Sometimes I feel like I should wash my mother's mouth out with soap. Family lore tells of a time that she actually did this to the eldest sister, many years ago, but she never did it to me. I don't know what the eldest sister said to deserve the soaping, but since she was the eldest the parents experimented on her, I suppose. Since I was the youngest, I was spared most of the time, punishments having been tried and proven ineffective. Or, the parents were just tired by the time they got to me. In any case, it started out with my mother saying "crap" a lot, but it has progressed to the point where she occasionally drops the F bomb. "No way!" you say. "I know your mom. She's so sweet. She would never say that!" Ha! Yes she would. She's at that age now where she says whatever she damn well pleases most of the time. You know, no filter. It can get pretty darn amusing.
I was going to post for Mother's Day. I really was. It's been awhile since I posted and I was thinking that Mother's Day would be an excellent reason to get writing again, since I have been very, very lazy. Or very, very busy. Or a combination of the two. This is the same reason that the flower bed in front of my house is not weeded. That, and the fact that there is often a cat sitting on me, and then I can't get up to weed. Or the weather is bad. I can find some pretty good excuses. This weekend I had the intention of writing a post and weeding the flower bed. If you're reading this, you'll know I achieved one out of two.
Anyway, I went to a Zumba class last Saturday morning before Mother's Day. I had just started Zumba again. I have a bad knee and since the fibro's been leaving me alone (mostly) I've finally been feeling energetic enough to take a more strenuous class than tai chi. I'd taken Zumba classes before, a couple of years ago, through the town's recreation department. All their rec classes are held in the cafetorium of one of the local elementary schools. I'll tell you what a cafetorium is because chances are you will not find that word in a dictionary. It's a hybrid of cafeteria and auditorium, a room with lunch tables that fold away and a stage up front. So there's a big empty space where you could set up chairs for a chorus concert and watch fourth graders sing their hearts out. Or, you could set up the tables and eat lunch. You could even eat lunch while you're watching the fourth graders. Or, you could hold Zumba classes for a bunch of mostly middle-aged women. Any of those things are possible. It's a very versatile room. I'm not sure why they hold the classes there and not in the gym, because the gym is actually, you know, a gym. Like where people get sweaty. And so then the kids have to eat lunch in the cafetorium the next day, post-Zumba. But who am I to judge? One of the benefits of the cafetorium is that there are no mirrors on the walls, so I never had to see myself doing Zumba. Not a bad thing.
The new class I'm going to is held at the club I recently joined, the one where I take tai chi classes early Sunday mornings. They, in fact, do have mirrors in the exercise studio, but it turns out that I don't look half bad while I'm doing Zumba, which is a pleasant surprise. There are also about a million and a half small children at this club, because they have a lap pool where they give swim classes. I take my aqua tai chi class in that pool. I do not think about the number of small children frequenting the pool because then I would not take my class.
So, on Saturday I was at Zumba, and I started thinking about Mother's Day. In the locker room, I was watching all of the moms with their kids getting ready for swim class, baby carriers with sleeping infants pushed to the side while the moms attempted to stuff their toddlers into swimsuits, while one of the pair performed a monologue. The kid monologues were pretty amusing. The mom monologues were slightly annoying. I can only take mommy-ease for so long these days. I tried to imagine how the rest of the day would progress for them, the ones with the strollers and bags full of stuff, but then I got too tired thinking about it. I haven't completely blocked what it was like back then, putting everything together in the diaper bag, trying not to forget the baggie full of favorite snacks that sometimes are left on the counter. Don't forget the extra wipes, the sets of clothes, the bagel strap. I don't think it was really meant to be a bagel strap. It was a shoelace-type thing that snapped onto the bar of the stroller and then had a snap on the other end too so you could put it around a toy. Or a bagel. For teething. A frozen bagel. Frozen bagels are the way to go. The bagel would eventually fall off the strap, but it would generally be after the thing thawed anyway. And hopefully the kid would be asleep by that time and wouldn't realize that the bagel had disappeared. And the pigeons would get a treat. But, I must say that it's been quite some time since I've had to pack the equivalent of a carry-on just to go out for the day. I've forgotten all those details, those necessary items, those adventures that begin just by walking out the door.
Both of my kids were going out that Saturday. The boy child was heading off with my eldest child (aka the husband) to the city for fencing class. They wouldn't be home until evening, and neither would the girl child. She was spending the day at the boyfriend's sister's First Holy Communion party, and then his parents had custody of the pair for the rest of the evening. I was alone, a state I long for and dread at the same time. I never quite know what the heck to do with the remote when I have it. I need to shop for clothing, but when I do that, I'm not sure how to shop for me. It's a dilemma. I need a dress to wear to a Bar Mitzvah. I need some strappy silver shoes. I don't generally like to shop for myself because nothing fits the way it should. Fitting room mirrors intimidate me. If I go shopping by myself, I don't focus. Well, I do focus, but I usually wind up focusing on things for the boy child or the girl child. But I can't bring the girl child with me for company, because if I go shopping with the girl child, we wind up shopping for . . . the girl child. Even if we're supposed to be shopping for me. Because the world revolves around the girl child and the boy child. Well, at least the girl child thinks it does. Revolve around her. Not the boy child.
I ask my mom to come shopping with me. My mom still likes to shop with me. Well, at least she sort of does; she can't really do the mall like she used to. She gets tired. But then again, so do I. So I keep the number of stores to shop in to a minimum. Two department stores are about all we both can take these days. I like shopping with my mom. We bond. This is nice. It reminds me of when I was a young teen and she took me shopping. In a bad way and a good way. We pick out a whole bunch of things to try on, but only a few fit. Now I am too big. Then I was too small. We find a couple of things that fit and she says she'll buy them for me. It will be my mother's day gift from her. See why I like shopping with her better than shopping with the girl child? Because with my mom, the world revolves around me. Well, at least I think it does.
I actually like shopping with both the boy child and the girl child. I like finding them things that fit, things that they need. This is nice. We pick out a whole bunch of things to try on, but only a few fit. Sometimes she is too big. Sometimes he is too small. That's the bad part. But we get to bond. We are on a quest to find the perfect pair of Vans, or the perfect flannel shirt. Or the perfect dress. Once, a few years ago, the girl child went to the Bat Mitzvah of a family friend, and heard the girls behind her making fun of her outfit in temple. She was in tears at the luncheon, and we still had the evening party to attend. As we left the temple, I promised her that I would take her to the mall and buy her the hottest dress (within reason, of course) we could find. And I did. A tasteful black one-shoulder fitted not too short but just short enough one. To wear with silver shoes. And long dangly earrings. Nobody made fun of her outfit that night.
The day before Mother's Day, when my mom and I went shopping together, I was telling her a story in the car. I hadn't been feeling well. My fibro had been flaring a bit, brought upon by some stressors, and then she said it. "Was it because of that b**tch?" There she was, cursing again. Well, it wasn't, in fact, because of that . . . you know who . . . but then we went to the mall and she bought me the hottest dress (within reason, of course) that we could find. But I still need to find some strappy, silver shoes.
