April 9, 2008

If you can’t bring the heel to the butt. . .

I am just one finger away from having my heel touch my butt. One finger. That is it; and it seems like it’s going to be impossible to get it to go just that teeny tiny little bit further.

Today I told my PT I have a plan. Instead of continuing to torture myself with painful flexion, I’m just going to start eating lots and lots of ice cream and potato chips. If I can’t get my heel to my skinny butt, then I’ll bulk up the butt and bring it to my heel.

My PT and another ACL recoveree thought it was pretty funny. Personally, I think it’s pretty smart. Bigger buns are in these days anyway right? The problem is that with all the biking, treadmilling, and leg pressing I’m doing, I’m tightening up and making getting that heel to touch that much harder.

Bring on the mint chocolate chip and salt & vinegar potato chips. I’ve got a plan and I’m prepared to use it.

Posted by Black Belt Mama on April 9, 2008 in ACL Hell | 7 Comments

April 7, 2008

Designed to Hurt

Last night Mr. BBM and I were up until after 2 a.m. putting in a new kitchen floor. We started around 9 p.m., once the girls were fast asleep, and we’re still not finished. I ordered two books last week: "The Idiot’s Guide to Staging a Home for a Quick Sale" and "Designed to Sell." Five of our rooms got completely reworked in the form of new bedding, different curtain scenarios and rearrangement of furniture this weekend. Then we got cocky and decided we could bang out a new floor in just a couple of hours.

Can I tell you how much I hate the person who built my current house? I seriously think he must have failed geometry class and has no business being a builder. Either that or he came to work seriously lit. There is not a wall in my house that is square. We found out the hard way last night.

Since I couldn’t be on my hands and knees to painstakingly place each tile, I spent the night scooting around on my butt which has brought a whole host of aches and pains today. I’m fairly certain I’ve pulled my butt muscle. My back hurts every time I blink and the back of my thighs feel like they’re under attack. I also seriously broke a nail. It’s the kind of break that takes some of the skin along with it and looks like total crap for a good week or two.

Mr. BBM isn’t in much better shape. His knees are swollen. His back is aching from lifting up the refrigerator while I tried to quickly and carefully wiggle tiles into place (Note: quickly and carefully have no business being used in the same sentence). Also note that I strongly suggested cutting the tiles since who looks under the fridge anyway, but Mr. BBM was in much too much of a determined and exhausted mood to be told he didn’t have to act like the Incredible Hulk by lifting a refrigerator he had no business lifting all by himself. He eventually saw the error of his ways and believe it or not, my idea to cut the tiles worked just fine and nobody had to break their back. I did it while Mr. BBM sprawled out on the floor proclaiming he might be dying.

At 9:40 p.m. last night Mr. BBM said that we were going to have a ton of tiles leftover. It was going that well. Today, we have six tiles, and I am betting that we’ll need about 20 just to get the stupid angle right where the kitchen floor meets the hardwood floors of the entranceway. We’ll have also created about 60 new ways to swear during that process. Mr. BBM and I wrecked about six tiles last night trying to fit one into a single spot; and I have never heard Mr. BBM swear so much. His swearing and the fact that he was wandering aimlessly around the kitchen with cut up tiles stuck to his pants made me so silly I could hardly breathe from laughing so hard.

We’re also getting a quote this week on new neutral carpeting to replace all of the pink carpet in each of the three bedrooms, hallway and stairs. We figure that if it doesn’t sell, we’ll at least have new flooring. New flooring we can live with; painting the girls’ rooms when we might have to end up staying here anyway? Not gonna happen. We’re standing firm on that. Yes, that’s my final answer Regis, Meredith and Mr. Realtor.

We did however, remove Big I’s full sized loft bed from her room this weekend and replaced it with a twin day bed on loan from my sister. It’s opened up the room so much and despite her original protests, I think Big I is fairly happy with her new digs.

I read in one of my books that you should invest 1-3% of the asking price of your house in improvements and then you can plan to get it all back and then some. By removing the objectionable pink carpet and old kitchen floor, we’re hoping to do just that. Of course, we should probably figure some chiropractor bills into that equation, and possibly a massage therapist. . .

Posted by Black Belt Mama on April 7, 2008 in Mental Strain for Mama | 7 Comments

April 4, 2008

PT for Everyone!

I once had to take the girls with me to PT, but it was only for about 10 minutes. Mr. BBM showed up and took them home before they had the chance to do any serious damage. Since then, they’ve asked if they could go along with me from time to time. It’s like they think they serve ice cream there or something. Yesterday, they had to go for the full almost two hours. It was as if I brought live entertainment to the PT room.

When we arrived, it was packed. Spring must be surgery season. Four tables were filled up leaving one for me. Several people were also circuiting through their exercise routines. I set the girls up on a low padded table that no one ever uses. Mickey Mouse Park came out of Lil C’s bag along with all of her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse characters. Big I got to work on her homework.

Lil C felt it necessary to unpack her entire entertainment bag so in no time at all the rather large table was littered with Dora diapers, Mickey characters and a random Teddy Graham or eight. Like the angel that she is, Big I was quiet and completed her homework without making a peep. Then there was Lil C.

Always needing to be the center of attention, she started talking and loudly right away. She had to confirm everything that was happening to Mommy’s knee. "You laying down now Mommy?"; "You putting heat on your knee Mommy?"; "You all done yet Mommy?" she asked me every 10 minutes or so. The other patients smiled with amusement at her boisterous and talkative manner. When my PT asked me if I wanted some reading material, I refused. "I left it at home for a reason," I told him. "She could turn into a little devil in no time at all."

Things got entertaining when Big I finished up her homework and got out her two new library books. One of them was a dinosaur book. Big I began turning the pages and showing the pictures to Lil C. It was super quiet at the time so Lil C’s very loud, "Oh Wow! Look at the Dio-Whore" echoed around the room. Everyone sort of stopped what they were doing and looked at her and then at me.

"Yes," I confirmed from the floor where I was doing some stretching, "she said ‘dio-whore’. That’s what she calls them." An eruption of laughter took hold of the room and even the poor guy fresh from surgery laughed until he almost cried. Realizing she was a "hit," Lil C continued to talk about "dio-whores" for the next 15 minutes.

Then she made friends. One of my PT buddies came in with her older daughter and they made the mistake of engaging Lil C in conversation. She spent the next hour talking to them loudly, telling them all about her Mickey guys, sharing the fact that she had burped with them, and even going so far as to make her Mickey characters use the one woman’s head as a sliding board.

She also played some April Fool’s jokes which she learned like a pro from her sister earlier in the week and told several people "you have a bunch of bugs on your head." She was a real hit.

With 15 minutes left in my routine, she decided she was bored and ready to go home. She packed the important things up into her bag, leaving behind her diapers and random Teddy Grahams and dragged her filled up bag towards the door.

"I am going home," she announced with a pout on her face. She spent the last 10 minutes of our visit to PT glaring at me as I walked backwards on the treadmill. When I was finally done, there was Teddy Graham carnage to be cleaned from the table, and two very bored kids. I highly doubt there will be much interest in accompanying me back to PT anytime soon. It’s certainly lost its allure for them.

It hasn’t for me though. I hit 154 degrees yesterday. Only one more to go.

Posted by Black Belt Mama on April 4, 2008 in ACL Hell, Mental Strain for Mama | 2 Comments

April 3, 2008

The Truth about Working from Home

As I emailed a fee agreement to a potential new client this morning, Lil C whined in her booster seat that she had cinnamon on her jammies, that she wanted more cereal (even though she still had a bowl full), and that she was "sirsty" having just downed her cup of milk. When I asked her if she could just wait one minute for Mommy to finish emailing something for work, she yelled "NO!" at the top of her lungs and continued to whine. For all I know, I may have sent an email that says, "Attached please find the fee agreement as requested. Now sit down and finish your cereal!" It’s entirely possible.

I started working from home as a recruiter when Big I was about two years old. It was challenging. Although I made my own hours, I was learning a new industry from scratch. The fact that the job was commission only made it even more challenging. After five months of busting my butt and begging Big I to please watch a movie so Mommy could call a candidate quick, I got my first placement and paycheck. I was hooked.

For a stay at home Mom, recruiting was great money. . . if you had the time and effort to put into it. With one child, it was challenging; with two it’s downright impossible sometimes. However, the money that can be made with only a placement or two a year is much better than if I had a part time job out of the house. So, I do it. I work on my laptop from home, frequently with the Disney Channel as my background music. Instead of coffee breaks, we have diaper changing breaks and time to pick Big I up from school breaks.

This week, Mr. BBM has been away on business and it has been rough. I used to be accustomed to him traveling all the time. Now big trips throw us for a major loop. Mr. BBM takes care of getting the girls their baths and into bed each night. That’s my work time. When he’s not here, work doesn’t happen. This week, I have four new job orders to fill and a potential new client to make happy as well. Instead I’ve been falling asleep in cribs and just trying to keep up with the colossal mess that little girls make faster than you can say "fairy princess."

In the past few years, I have negotiated fee agreements in my bathroom with a locked door, knowing that might be the only peaceful place in the whole house that wouldn’t erupt in a temper tantrum at some point. Sometimes, one or both of the girls would bang on the door of my hideout and I’d have to negotiate faster. I’ve placed candidates with cats and kids on my lap. When people talk about their office jobs and the "distractions" that happen during the day, I don’t have much sympathy. Truly, they have no idea. I highly doubt they have a cat doing his daily duty in a litter box beside the desk, or a girl fight to break up over a Barbie doll. All par for the course with me and my daily life.

Mr. BBM works from home two days a week so that I can go to PT without the girls (I have to take them with me today which should be great fun). Often, when I arrive home, his hair is sticking straight up in the hair from rubbing his hands through his hair in frustration that the girls: can’t get along, can’t be quiet, can’t stop screaming, won’t leave him make a phone call, won’t let him get anything done etc. He gets just a small taste of why my job is extremely part time.

No office job has a demanding two-year old asking you to find her Donald Duck. There are no interruptions for french braids, Dora yogurts, or knock down all out temper-tantrums. So for all those who think that working from home is a cake-walk, I’m here to tell you it’s quite the opposite.

***The latest review is up at The BBM Review. Today is your last chance to enter to win a Turtle Press Ultimate Flexibility DVD or book. Just leave a comment at The BBM Review. Drawing takes place tomorrow night!

Posted by Black Belt Mama on April 3, 2008 in Mental Strain for Mama | 9 Comments

April 2, 2008

To Paint or Not to Paint

This morning our realtor suggested once again, that we paint the girls’ rooms. We poured our hearts and souls into those rooms and it kills me to even think about it. When he asked me what my objection was, I told him that paint is an easy fix for a new buyer, and that I don’t want to traumatize my girls. Moving is traumatic enough. He said he wants to help us remove every possible objection. Most people who are looking at our house are young professionals or older people looking for a house where they don’t have to mow the lawn. Neither of these demographics wants themed kids rooms (although no one has yet complained about the rooms).

I spent days choosing the exact colors I wanted to use. I hand made that ocean stencil, painstakingly added those little jumping dolphins, glued seashells onto the curtain rod and spent hours lounging on the floor as Mr. BBM used glaze paint to create clouds on the walls and vaulted ceilings. Some of them look like plain old clouds, but if you look closely you can see that some of them are shaped like seahorses, dolphins and starfish.

We painted this room when I was about seven months pregnant. It was a hot summer weekend and Mr. BBM and I spent the entire weekend working on it. When all was said and done, we added Big I’s baby furniture, bought bright-colored sea creatures to hang on the walls and put it all together.

Lil C loves her ocean room. She likes to pretend she’s Ariel in there. I realized today though, that it may be me who loves that room the most.

When we first moved in, it was a playroom/guest room. As 14 months of trying to have another baby went unanswered, it became this room that was supposed to be and just wasn’t. And then I took that pregnancy test and our Lil C and this ocean room became a reality.

Maybe painting it white is just the first step in letting go of this house that is our first real family home. Letting go of a place that gave you so many fabulous memories is really difficult to do. It may just be a gallon or two of paint, but it’s what that room represents that is the most difficult to just paint over. If we do decide to paint it, there will be tears and I’m betting that they’ll be mine.