guilty

For the first time ever, I canceled on a class on the same morning it's held. Never, ever ever done it as, if I have a cold or a headache or whatever might keep me from teaching the following day, rather than force them to find a replacement in the three hours prior to the scheduled time, I bow out gracefully the day before in case I'm not up to it when it matters.

Which I was not this morning at 6am. So I bailed and the gym had to find a replacement at very, very short notice. Not because I didn't think to cancel yesterday, but because I did think to cancel yesterday and Insane Boss told me to wait and see and cancel today if I needed to. He's not the poor sucker who needs to find a replacement though, so I feel guilty. and I feel guilty for letting the class down because, while I sound like I think I'm fabulous and the class LOVES me, I, uh, actually am and yes, they do. It's not an ego thing for me either, this being fabu thing. I'm just so glad that the class, whatever class I teach, gets so much value and learning from what I ahve to offer. The sidebar is that I don't do a great job, I do THE job, and that virtually every other instructor I hear about fails to do more than just get a class moving any old how, is disappointing. As a profession (for I really see it as that. A profession), we have the potential to change peoples' lives. We are in a position where people will listen to us, so we OWE it to them to provide the most accurate, most helpful, and best suited advice we're able to find. My job is not to get a class moving, it's to help them use that class to improve the rest of their life, to utilise the forty five minutes we have together once a week to make fitness gains, and strength gains, and develop postural habits that will afford them a better life. Most, unfortunately, learn bad habits, and make very few functional strength gains, and while they may be making fitness gains, are the sum of those gains and habits improving the 167 hours of the week that are NOT spent at the gym?

Or maybe I really need to get over myself?

So yes, I have a headache and generally feel yuck, but because it's not a REALLY bad cold or a BLINDING headache, I feel guilty. I could have worked. It is, after all, forty five minutes of my life, but at 6am, that forty five minutes being spent in a humid, heated pool area seemed like a really bad idea, the kind that makes your head thump a little bit harder. So instead of getting out of bed, I called in sick. Even though I could have done it. I could have not made whoever it was frantically search for a replacement instructor, I could have not let the class down, and I could have not let myself down because I feel guilty for all of the above, and for the 22 bucks I didn't make which might not sound like a lot but which adds up and makes it something I really, really need.

And what am I doing instead? Well, after downing a couple of HUGE aspros, I'm sitting here and bitching about my guilt issues. In short, I'm making fine use of my free time. Daniel is in my lap too, and is getting a kick out of the letters moving in front of him. He was playing in the bedroom earlier while I wandered around feeling overwhelmed by the toddler sized mess spread out all over the floor when, heralded by the distant "toot" of a train, he raced out and headed for the big front window, Thomas in hand, muttering "a twain come, a twain come, twain come". The description belies the absolute cuteness if his little legs pumping hard to get to the window in time to see the train come rushing past.

Of course, he can't see it unless I hold him aloft and above fence height, so I did that, the train thundered past, and then we both waved bye bye to it. The regular commuters must think we're the friendliest train watchers ever.

We get a train about every...gee, I don't know. Twenty minutes or so? between 6am and 6pm every day, and we mostly greet every one of them. Even after all this time, (I don't know how often they come) Daniel still gets a very cheap thrill out of seeing them. As, I should probably be ashamed to admit, do I. I've never minded living alongside a train line. They don't come often and you learn to filter the noise and listen only for the excitement of a train rushing by. In the morning when they start up, Daniel will sit on the edge of the bed and look at the closed blind, whispering "a terwain, a terwain" at the appropriate times. Today though, was the first time he's strung three words together and lost the superfluous "er".

My little boy is growing up.

I've been quite busy this past week, which is odd because in reality, I've only worked an extra few classes, so I'm not quite sure how that works.

I taught the Vietnam vets last Wednesday, of who (whom?) three showed up out of an initial group of...substantially more than that. I think the lack of consistent instructor has got to be at least partially responsible for the drop off in attendance, and that's sad. I mean, how is a group of not regularly exercised "older" (I use quotations because 59-62 doesn't seem "older" to me. Possibly because I'm old too) people meant to form a consistent habit if their instructor can't commit to the one single hour a week they signed up for? And the instructor is, at least, getting paid (well) for it. I wouldn't feel compelled to return each week to create a habit of activity if the person contracted to meet my physical needs kept changing. I guess I find it more annoying too, this wishy washy instructor situation they've had, because these guys are war veterans, forgodsake. I noted on several of their sign up sheets, PTSD, which, god. Ni kidding. There's a lot of agoraphobia, too. Heartbreaking, some of the strings of psychiatric conditions these guys have, and to think they've likely been dealing with that amount of anguish for at least thirty six years. One of the guys mentioned today that they'd served at the same time, but I don't know if they actually served together. What a nightmare that war must have been. Hand to hand combat like that, not knowing who the enemy was. It's amazing any of them got through at all with their faculties intact.

There was a couple of extra aqua classes to teach at the gym too, and a circuit class Thursday morning. The extra aqua classes meant I exercised my "I ask because it's the right thing, not because it's something I need you to do" muscle, and asked Strep to babysit Daniel.

I can't begin to describe how much of a headfuck it is for me, the leaving of my son in the hands of that man, so I won't even try.

ANYWAY

I'm eating lunch as I type this and guess what it is?

Sounds like "far teen".

Go on, say it out loud.

Louder.

LOUDER.

Ha HA.

I slay me.

ANYWAY.

Focus aibee, geez.

In related news though, it's not much fun eating sardines mashed into pumpkin with braces on your teeth. I'm just sayin'.

feeling

Most times after the lawyer leaves, I look forward to the next time we see each other. Every so often though, I think fuck this shit. This is one of those times.

I don't get what his problem is with me. Probably if I didn't have such esteem issues I'd be saying he's in love with me, but I do so I'm not and you're probably saying, why should that be a problem anyway?

Because I'm also of the opinion that since his divorce, he only sleeps with women he doesn't particularly like.

I don't fit that profile.

Seriously. Idiot men who think their idiocy is some kind of mysterious complicated. I sure do pick 'em.

dear universe, ha HA

Because when you ask it for a nano, you've got to ask for one that actually works.

Strep bought me an 8G iPod Nano for Christmas - and because "everyone buys stuff for Daniel and you're the one looking after him. You deserve having something really want".

Which is very, very nice of him.

(I've got to say, no matter how BIG of a tool he has been over the past seven (!) years, he's always been generous, and not in a "buy you stuff to buy you" kind of way. I always knew the not paying child support thing was never because he was being a tightass, it was because..I dunno. I guess it was because he was (note hopeful use of past tense) a total fuckup)

And now I need to find someone gizmo orientated who might have a clue about iPods and how to get them to talk to archaic operating systems, because I've got a(n utterly beautiful) new nano and after futzing about with the fucking thing all morning (everyone else in the world: Plug and Play? OH YES! aibee: Plug and....what? reset, upgrade, upgrade, reset, error 1418, reset, upgrade, upgrade, dic error, reset...incompatible? THE FUCK?!) the best I've got is that this delectable piece of shiny is too new for my not so new operating system.

So yes, my shiny bright new bundle of joy hates me. Or, it hates my eMac, so now I'm thinking I may take up hating it too. Poor thing. It's never been the same since that fateful day I was discussing laptops with a friend and sighed heavily before uttering the fateful words "cannot get an iBook until my eMac dies". Which it then tried to do at that very moment by throwing itself off the virtual equivalent of a cliff. Unfortunately, I was able to resurrect it, not with my mad skilz, but by finding a mac tech and utilising his. The weird thing was that the problem wasn't software driven. It was a physical problem with the hardware and some switches had been physically, uh, switched, leading Mr MacTech to ask if anyone else had worked inside my mac (no) because he had no idea how it had worked AT ALL in the years prior to shitting itself, not with those switches all over the place like that.

Considering that I used to have a reputation as a watch stopper (a talent not limited to battery run timepieces. Swiss movement never stood a chance with me either, and I even stopped one of those kinetic watches that rely on movement to stay wound. Oh, and the clocks on my old cell phone and PC used to both used to have issues too)(Weird, totally), I do wonder if it wasn't my desire to ditch that old clunker and upgrade to a new, sleek, laptop that caused the switches to move to a position that would not, could not sustain computery type life.

ANYWAY, point being, I need to know if there is a way to get a nano that says it needs OS X 10.4.8 or greater to work with OS X 10.3.9. Unfortunately it's not just a matter of downloading system upgrades, and while I can buy OS X 10.5 (released last week!) for under a hundred, a) I don't have a spare hundred and b) I'm not sure my eMac would handle the newer, faster and more complex operating system.

Uber gah, is what I'm sayin'.

random stuff

There's never time to update more frequently, and I have no idea why. Time just flies by and I feel like I've accomplished nothing, but it continues to fly by and I continue to wonder what in heck I did with the day that I couldn't even type a quick "we did this and that, the end", much less some deep and meaningful insights into my life.

I'm going to take this time though, as a nice break from all the internet searching I'm doing to find SOMETHING to do with the Vietnam vets I'm going to be aqua training each Wednesday for an hour for the rest of the year on a contract that may be renewable for I don't know how long. I also don't know what in fuck I'm supposed to be doing with this bunch. It's through some Active aging or what not thingo, some government grant so contracts and shit are involved. Also, a lot of crossing my heart and hoping to (NOT) die, and the odd secret handshake. Anyway, the not knowing dealio: I know how to teach aqua, what with all da kwalifikashuns I have, but this pool sucks the almighty suck, it being only waist deep at one end, and and as deep as the ocean at the other. So, I'm going to mostly wing it until I get an idea of what these guys are capable of, providing that haven't killed any of them off by the time I've worked out the pool situation.

I'd also better call this Linda somethingorother because my insurance ran out on the first and I've not got my confirmation of renewal yet (probably because I sent the cheque last night)(what?) so am, for all in in tents and porpoises, uninsured. Tra la! My guess is that I won't be teaching this Wednesday, and I'm such an idiot that I'M SO GLAD! Seriously, I love what I do but I always dread doing it. What the fuck is that all about?

Anyway, I've got a few lists done of alternatives to what I'd be doing in a pool that wasn't retarded, and even though I have NO experience with shallow pools and NO experience with noodles (WHAT?!)(oh relax, they're flotation devices made of foam that are long and narrow and kind of, not really but anyway, noodle shaped), I'm sure to come up with SOMETHING on the day. If only a case of the Do Not Come Backs.

Now, last weekend. It blew. Literally, and there's not much one (okay, maybe just me) can do with a toddler when the weather is so cold and blowy. I was supposed to take the little prince to my brother and sister in law's on Sunday morning but I thought, fuck that noise. If they want to see him, they can call me and come here. Or at least call me. I don't know what it is but I (it totally blows that I can't capitalise that I anymore than it already is, for even more emphasis) have to call THEM when they want to see el kiddo. I think it's rather egocentric and as I'm in an angry phase of my life (aibee's shrink, sometime last friday: "why are you so angry?" aibee: *pulls out a list so long it runs out the door and down the hall* aibee's shrink's head explodes ) they can suck it.

So no brother/sil visits, and we didn't even get to the gym on Saturday morning because while I can squat nearly my own body weight, and can dead lift at least half of it, apparently I can't move my son's slumbering weigh in bed without hurting my back, which I did last Friday night. GOD. Even though it didn't happen in the gym, I know it's from overtraining because bla bla bla, which only makes it more annoying because I knew I was training too hard but I loved it so I kept on doing it.

POINT BEING, last weekend we did.....nothing, which, HATE.

Then Monday we did more of the same and didn't even go for a walk even though the weather was milder and less likely to launch us into space.

The good news is that between now and then, his pah toh has been addressed and I've not seen the screaming banshee that had replaced my son. Daycare say he's still a little loaded gun vis a vis his teeth and punching skilz, but all he's been with me is an absolute delight to spend time with. In the time between Friday to Tuesday, which is the longest stretch of time that Daniel isn't in care, we seem to get in synch with each other and are both more relaxed than any other time of the week, him because he starts to accept that life isn't all about entertainment officers structuring his day, and me despite hitting myself over the head the entire time for not organising more structured activities for him like the zoo, museum, beach, playdates and wotnot.

Seems I'm not happy unless I'm being unhappy with myself.

The other centre director spoke with me at length yesterday too, and pretty much talked me down from last week's proverbial ledge. She even heard me handle Daniel's timely yet screamy outburst while we were mid conversation. Seems I was too slow with serving his morning fruit snack while juggling the phone, the spoon and a fruit container thingy. Daniel was all "AAAAARRRRRRRRHHHHHHH", with teeth, and I was all "god, she's going to think I do SUCH a bad job handling the gaping maw with associated yelly bits", and she was all "the way you related to him then? Is PERFECT".

We've got two second birthday birthday parties (oddly enough, that makes sense) to go to this weekend, which will be nice. They're the babies from our original mothers' group, and while I've not seen them since that barrage of surgery started earlier this year, we're still a group. A couple or three of the women have already had baby #2, while another is now 30 weeks pregnant, a fact I found out about yesterday, and a fact which got me on the whole "where does the time GO?" bandwagon BIGTIME. Last time I saw PregnantWoman #4, she wasn't even thinking about another, and here she is, all swollen ankles and big enough to quite literally berth.

Another girlfriend of mine is seven weeks pregnant with her second too. She's much younger than me. Twenty three or four or five or thereabouts. We used to work together at The Crappiest Gym In Town, and she found out she'd been knocked up with her now nine month old after only going out with the guy for like, a month. They've ended up in love and are getting married and my god, it's SO romantic, especially since they conceived after getting down and dirty on their first date. They met because her fiance was one of the construction guys redoing the crappy old mall she worked in, and he used to gaze at her gorgeous face and ask her out all the time, They finally went out when she broke up with her alcoholic, abusive ex boyfriend (which she used to do on a weekly basis, actually) and said yes to his daily invitation.

Point being, fairy tales do happen. She was in that really abusive relationship for YEARS before she met (and slept with!) this guy and there it is. A family already made and now growing. Bliss.

The other point being, I'm insanely jealous of all these fertile, paired off chicks.

But not insane enough to hate them and/or want to actually do something rash like cohabitate. In theory, yes, it does sound attractive because of the Moving Furniture, Squashing Spiders deal that men bring along with them, but in practice? I don't think there's enough furniture being shifted or spiders being obliterated to make up for all that questionable hair left on the soap.

Speaking of second babies though, I went along to my appointment with the reproductive team last week. Thursday it was, and you know how I crowed that over the course of thirty one days, my ovaries tick along on a razor sharp schedule? Yeah, well, my period came on the Tuesday, exactly twenty eight days after the last one, which, yes, cool and kind of textbook, EXCEPT, had my period arrived on schedule or even a day or two early, I'd be starting treatment now to do my IVF cycle next month. BUT, as my ovaries are a pair of impatient fools, and because the unit closes over Christmas, I have to wait until at least January.

At. Least. January.

Did you catch that?

Two more months to wait.

GOD.

So I think about things happening for a reason, and bigger pictures, and bla bla bla, and then I thank the universe for the extra three ovulations I have, conceivably (haHA) at least, to utilise.

Which is the best way I know to manage my disappointment. To accept and trust. Even if I do sound like a hairy legged (which I assure you, I am not) hippy when I say it.

Meanwhile, Daniel has taken his little self away and is sitting on my bed with a specimen jar, taking the lid off and putting it back on again and essentially raising himself.

Wolves would do a better job that me.

I've been trying to list some items on ebay this week too, but only got to list three items yesterday afternoon despite putting the afternoon aside to do a fuckload of it. It turned out to be the day that a billion other things happened, so I was left with frantically churning out three ill written auctions late in the day, and relisting some of the unsold ones from over a month ago.

Which is SO not enough because, what with the surgery and its monetary fallout and all the other financial repercussions of getting my face rearranged (in a word, BANDS, which I've not written about yet but which can also be summarised in one word: HATE), and with Daniel's birthday plus party coming up, and then Christmas after that, I've got to do something to at least feel like I'm not going under.

Daniel and I went to the gym this morning too. Me to remind myself that my back still hurts, him to get some entertainment in the creche for a half hour or so (an aside: workouts shouldn't generally take only a half hour, it's just that I never have time to do more than squeeze that time in before the creche closes)

My back doesn't hurt, not really ( no shit, the bowen therapy I had years ago that inspired me to become a therapist myself was the start of my body being able to say "uh, dude? that part of your back is quite flucked, but as long as you know it is, I'm not gonna make it hurt, okie?" to which I say "Yuh, I'm cool wid dat". So it not so much hurts as I know some serious weird ass shite is going on with the big muscles back there, Then of course, as soon as one thing is out, the rest follows so I'm now getting trouble with my jaw, neck, shoulders, right hip, and down the right leg. None of it pain, all of it knowing I'm less that stellar at present and need to rebalance. Which I am doing tomorrow afternoon.

And I think that about wraps up the week.

the little comment that grew

His daycare centre have casually labeled Daniel's recent behaviour as "behavioural problems".

Which I suppose they are but still. Behavioural "problems"? Sounds so formal and diagnostic. Bleah.

While I'm not one to shy away from my responsibility to raise my son right and address issues as they occur (which I have been doing, and have spent the last week or so examining my input to his development and of course, have come up with all sorts of things that I'm convinced are fucking him right up), I'm now thinking that the so called behavioural problems he's exhibiting are, in fact, linked to the centre.

He goes to the creche at my gym a couple of times a week, and while I hate to label my kid as something less than delightful, I do warn them each time that he's been hitting and biting other kids at his daycare. Having spent an hour or more each week with him for a few weeks now (and granted, an hour here, a half hour there is not like spending a day in childcare), they're all as puzzled as I. They all say, and this is a direct quote and a sentiment echoed by all the carers there, that he is "delightful little boy, and one I look forward to seeing in here". They've been more helpful that his daycare carers too, if only for talking me down from the ledge, which is something his centre seems reticent to do. I know I'm overly sensitive and that it's not about me and bla bla bla, but seriously, his daycare provider's job is not only to look after the children, it's about tending to the families' needs too. Only ever telling me the bad things he's done that day doesn't help me do my job as Daniel's mother, it only had me looking for - and finding - problems where they might not even exist. Sure he hits me, sure he (feigns) biting me, but he's almost two*. It's his job to be a turd from time to time, and while I was all imagining visiting him in juvenile detention all over the place each time he was one - for wasn't it a display of the antisocial behaviour they're all up in my ass about? - it's dawned on me that that amount of turdishness IS normal.

Maybe it's because I've always been good at delivering the shit sandwich**, as a personal trainer and in the past when training staff, but I don't get whey they find it so hard to say something like "he's a lovely little boy, so while we've been having some issues of late, I'm sure we can work things through with him if we work together on this"? Which essentially says the same thing as saying "bad bad bad bad bad, and then some more bad, and a little more bad later in the day", but it also addresses the parents' concerns, which if my case is anything to go by, most often revolve around our (lack of) parenting skills.

I feel like so much time has been spent (uh, a week or so) finding the woods when all it was was a bunch of trees.

In any case, the creche women can't stop telling me about how wonderful Daniel is, and that they've not seen anything that suggests he might be rough or need extra supervision.

One of the things suggested by Daniel's childcare carers when he hit or bit or was generally antisocial, was to say to him that his behaviour was telling me that he wants to go to bed/needs some quiet time/has finished eating (the latter reserved for the special times he throws food)(which is another thing he doesn't do at home). His behaviour though, is telling me is that his needs are not being fully met during the time he spends at the centre. Which is a shame as he loves going there. I'm reticent to pull him out and try him somewhere else as the only memories I have of my formative years was of being dragged from childcare centre to childcare centre and never being at any one of them long enough to make any friends. That's just one reason why I don't think there's any point to cutting and running at the first signs of a problem, even though my first instinct is to do just that. The other reasons are that he needs the stability of a familiar environment, and while the aggressive behaviour night be centred around the, uh, centre, what if they're not? What if it's a stage he's going through? If it is, he needs people he knows to help guide him through. A new environment surrounded by strangers could, in that instance, make matters a whole lot worse.

That being said, I will be looking into alternatives in the following weeks, to have something in my stash of ideas should all the talking and cooperating amount to a big, fat zero. I'm thinking family daycare as opposed to another childcare centre, for the smaller number of children he'll be with, and so we won't be trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, when talking about the kind of care he'll be receiving.

In all honestly, what I'd rather do is chuck it all in and not have him in child care at all, but apart from not being able to afford it, I feel that being in care helps by providing him with a lot of the socialisation he doesn't receive here. Granted, given his most recent behaviour, I'm wondering if he doesn't need a different kind of socialisation, but I'm still certain he needs something other than being at home with me to have his social needs met.

So yes, alternatives, and meanwhile I'll continue nurturing my motherguilt and maintaining my conviction that it's all my fault and that looking for solutions elsewhere is copping out and passing the buck and failing to fulfil my responsibilities as a parent.

Awesome.



*when the fuck did that happen?

**slice of praise, insert the criticism, then top it off with some more praise. Hold the mayo.

he says pah (tay) toe

I've been worrying and fretting about what I might be doing wrong that's led to this terrible twos turnaround (the ttt's). I mean, it's normal at this age for shithead behaviour to appear, but being moi, and being a tad precious about my perfectionist ideals, having a child who is, well, running true to form, I can't help but feel that it's something I'm doing wrong. Which I said already. Still, despite my talent for blaming my self for all that ails the world, I also couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't just an age thing, it wasn't all my fault, and that something was wrong with my li'l pookie bear, and after he tripped yesterday and went over all excessively weird about the piggy that went to market on the left side, I checked his "pah toh" (poor toe, HOW CUTE!) out and found that he does, indeed, have an infected toe. So now of course I feel guilty about that too as he stubbed his toe OVER A WEEK ago, and it's my fault it got a) infected, because I washed it clean but didn't bust out the Dettol, and b) that he's been in misery for at least five days while his toe throbbed in protest of its inflammatory state.

No wonder he's been such a grumpy old bastard. Have you ever had an infected digit? Le ouch, is what I'm saying.

The infection was only noticeable on inspection, so it's not like you could see it junless yuo were staring right at the glowy redness, which is why I started believing the naysayers who were all "it's more than an age thing, he's got behavioural problems!" (fucksake). Still though, I should have guessed something was up when he kept saying "pah toh" for the last few days.

It gets better too.

As you know, we'd been to the doctor twice in the last week to see if Daniel was ill, the last time specifically to rule out a medical reason for his split personality. So I called his doctor's surgery this last time vis a vis the infected toe - and "sorry, fully booked". Le what?! He's a baby, for god's sake, and he's been seen twice already FOR A REASON. So after begging and getting nowhere, I called another surgery and they found a time for us and then when we gave out details, she apologies profusely and said "sorry, no new patients", she did however have the decency to ASK the overworked doctors there if they could make an exception, but alas, no. We eventually found a place close by who made a time in their busy evening diary to fit him in because "we always find spaces for children" which, rock! yes! etc, so we went along, saw a new doctor because there is no way I'm taking my precious boy back to a place that outright does not even consider, much less try to fit in babies who are in pain and/or infected with some biohazard that could conceivably lead to something a lot more serious than a simple, localised infection. Fuckers.

Daniel is now on antibiotics and panadol to help the pain, and should be on the road to mendsville in a couple of days.