I know I've probably ruined my readership's week by not posting updates as often as I said I would. This life thingy I've acquired lately is really tapping into my energy stores. Please blame my real life friends and family for infringing upon the blogosphere of The Maven. It's all their fault with their invitations and their niceties and their time-consuming love.
Anyway, back when I was pregnant with Spawnling I used to call myself Shamu. I truly looked like a killer whale when I wore the right outfit. I was fat to begin with, which didn't help. Add to that a black top stretched over my swelling kazoondas and black maternity yoga pants with white stripes brimming with baby belly, and I instantly morphed into a waddling, grunting land whale. It was a truly sight to behold! In fact, our local coffee shop still swims with stories of the Great Caffeine Guzzling Orca. There's even talk of adding my old home to the bus tour of local urban legends. Sideshows were looking to hire me for a while before the baby came... Just crazy!
I can't say I miss being a maternity marine mammal, but I now feel as though I share a closer connection with my blubber bound sisters of the sea. Us larger animals get each other. We know how much harder it is to do all that swimming and walking and eating and breathing with all the extra weight. We know people laugh at us, yet do so quietly, for fear of being squashed or eaten in one fell swoop along with some delicious krill. I've longed to some day connect with my kin of the deep, to tell them that I understand their lives that much better thanks to the miracle of pregnancy and too many donuts.
Tomorrow, I shall get my chance. For today, I am in Niagara Falls.
Did you get that part? I'll say it again: I am in Niagara Falls. By "me" I mean myself and the appendages which cling to me for love and attention: my spouse and children.
So what, Maven? You're, like, taking a trip or something? What's the big deal? Everyone takes trips, you loser.
You balk, I know. You think I'm trying to act all special like because I'm in a touristy area in a touristy hotel doing touristy things, including tomorrow's trip to Marineland. But don't you see? This is a huge deal, people. Huge! This is our first real live trip to anywhere, other than a brief stint in Toronto in the Summer of 2006 for a family ruining... er, reunion. When we stayed two nights in a room with no windows.
That's right: no windows.
Feel bad now? You should.
Look. We're not naive, first time parents. We're well aware that family trips are expensive enough to contemplate bank robbery, stressful enough to require a preemptive pacemaker surgery, and chaotic enough to want to stash some chloroform in the carry-on bag for some tough love naptime enforcement.
We don't do trips. We let other people do them and they tell us about them, show us pictures and sometimes bring stuff back for us. Then we don't have to go and yet we feel slightly more cultured thanks to the expense, stress and chaos of others.
It's worked so far. We're not divorced yet, anyway. I bet a study could be conducted that would conclusively prove that family vacations lead to 30% of separations.
But this time is different. This time the in-laws decided enough was enough. They would not let us chicken out anymore. They would take us on a real live vacation and help us with the kids. We would get adjacent rooms and we would dine together and swim together and see the Falls together and - yes - even go to Marineland together.
Things are going better than expected on Day 1. Intrepid and Spawnling are being incredibly well-behaved, and I've only thought of giving Gutsy to a more patient family three or four times. Nobody terrorized the other kids in the hotel's pool, nobody tried to jump into Niagara Falls, and Gutsy only freaked out one driver as he mocked running into a downtown street for fun. Things are, indeed, expensive enough to want to sell one of my kidneys, but that's the beauty of generous in-laws and some room on the credit card.
Tomorrow, however, involves us having to chase down three gremlins at an amusement park. Let's hope Grandma and Grandpa Geekster are getting their sleep! I should probably do that, too.
Oh, weight loss stuff: 242.8. Very slow and not about to get much better while we're here. The goal this week is not to put on any weight. I don't really care if I lose it right now, although seeing 10 pounds gone would be nice. My black and white, seal-eating sisters might not even recognize me!
(And Keren, I totally remember you! I'm a good stalker, too, when I'm not in a hotel. I'll have to come by MDC and see what all you granola types are doing. I'll just hide the disposable diapers first so as not to get pummeled with organic apples)
Anyway, back when I was pregnant with Spawnling I used to call myself Shamu. I truly looked like a killer whale when I wore the right outfit. I was fat to begin with, which didn't help. Add to that a black top stretched over my swelling kazoondas and black maternity yoga pants with white stripes brimming with baby belly, and I instantly morphed into a waddling, grunting land whale. It was a truly sight to behold! In fact, our local coffee shop still swims with stories of the Great Caffeine Guzzling Orca. There's even talk of adding my old home to the bus tour of local urban legends. Sideshows were looking to hire me for a while before the baby came... Just crazy!
I can't say I miss being a maternity marine mammal, but I now feel as though I share a closer connection with my blubber bound sisters of the sea. Us larger animals get each other. We know how much harder it is to do all that swimming and walking and eating and breathing with all the extra weight. We know people laugh at us, yet do so quietly, for fear of being squashed or eaten in one fell swoop along with some delicious krill. I've longed to some day connect with my kin of the deep, to tell them that I understand their lives that much better thanks to the miracle of pregnancy and too many donuts.
Tomorrow, I shall get my chance. For today, I am in Niagara Falls.
Did you get that part? I'll say it again: I am in Niagara Falls. By "me" I mean myself and the appendages which cling to me for love and attention: my spouse and children.
So what, Maven? You're, like, taking a trip or something? What's the big deal? Everyone takes trips, you loser.
You balk, I know. You think I'm trying to act all special like because I'm in a touristy area in a touristy hotel doing touristy things, including tomorrow's trip to Marineland. But don't you see? This is a huge deal, people. Huge! This is our first real live trip to anywhere, other than a brief stint in Toronto in the Summer of 2006 for a family ruining... er, reunion. When we stayed two nights in a room with no windows.
That's right: no windows.
Feel bad now? You should.
Look. We're not naive, first time parents. We're well aware that family trips are expensive enough to contemplate bank robbery, stressful enough to require a preemptive pacemaker surgery, and chaotic enough to want to stash some chloroform in the carry-on bag for some tough love naptime enforcement.
We don't do trips. We let other people do them and they tell us about them, show us pictures and sometimes bring stuff back for us. Then we don't have to go and yet we feel slightly more cultured thanks to the expense, stress and chaos of others.
It's worked so far. We're not divorced yet, anyway. I bet a study could be conducted that would conclusively prove that family vacations lead to 30% of separations.
But this time is different. This time the in-laws decided enough was enough. They would not let us chicken out anymore. They would take us on a real live vacation and help us with the kids. We would get adjacent rooms and we would dine together and swim together and see the Falls together and - yes - even go to Marineland together.
Things are going better than expected on Day 1. Intrepid and Spawnling are being incredibly well-behaved, and I've only thought of giving Gutsy to a more patient family three or four times. Nobody terrorized the other kids in the hotel's pool, nobody tried to jump into Niagara Falls, and Gutsy only freaked out one driver as he mocked running into a downtown street for fun. Things are, indeed, expensive enough to want to sell one of my kidneys, but that's the beauty of generous in-laws and some room on the credit card.
Tomorrow, however, involves us having to chase down three gremlins at an amusement park. Let's hope Grandma and Grandpa Geekster are getting their sleep! I should probably do that, too.
Oh, weight loss stuff: 242.8. Very slow and not about to get much better while we're here. The goal this week is not to put on any weight. I don't really care if I lose it right now, although seeing 10 pounds gone would be nice. My black and white, seal-eating sisters might not even recognize me!
(And Keren, I totally remember you! I'm a good stalker, too, when I'm not in a hotel. I'll have to come by MDC and see what all you granola types are doing. I'll just hide the disposable diapers first so as not to get pummeled with organic apples)