My little princess came home a week ago from school, bearing the breathless news of “MOM! You’ll never guess what I have in my. back.pack. AND I WANT TO DO IT!!!!!”

Well heck, with an intro like that, what mother is going to ignore it and pretend nothing is in the backpack? Probably a mom of children who bring home crazy WWE like flyers, or frogs, or the like. (though, I don’t mind frogs, but if we found them on a regular basis in the backpack, I wouldn’t jump to check it out after a while)

My child generally doesn’t do these things, and for the most part doesn’t care what’s being sent home in her backpack. I”m sure, once she’s older and a note from the teacher or the like starts coming home (we all know girls get into just as much trouble as boys), she’ll start caring. But for now, generally no big whoop.

But, with a breathless, screechy, OMGOSH YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS RIGHT NOW voice from the backseat…

It’s a thing for WRESTLING and mom I want to do it can I doitprettypleaseireallywanttoanditsoundssofun!!!!

So…we wrote the check and signed her up. This girl has energy to spare and just THRIVES in sports in general. (See: Basketball the last two years running)

Monday, I show up and hang out for the first day of after school wrestling, to make sure I”m not missing out on any important information for parents or anything. Nope, clean, simple program. It’s run by the high schoolers, with the head coach overseeing them, and it’s SO cute to see these big teenage boys wrangling about 50 grade schoolers in the small wrestling room.

It’s also cute to see those little kiddos pulling a half nelson on each other without mercy!

About halfway through, the coaches pull them all to the middle in a circle, and go over the rules. The rules of wrestling at M’s school are quite simple:

1. Take a knee and shut your mouth when your coach is talking
2. You are not allowed to say “can’t” in that room. If you do, you have to do push ups
3. HAVE FUN

That’s pretty much it – the kids respect each other and the coaches (ah, would that we all still had that respect for each other as adults), and it’s a happy, sweaty, loud room to be in during practice.

Yesterday, I worked a little later, M’s gramma picked her up from wrestling. This was the plan.

Picking her up early was NOT the plan. The coach called gramma a little after 4 (they start at 3:30) and said M was having a hard day, requested to be picked up, etc.

Ok fine…so when I get home, I chat with gramma, and find out that M said “can’t”, and thus started the downward slope of the day. I”m sure it was a combination of being embarassed that she had to do pushups, that she “got in trouble”, and that frustration of not being able to do something that was asked of her.

When I talked to her, she was begging not to go back, that she’s “used to going home after school” etc. I told her I understood, but she’s going to go back, that she simply had a bad day, and that’s OK. Everyone has bad days, you just give it another shot the next day. At this point, I think she realized that she won’t get away with just whining, and I will make her go back in there.

Matt and I have both talked to her about it doesn’t matter whether you can actually accomplish what your coaches are asking (highly unlikely on the 3rd day of wrestling), you simply need to TRY. That’s all we want, give it a shot, and have some fun. So, today she’s going back, and I’m headed over there after work to observe, and make sure she’s giving it a good shot today.

I’m also a little jealous, wrestling looks like FUN! It takes me back to middle school, the first time I encountered a wrestling room…where it was a gymnastics room if you’re a girl, a wrestling room if you were a boy. I was a bit bummed I couldn’t sign up for wrestling, but as I was taking gymnastics outside of school, I was looking at it as a chance to show off.

Gotta love 12 year old girls!

As I posted, I spent approximately an hour yesterday at the gym. Our gym has this cool “women only” area located off the women’s locker room…so very few people actually see you work out, etc.

For people who are self-conscious, like me, that’s important, and pretty much the only place I do my workout. It’s a lovely room, with two walls of windows, one of which faces a pretty garden they’ve planted next to the building. The other faces the parking lot, and for me offers lots of fun people-watching.

Yesterday was the epitome of such experiences for me.

I’m on the StairMaster thing (Brutal Mistress is the other name for it, I saw it next to the Enter key),

 kind of spacing out so I’m not focusing on my legs burning. I notice a movement outside, and focus on it. It’s a man I’ve been halfway watching, because he’s been dinking around at his car for the past few minutes. It’s a big SUV/truck thing, and he’s got the front door and the back door on the driver’s side open, and he keeps going back and forth between them, but doesn’t appear to be doing anything.

When his movement caught my eye, I looked over in time to see him drop his pants, take them off completely (I was treated to a little butt in man-undies there too), and put his jeans on. He’d obviously been working out, based on his clothing, and there’s changing rooms for men and women…so I can’t fathom why on earth the parking lot was his choice for changing.

Funnier than this? As his butt became pants-less, a mom and her two kids pulled into a parking spot about 5 spaces down from him. I kept watching back and forth, wondering when the you know what would hit the fan. But…they didn’t appear to notice.

I had my own, privately public, peep show at the gym.

And people wonder why the gym draws people in.

Today I have gym clothes AND shoes with me, have kicked butt at work to leave earlier than I thought I’d get to….there IS NO EXCUSE for me to skip the gym.

Here goes nothing.

UPDATE – I did it!! An hour at the gym and now I’m already feeling it in my hips tonight.

Saturday night, I was destined for a lovely date with my father to the Oregon Ballet Theatre’s performance of Mendelsson’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Saturday evening, I was gradually getting ready.

I curled my limp hair.

I put makeup on my blotchy face.

I attempted to style my limp, semi-curly hair. 5 times.

Bobby pins and hairspray rendered it somewhat acceptable, but in no way “DAMN GIRL” like I wanted.

I put on a cute 50’s style dress we found this winter.

I zipped it up. I had Matt zip it up. 5 full minutes, grunting and sweating later….it was zipped…and I was gasping for breath.

We acknowledged that little adventure was fun, and undid all that hard work with one unzip.

I didn’t have a backup outfit….so threw together some pants and a silk top.

Neither fit me well, but the top drapes enough to hide the muffin top from the uncomfortably too small pants.

What I would like to know is…WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?

Basically none of my clothes fit all of a sudden. And so…I am now on a mission. I happen to like the clothes I have, and I am NOT happy to be growing….and so action is about to be taken.

• Food – healthy and small portions. Lots of veggies and fruits, and color
• Activity – going to the gym daily, even if I have to pay to take M with me for an hour or two.
• Goal – be happy in my clothes again, and be happy with what I see in the mirror.

also? Hair – listen up…you better shape up. You used to be amazing and pretty much always did what I wanted…I don’t know why you’ve given up on life, but I haven’t given up on you, and I WILL kick your arse into gear. Get with the program.

I have a day job. Most days, it’s just a job, no big deal. But, today is Monday. In my opinion, Monday should ease us into the work week.

Today I was smacked in the face with a ton of bricks to start my week. Some guy calls in, gets my friend E, who is attempting to let him know she needs to transfer him to me. I am the only person who takes care of the issue he’s currently having. She puts him on hold just after shouting “I bet you a hundred dollars she WILL!” (Him having said “I bet you a HUNDRED DOLLARS she won’t pick up!!!”)

Gah! whatever this is, I don’t want it! But, she explains that he’s a big jerk, and that he needs help with XYZ issues. I get on the phone and don’t take his bait, not even when he’s all “WOW I got a person on the phone!” Yes, you did just before this too and you were an ass. No, I didn’t say that, I just bit my tongue really hard and asked how I coudl help.

Dude spent twenty minutes of my morning being a jerk and rude and not even ordering anythign from us. Due to him, I unofficially made myself a manager of my department, with my supervisor’s approval. I am now staring in the limpid eyes of Zoe the elephant and trying to remember that he’s just one person, I can’t let that ruin my day.

Lookit!

Isn’t she cccuuuuttteee???