a cup of green tea after I work out, and within 90 minutes I could very easily tear through a 3-meat platter from a southern barbeque joint without coming up for air. Please advise me on your fave meals/snacks for satisfying a hungry animal. Don't just say "protein." I got the memo on that already. Tell me what you actually eat. Please. And then I will take what you say and multiply it by two. Because I am a dude.

Q: I need a fitness-facilitating swimsuit. I need to be able to do water aerobics (by which I mean bounce a lot) and lap swimming in it. I already bought and returned this one because the torso was significantly too short for me. My requirements are: 1) mega-long torso 2) mega-supportive bra 3) does not slip around or do anything weird while in motion. Bonus points if it minimizes an ample mid-section, but frankly I don't give too much of a shit about that in this context. Also, is there such a thing as a fitness tankini that actually stays fully in place, or do you have to wear a one-piece for water-related fitness?

Q: If you have any hot tips for people who suck at running but insist on chipping away at it anyhow, please advise. I have followed a personal/running blog written by a doctor for years, and her advice basically boils down to: Go really slow. Do not run 2 days in a row. Go really slow. So I'm following that. But any other thoughts would be appreciated. For the record and if it matters, I have a harder time with my legs feeling like they are going to explode than my lungs feeling like they are going to explode. I have done a pretty good job of building up my cardio on the elliptical...it's just the damned IMPACT of running that kills this big momma.

Q: Bras. I have one a lot like this and I love it. I only have one though, which is obviously inadequate. I'm washing that thing so much it won't last long at this rate. I am willing to purchase another one from this company but if your life has been changed by a particular sports bra, please advise. Suffice it to say that sports bras are much more than a formality for me. If you are a B-cup, God bless you and your highly charmed breast-related existence, but your advice will not be helpful to an individual such as myself on this matter.

And that is all for now. I have to go down a milkshake made out of egg whites and dead hobos before I faint.

Well, that was a useful exercise

I did my job interview last Monday. It went really well. I was interviewed by 5 women simultaneously. I was utterly calm the whole day leading up to it until I opened the door. Then I had a momentary burst of panic and sort of fumbled my first answer. Then I entered a zone and I (think) did really well with the rest of the interview. I asked a TON of questions, focusing primarily on work/life balance issues, and the answers I got reassured me that I would probably actually have a decent chance of pulling off the job and still parenting in a meaningful way. I thought it was a good job I'd really like to do, and that I could do good work there.

When I left, I was hyper and adrenaline-crazed for about half an hour from the feedback loop of the interview. And then I descended pretty rapidly into a very dark mood. Fortunately/unfortunately I had friends here for a long-planned family date, so I had to get my head out of my ass relatively quickly.

Upon further review of my emotions, the emotions I have been reviewing with a microscope for weeks, I came to the inescapable conclusion that the dark mood was tied almost exclusively to the thought of going back to work. In my gut, in my core, in my soul...I can't.I just can't.

For me, financial stress is hard. Going crazy by 4 p.m. because my children have driven me to the brink of insanity is hard. But leaving them with someone else for 50 hours a week is my version of torture. On the menu of hard, that's the one that for me is intolerable.

Over the past few weeks, whenever I really let myself imagine dropping them off somewhere and going to work, I cried. Giant, body-wracking sobs.

It turns out that when push comes to shove, I am willing to live on the edge financially and pull my hair out with frustration and burnout. I am not willing to give up this time with these kids.

And that's that.

I haven't heard back yet on the job. They told me I'd hear back either way in "about a week." Today is day 8. Either they're not going to offer me the job and have decided not to give me the courtesy reject call, or they're wrangling their way through a background/reference check on me. It doesn't matter of course, but I am curious, I admit.

On the whole, I am grateful for having put myself through this. It was really good to look at choices, examine where we are and what we've done, and to reaffirm that right now this remains the right path for our family, even though it's dicey. Big K, for his part, has been a rockstar through this. He is fully supportive, says the choice is mine, and has talked about various considerations on both sides of this coin with me for countless hours, never pushing me in one direction or the other. I love that guy. And, even though this makes me some sort of fossil from an archeological dig, I like taking care of him. Not just the kids, but him too. His job is precisely the sort of gig that kills people from massive heart attacks when they're 42, and he gives it everything he has. Handing him a cup of coffee when he walks out the door in the morning is such a little thing, but sometimes it feels like everything. Because I love him and I respect him and he loves me and respects me and even if it looks like 1950 in here sometimes, this is harmonious for both of us. Rest assured, I am not changing into a fresh house dress and touching up my lipstick right before he comes home from work (I can typically communicate only in growls by the time he finally gets home), but our roles work for us nonetheless. I am instrinsically motivated. He is extrinsically motivated. We are both in our element in this life.

So the remainder of 2013 will be hard, for a lot of reasons. For the reasons that sent me on this journey in the first place. Having put myself through these paces has reminded me that even though it is hard, it is good.

And spring is coming. Spring is coming.