Smiling Mom

Some­ti­mes being a teacher is just too much fun! (No the heart and bear are not attached.   And yes, I did for­get to put makeup on today…oy.

Once upon a time there was a girl who named her­self “Julia But­terfly.”  Julia But­terfly was a hip­pie living in Hum­boldt County around the same time my hus­band and I atten­ded Hum­boldt State Uni­ver­sity.  When she heard that her ancient friend, “Luna” was going to be chop­ped down, she was heart­bro­ken.  Julia But­terfly sta­ged a pro­test.  She began to live in “Luna” in an attempt to save this ancient friend.

Julia “But­terfly” Hill lived in her beau­ti­ful tree Luna for 738 days.  Even­tually a deal was cut (haha!) with the lum­ber com­pany and But­terfly vaca­ted her nest.

Jump for­ward to this sum­mer, 2008 when a stand off at CSU Ber­ke­ley with another pro­tes­ting cha­rac­ter hip­pie who deci­ded to take up resi­dence in a tree that CSU Ber­ke­ley was plan­ning to remove to make way for an ath­le­tic faci­lity. (hmm, sound familiar??)

Any­way, this pro­tes­ter, Amanda Tier­ney, dub­bed her­self, “Dumps­ter Muffin.”

Dumps­ter Muf­fin.  Um, OK?

She should have really taken her cue from her pre­de­ces­sor, Julia “But­terfly” and pic­ked a more beco­ming name.

But wha­te­ver.  Dumps­ter Muf­fin it was.

Ms. Muf­fin would become hys­te­ri­cal when anyone would approach her perch. She’d flap her arms and go into con­vul­sions threa­te­ning to martyr her­self for the cause.

Sadly, Dumps­ter and a few of her friends were even­tually star­ved out of her sweet tree and promptly escor­ted away from Berkeley’s campus.

Poor Dumps­ter Muffin…

Anyhoo, after vie­wing my recent video, many have asked why, oh why, our daughter’s sweet Straw­berry Short­cake doll has been named, “Dumps­ter Muffin.”

Well, it’s a copy­cat story, I’m afraid to say.  One day we came home and noti­ced Straw­berry was loo­king a bit hag­gard and was in need of a bath.

It appea­red to have been weeks, if not months, since the last time she’d bathed.

And her hair.  Y.U.C.K.  it was mat­ted mess.  My hus­band swears that if you look close enough you can see things moving around just below the surface…

As we were escor­ting Straw­berry to the washing machine her bath, we noti­ced a note attached to her back just bet­ween her shoul­ders.  It said, “Sur­face wash only.”

Fin­ding this horri­ble note was our final straw.  We were disap­poin­ted.  Straw­berry was not living up to our expectations.

Kno­wing that Straw­berry Short­cake would never be the doll we’d hoped she would, we decide do embrace her dir­ti­ness, Hepa­ti­tis C, lice, and all, and love her for the doll she aspi­red to be.

That very day, we built Straw­berry Short­cake a perch in the only tree we had and set her free.

Today Straw­berry “Dumps­ter Muf­fin” Short­cake can be seen sta­ging daily pro­tests when she doesn’t get what she wants.  Sadly for her, tan­trums in this house fall on deaf ears.

I’m fairly cer­tain that women were not the crea­tive genius behind many things.

Two that come to mind are the public bath­rooms and Turbo Kick Boxing.

I mean, seriously! Bath­rooms for women should always have more than 2 stalls and lots of space for wai­ting. Need I say any­more on this subject?

Didn’t think so.

Issue #2 Turbo Kick Boxing:

Well, I should cla­rify. It’s not that I don’t think a woman crea­ted this exer­cise class. Frankly I don’t know. I just don’t think that a woman who gave birth vagi­nally, and then nur­sed a child crea­ted Turbo Kick Boxing.

I came to this rea­li­za­tion on about minute 27 of my hour-long trial Turbo Kick Boxing class Thurs­day night. It came just as the cute perky thang, who was no older than 20, with rhythm to die for, shou­ted out a new combo of jumps, kicks, punches and jacks.

Jacks.

As in jum­ping jacks.

Twenty seven minu­tes into this wor­kout I, who has about as much rhythm as Elaine from Sein­feld, am trying des­pe­ra­tely to keep up with CPT (cute, perky thang) and falling short of the mark in oh so many ways.

Insert the jum­ping jacks.

I know jum­ping jacks! Now this is a combo I can do.

My con­fi­dence begins to grow. I’m fee­ling the anti­ci­pa­tion of suc­cess lea­ding up the the jack.…

Kick, Punch, Punch, annnnnd Jack.

Annnnd I pee.

Right there in the middle of class my musc­les fail me and oops! out comes pee.

Les­sons I lear­ned that night were many.

First. Do not do jum­ping jacks without wea­ring some sort of, ahem, pro­tec­tion down there.

Second. Nursed-out breasts flop, while doing kicks and jacks, no mater their size.

Third. Turbo Kick Boxing is a cruel, cruel joke pla­yed on post-birth/nursing moms.

Fourth. I have no rhythm. This les­son was lear­ned years ago, just rei­te­ra­ted Thursday.

Fifth. This form of exer­cise should really be rena­med Turbo Kick My A$$.

Sixth. I think I’ll stick to the ellip­ti­cal machine.

This was cross-posted at Sili­con Valley Moms Blog on Saturday.

A day or two ago I wrote a post regar­ding a collea­gue and something she said to me.

It’s a post which I’ve now remo­ved. I believe I offen­ded her with the words I used, and that I pos­ted about her in the first place.

She’s a per­son who has never been anything but great to me. She’s got a fan­tas­tic sense of humor and someone whom I really wan­ted to set up with my brother.

But I offen­ded her. And I feel bad.

It was sup­pose to be a post high­ligh­ting my inse­cu­ri­ties about my post-pregnancy body. Alas, it didn’t come across that way.

I lear­ned my les­son, and I’m sorry.