Kids say the darndest things . . .

I'm back from Orlando. It was an informative weekend, on many levels.

On one hand, I absolutely loved my teacher trainer this time. He's a typical gay man from South Beach, cut from the same cloth as my dear friend Roger. The teacher trainer's name is Matthew, and he is a wonderful teacher with a delightful personality. I feel like I learned so much, as far as verbal cues for the exercises, but I still have SO much to learn. When (assuming I pass the exam) I get Stott certified, it will certainly mean something. There were two physical therapists in class with me that said the functional anatomy we must know for the exam is more intense than they had for their state licensing. So if you run into a Pilates instructor that is Stott certified, they REALLY know what they are doing. So will I, one day.

On my drive back, I talked on my cell phone a lot. I have a friend I call Radio Dave. He used to be a DJ, and seems to have lots of free time on his hands. We talk every few months or so, and I always enjoy hearing his perspective. He has a way of "telling it like it is" without sounding hurtful or judgemental. So I told him about the woman in my class who indirectly told me I was lacking in intelligence because I wear makeup and don't walk around with a copy of War and Peace under my arm. Dave, ever the wise one, said there is probably a direct correlation between the width of her ass and her disdain for me. This made me laugh out loud, then he suggested I might be a bit too sensitive that I care what a complete stranger indirectly implies. Okay, so he has a point, perhaps two. I felt better after that.

So, on to the title of today's post. I was with Zachary in the bathroom. He is doing great on the potty, by the way, except for the whole "poop" thing. Oh well. Anyway, he had just flushed the toilet and I was holding his adorable little striped underwear waiting for him to put them on. Well, as usual, he was taking his time. He grabbed his genitalia and began scratching away at his testicles. I, being in a hurry, said "don't scratch there, let's put on your underwear." Then Zachary replied "I have itchy balls!" I just cracked up, I couldn't stifle my laughter. Zachary, ever the performer (where does he get that??), acknowledged my laughter by repeating that phrase over and over again. They start early, don't they?

Shaken, not Stirred

My confidence is shaken. Badly shaken. Not stirred.

It's not just this seminar. I'm not the only one in the class who cannot absolutely recall the action, origin, and insertion of 72 of the major muscle groups in the body. I am working on that, however. It's just rote memorization. I can do that, and I'm almost halfway there. It's a deeper level. I've had my intelligence indirectly insulted because of my lifestyle choices. Perhaps I'm being too sensitive, that is a possibility, but I feel slighted.

I like to wear makeup. I love to wear funky makeup. I like green eye shadow. I like red eyeshadow. I love to create art with makeup application. Does this make me shallow and stupid? Do women who forgo makeup have superior intelligence to those who chose to wear it? I like pretty clothes and high heel shoes too - did I miss a study linking superior intelligence to Birkenstocks? Should I only indugle in fiction by Dostoevsky? Will reading fluffy Janet Evanovich novels dumb me down so much that I'll no longer be able to complete my beloved SoDoku puzzles?

Okay, enough of this pity party. It's time for me to get going. I've got muscles to study, and today is postural analysis. I have three hours to discern pronation & supination from inversion & eversion in the ankle joint. Well, clinically I know the difference, but the visual is a bit difficult without observing the knee joint, which is cheating.

Good Advice

Ok, I'm following my friends and family's advice, no more little brown things. I've been off the stuff for over 24 hours now (the doughnuts, that is). And, after 3 doses of a laxative, and as Daddy was walking in the door bearing glycerin suppositories, Zachary finally had a bowel movement. Thank God!! (How bizarre that something like this makes me day) Now I can go to Orlando without worrying incessantly that Zachary's intestines were going to rupture or something awful like that.

So I'm off to Orlando at 5:00 a.m. Geez. I'm SO not a morning person. However, Ryan did loan me his Sirius radio so at least I'll have fun music and a relatively easy 7 hour drive. Oh, then 5 hours Pilates training. Then I'm hitting the bar next to the hotel for a couple of cocktails and a nice dinner. It is going to be fun, despite the ridiculously early start. Things are looking up.

Step AWAY from the Doughnuts!

Things are stressful of late. I have about eleven or so projects up in the air and I'm feeling a little pressure. Ok, a LOT of pressure. I'm not one of those people that rapidly drops weight when stress happens - I like to comfort eat. I do manage to control it, however, since I do not wish to be fat. I would rather have stress than be fat. Ok, wacky I know. But I was a ballerina, and I'm lucky to have escaped that profession without an eating disorder. Normally I'm a healthy eater, I LOVE vegetables. I love fruit. I love fish, and prefer it to any other animal protein. All that being said, when my stress levels go through the roof I do resort to a particularly nasty vice: junk food. Dr. Pepper for high stress days, and those little chocolate covered doughnuts for days like these. I bought one of those little bags of 20 (twenty!!) little doughnuts on Sunday and a bottle of Dr. Pepper, after a teary phone call to Denise. I got her voice mail, so I ate about 5 doughnuts. Ick. It doesn't make me feel better, in fact it makes me feel worse. I guess this is how drug addicts start. Lucky for me I don't have a terribly addictive personality. So as I was pouring my heart out to yet another friend, she offered me some "tough love" advice: "Step AWAY from the doughnuts, NOW!!" Okay. I'm feeling better already. I still have about 10 left.

On a more positive note, potty training is going reasonably well. Zachary had a couple of accidents on Sunday, but none since then. We've been on several outings and still no accidents. I'm coming to grips with the vile filth of public restrooms. Zachary has been a trooper, he doesn't mind going "pee pee" anywhere. So all is going great, right? Well, except for the fact that he hasn't had a bowel movement since Friday night. Ick. Now I'm afraid the little guy is never going to poop. So, once again on Michele's advice (she's never steered me wrong, I call her before I call the pediatrician. With four kids, odds are she's been through whatever issue I am having.) I gave him a laxative. So hopefully he'll be unclogged soon. Oh, the potty saga continues. But he has graduated to cute little Superman underwear.

It's Potty Time!

Alright. Enough is enough. I've tried the kinder, gentler, no stress on anyone potty training. It doesn't work. I have had Zachary on the potty every hour or so with absolutely NO success. He would just sit there holding it, and then once I gave up and put a Pull-Up on him he would then "go." There are times when having an exceptionally bright child is challenging. But I am smarter than my 3 year old. At least today I am.

So today, following my friend Michele's advice, I put him in big boy underwear. Yes, adorable little Fruit of the Looms, size 2T. Zachary woke up this morning with a dry diaper, which is becoming a normal occurrence, so I whisked him to the potty. I knew he had to go, and today I was determined to wait it out. I have a little potty for him in his bathroom, and another one downstairs in the hall bath. He sat on it, but nothing happened. He asked to sit on the big potty, so I, desperate to achieve success, allowed him to try it. We had a couple of drips, which I considered success, and then Zachary happily flushed the toilet. Then we proceeded downstairs.

His bladder wasn't empty however, and he began to dance around some. In the above picture he has the triangle from our pool table around his neck, it's a favorite toy and today I had to pick my battles!

The dancing began to intensify. I suggested we go to the potty but was told emphatically "NOOOOOOO!" Then it happened . . .

Yes, I managed to capture his first accident! He was just SO darn cute in those tighty-whities! The good thing, however, was that he did not like wetting his pants and was then quite eager to sit on the potty.


So he sat on his potty, I placed it in front of the TV to facilitate success. It was for naught, however, because he never went in the little potty. So . . . I changed the approach (keep in mind he still had not emptied his bladder the entire morning) and we decided to try the big potty.


SUCCESS!!! It was so exciting! Zachary is completely enamored with flushing the toilet, so that's his "reward" for going pee-pee in the potty. The subsequent time, he had a little "leakage" but no real accidents after that first one. That's no accidents all day! He went pee-pee on the potty 9 times today successfully. I was so proud of him. He likes flushing the toilet so much that he wants to go sit on the potty more often than he really needs to, and by the end of the day he would only empty his bladder a little so he could go again a few minutes later. Like I said in the beginning, sometimes having an exceptionally bright child is challenging!
After his nap we jumped in the jumpy house. Zachary was so proud of his big boy underwear that he didn't want to wear his shorts. He was so adorable, and I couldn't have been more proud. He didn't have a bowel movement all day, but he asked tonight to go to the water park tomorrow and go down the slide. I told him we'd go if he would poo-poo in the potty in the morning. He went to bed saying "I go poo poo in the potty tomorrow and I go down the water slide!" So perhaps we're going back to the water park tomorrow!

Now I must go get some work done. All in all we must have spent 3 hours total on the potty. This is the biggest time sucker I know of ~ it's like playing solitaire at the computer!! Of course, when he can go potty all by himself it will be all worth it!

Home at Last

Ah, home at last. I have slept in my bed 2 whole nights now. It's been wonderful.

I've felt a little overwhelmed and a little depressed today. There seems to be so much to do yet so little time to do it. How can Michele manage a family of four kids with such grace and aplomb and I can hardly manage a part time job and my family?? I know more explanation is needed but I just don't have the energy right now.



On a more positive note, my friend Margi, from Chicago, is in town now. She's staying at a mutual friend's beach house and came over tonight for dinner. We had such a great time. She and I share similar philosophies about dance and teaching, so I love talking with her. She has a modern dance company in Chicago, plus she's on faculty at Columbia College up there. Real grown up stuff. We both went to the same high school, ASFA (the Alabama School of Fine Arts), and we both have been teaching at the Alabama Ballet School's summer program. It was a fun, wine filled evening. Tomorrow we're going on a sunset cruise on the boat. Ryan loves that.





Here are Margi and me at the Billfish tournament last year.

It's fun to find friends in unexpected places. One day I'm going to tell my story about my SIRM girls. It's a remarkable story.

Yesterday I took Zachary to the local water park. It was such a blast. I was so proud of Zachary, he actually went down the water slide all by himself after some serious coaxing from Mama. Today I took him to get a hair cut and to the Chic-Fil-A playground. I laughed as I overheard a little boy asking Zachary "How old are you? I'm eight." and Zachary replied "I'm eight." To which the other little boy said, "you cannot be eight or you would be taller and able to talk better" (he did have a point) and Zachary replied "I'm eight." That poor little boy was so verklempt, until Zachary finally admitted, "I am three."

Alone and a little lonely

So here I sit, in Orlando. I have not been kicked out of Pilates Class. In fact, I'm not even the worst one in class. I'm not the best either, but I'm closer to the top than the bottom, which is a huge relief! However, this class is monumentally more difficult than all the coursework for my Master's degree! I have lots of studying to do, which is fortunate because I have lots of time on my hands.

I thought that perhaps I might bond with my classmates and some of us might get together for dinner one night. Well, these folks are nice enough in class, but just plain WEIRD!! How odd, since most of us share quite similar backgrounds. So a group dinner just ain't happening!

I've had dinner alone for the 4th night in a row, and let me tell you, service sucks for the single diner. I've had some great food, but truly crappy service. I find that disturbing, since I've been dining at rather expensive restaurants, at least some of the time. I'm glad I don't travel for business all the time.

Zachary and Ryan are doing just fine without me. Zachary likes to talk on the phone to me, or rather he likes to listen to me talk to him. It's very sweet, but it makes me so sad when I get off the phone. I miss him so much it hurts. It would be easier if I didn't have quite so much free time.

So I'm alone, and bit lonely. I had dinner at a nice restaurant, at the bar. I had delicious crab cakes and a wonderful wine, but awful service. Ah well, I have strawberries and um, water. Ick. I wanted to go get a bottle of wine or perhaps some beer, but that seemed even more lonely and desperate. Bridget Jones' the Edge of Reason is on, and at least I'm not as pathetic as she is. So now I'll watch the movie and study a very long list of muscles. Where exactly is the multifudus anyway??

Updates

So much has been going on that I haven't had the energy or inclination to post, but now it's returning.

First of all, my friend Michele's youngest son, Austin, just had brain surgery. It kind of puts your whole life in perspective. Austin's surgery was a huge success and he is recovering nicely. I am humbled by my dear friend Michele's strength and perseverance. Go to http://www.fourtimesthefun.blogspot.com/ to read more about Michele and her incredible family.

Now that I am not worrying about that nearly as much, I have the energy for personal updates. I was in Birmingham for 2 1/2 weeks. There was a slight scheduling snafu so I didn't teach as much as I planned with the Alabama Ballet School. So I took advantage of my free time and took a boat load of Pilates classes in between jetting Junior off to various fun activities.

There is a science museum for kids called the McWane Center and Ryan and I took Zachary there several times. Currently they have a Bob the Builder exhibit that Zachary loved.

He had fun destroying the arch that we worked so hard to build! I have tons of photos from subsequent visits, even one with Bob the Builder himself, but alas they are still in the camera and it's not with me at the moment! :( I'll add them later.

For the 4th of July we had our annual family reunion (Ryan's side). As usual it was a blast. Here's the whole family:

We are, in the back row from left to right, Aunt Linda (the hostess), Elise (Michael's girlfriend), me, Zachary, Denise, and Kurt. Front row Carolyn, Tony (Grandpa), Ryan, cousin Wendy, cousin Michael, and Uncle Mike (the host). I'm not sure why we have the noodles in the pictures, but we do silly things (as evidenced below).

All the guys, pretending to be serious:

The girls, on the other hand, would NEVER pretend to be serious!

All of us had such a good time, but I think the grand winner in the fun department was Zachary. All is right in the world, don't you think? Zachary had grand adventures in the pool. Here he is with Daddy and our dog, Julie. Awww, my sweet family!!

Learning to kick with Daddy:

Playing "Magic Carpet" with Uncle Kurt:

And jumping into Daddy's arms:

He did this 3,965 times. It was so cute. Oh, and Julie had a fun time too. Uncle Mike and Aunt Linda are great hosts, we are already looking forward to next year!

As I write this I am in Orlando. Today starts the first session of my Pilates certification. I'll be here until Monday. I am quite excited, but a bit nervous/anxious. Here's the thing, I have to get Matwork certified first, then Reformer certified. I am not so good at the matwork, but I can do the Reformer exercises. I should probably be really good at the matwork before becoming certified to teach it, right? I'm hoping they won't decide that I have no business being certified to teach matwork. Teaching and understanding it is quite different from actually doing the exercises. But I have been teaching ballet steps that I long ago stopped doing (as most of my teachers did) so I don't really think it's necessary to demonstrate if I can accurately describe it. At least that's my argument for the moment. I hope I don't get booted from the program.

Okay, well I am off to review and practice the exercises I suck at, then I must review the planes of movement. I have to admit I never quite grasped that concept (saggital plane, transverse plane, etc.) in graduate school. However, I graduated with a 4.0 and was selected as Outstanding Graduate Student in my department, so planes of movement cannot be THAT important, can they? I have yet to actually apply those concepts while instructing, but nonetheless I will review them. I don't want to be uneducated and unable to do the exercises!