While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

To chase a career or a kid?

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Before I had Henry I was impatient with the world, critical of myself and sometimes of others.

I thought stay-at-home moms had it easy. Worse yet, I thought they were devoid of interests beyond the confines of motherhood. I pictured them schlepping kids from Gymboree class to play dates, dressed in yoga pants and a pained smile. I pictured them chained to the kitchen, the SUV, the laundry basket and the obligatory spin class. I pictured them dutifully scheduling time for mommy pep rallies that celebrate the pleasantries of breastfeeding, cloth diapering, baby wearing and holistic nutrition. (Dear Earth Mamas: I see nothing wrong with these things. As topics of discussion, however, I find them boring.)

I thought I’d lose my identity as a stay-at-home-mom. I thought I’d compromise my self-worth and freedom. I thought I’d be resentful of my husband and pissed at myself for having failed at being a working mother: the ultimate wonder woman. I thought I’d be considered a disgrace to the radical feminists who came before me and a quitter to the overachieving, have-it-all multitaskers of my generation.

Leaving my job at the newspaper would mean I’d dropped a significant ball in the heroic juggling act that is regularly executed by the modern working mother. I’d be forced to rethink everything I thought I’d do or wouldn’t do as a parent, as if you really know these things before you bring a tiny, demanding, Bambi-eyed being into this world.

I was wrong about working mothers AND stay-at-home mothers. (As an aside, I was right about yoga pants.)

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You can still run fast in cheap shorts

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My training style in a nutshell:

1. I don’t stick to schedules. I find workout “schedules” to be overwhelming and frankly, stifling. When I want to run, I run. When I want to bike, I bike. On sunny weekends when Joe is at home and can watch Henry, I break away to the public pool and swim.

2. When I train, I push myself harder than the week before. I run 6 miles. I run 8 miles. I run 9-minute miles, then 8-minute miles and the occasional 7-minute mile burst. I bike 20 miles. I swim 75 laps. The only piece of gadgetry I use to track these workouts is the Nike fitness app on my iPod. The rest of the stuff I jot down in a journal. I rarely go back and analyze this data. The numbers don’t matter to me. Here’s how I gauge whether I’m making progress as an athlete: If what I’m doing feels difficult, but not like the world’s worst chore, then I’m doing OK. This is my guiding principle.

3. Just because I don’t stick to a schedule doesn’t mean I don’t train regularly. I think the reason I’m able to wing my workouts is because I do something physical every day. Even on the days I don’t do JACK, I still walk to the grocery store. I count this as activity though it usually means I’m up at night with insomnia. Another reason I think I like training: it TIRES ME OUT and helps me SLEEP.

4. I’m not a gear whore. In the running (and triathlon) industry too much money is spent on Looking The Part rather than Being The Part. Just get yourself a solid road bike, quality running shoes, a few cute tank tops and be on with it. A lot of triathletes take themselves uber seriously. I’d rather look weird and perform well than look slick and perform lousy. I’m already pedaling a strange old bicycle. Why not wear ridiculous sunglasses too? I’m not cocky enough for overpriced sports bling. Triathlons are expensive enough! The $50 Izumi Tri Suit was a splurge at HALF OFF the original price. It was an early birthday treat because I’d gotten to the point where I was too embarrassed to compete in a $20 swimsuit from TJ Maxx.

5. I wonder what the neurosis is behind this little strategy: each time I embark on a run, I set the distance on my Nike app to 5K. My intentions are never to run a 5K. I always exceed this distance by at least double. I’d rather set out to run a 5K and surpass my goal, than commit to a 10K and achieve my goal. I don’t know if this is because I set low standards for myself, or because I like to overachieve. It’s probably a little of both.

6. No matter how hard or often I train, I cannot stop eating sweets. In fact, I like to inhale a couple frozen peanut butter cups right before a run. It fuels my turbo boosters.

Things my Oma says

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Last week I found a fifty dollar bill tucked under a book in Henry’s room. I knew immediately that my Oma had something to do with it. She’s like a misguided tooth fairy.

I called her when I found it.

Me: “Hello Sneak. I found your fifty dollar bill.”

Oma: “Oh vell. Nevermind that.”

Me: “You don’t have to hide money in Henry’s room.”

Oma: “I don’t HAVE to. I VANT to.”

Me: “You spoil us.”

Oma: “One day when you are a grandmother, you vill spoil your grandchildren as well.”

Me: “Let’s hope I’m out of the poor house by then.”

Oma: “Ve all start out poor. It’s part of living.”

Me: “Not everyone starts out poor.”

Oma: “It is better to start out poor. Dees is how you learn to appreciate things. People who have too much money at a young age do drugs and kill themselves.”

The little yard that could

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This is Henry’s little red chair. I’ve got a thing for Adirondack chairs, no? Now my boy can sit in style next to his mother, who when she does sit, likes to sit in style. (Hello Sky Chair.)

The picket fence in the background was something of a neighborhood project. Without the help of family, friends, neighbors and virtual strangers, I’d still be sulking around St. Pete, grumbling about my fugly front yard.

Oh, but I love my house.

Well. Let me rephrase that. I’ve always loved the inside of my house. It’s got a cozy bungalow feel. It’s filled with comfortable furniture, meaningful art, an adorable toddler tyrant, a handsome husband and a fat, happy pug. What more could a gal want?

The front of my house, however, has always been a sore spot. Up until last month it had zero curb appeal. Our lawn was balding. Our once valiant attempt at a vegetable garden had become an angry bed of weeds, littered with bent fragments of metal fencing and forgotten plant markers. Our porch was about as inviting as a parking lot. With the exception of an overly shellacked manatee statue – a gift form my Oma – the entrance to our house was, in fact, off-putting.

We did try to jazz things up. Or rather, well-meaning family gardeners tried to jazz things up.

Two years ago, Oma took pity on us and came over when I was at work to lay down mulch and plant flowers in the sad beds by our front door. Despite diligent watering, her landscaping eventually gave way to weeds. Fed up with these failed attempts at beautification, we decided to let the one thing that wouldn’t die continue to grow – a frail Jacaranda tree in the center of our circular driveway that resembled a stooped-over geriatric.

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The great skimp

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My name is Heidi and I’m a crazy bag lady.

I’m a crazy bag lady because I recently returned six cans of tuna fish to Save A Lot. I pulled six cans out of my enormous purse, stacked them in front of the cashier and shamelessly asked for my money back.

Henry squawked. The people in line behind me squawked. Ohnoshedidn’t. Tuna fish in a purse? Those cans better not be opened.

(They weren’t.)

I was that woman. The one who plods into a bargain basement grocery store with a baby on her hip and a purse full of tuna fish.

Upon pulling the cans out of my purse, I explained to the cashier (and to anyone behind me muttering bag lady under their breath) that I had mistakenly purchased albacore instead of chunk light.

Ten dollars is a lot of money for tuna fish your husband won’t eat.

I never felt more like my grandmothers, although I’m pretty sure even they’d suck up $10 and move on. Not me. I was the penny-pinching old bat; the one who wears her hair in a babushka and carries change in a margarine container.

“There’s paperwork,” the cashier said flatly, handing me a form on which I had to write my name, phone number and address.

Seriously? I thought. Paperwork? Fine. Bring it on. If I’m not too proud to return the fancy kind of tuna to the poor kind of grocery store, then I’m not too proud to create a paper trail.

This should come as no surprise to you: I don’t live large. Never have.

I come from blue collar stock; the kind of people my husband describes as “salt of the earth,” which is ironic given the metaphor comes from Jesus, whom I was raised without.

New money. Old money. It’s all someone else’s money to me. Writing, though I hoped it would one day catapult me into a new socioeconomic stratosphere, has yet to buy me a Stephen King-sized house or a J.K. Rowling-sized movie deal.

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Newly minted!

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What have I done with my life since we last spoke …

seven weeks ago?

Well, let’s see.

I left my job, reevaluated my life, my work as a journalist and my work as a mother. I pitched a few stories to magazines. I booked a few freelance photography gigs. I helped my clever neighbor edit her book on grieving. I fretted (briefly) over leaving my job. I got over it. I made a list of all the posts I want to write because I feel lazy in the blogging department. I got a speeding ticket royally screwed for driving 28 mph in a 20 mph zone speed trap on Siesta Key Beach. I bought Henry a retro spring horse for $20 off craigslist. I got bit by an Australian shepherd on my final assignment for the paper. I took Henry swimming at the luxurious public pool near our house. In an attempt to fully appreciate the cool-down and to get the most for our $5 entry fee, we turned all the outings into bike excursions. (PS. Biking with my kid has become my new workout regime.)

What else?

Oh yeah, I stood up in my sister’s gorgeous wedding gown on the Erie Canal, at which Henry served as ring bearer and handsome flirt. The weekend before Heelya’s nuptials, I camped with my entire family in Middle of Nowhere, Upstate New York, where I exposed my one-year-old to the joys of four-wheeling through the woods, bathing in frigid spring water and sleeping in a cabin. When we returned to Florida, I gave him his first hair mullet cut. He had spent so much time in the New York hinterlands he’d grown a baby Billy Ray.

And then I gutted my office, which had turned into a black hole for all the crap in our house Henry has broken or has yet to break. I painted it mint green, redecorated/refurnished it with an uncharacteristically girly touch and managed to stay under my $200 budget.

Last year, when I posted pictures of Henry’s baby cave I pulled in my highest number of comments EVER. This still floors me. I write and write and write my heart out and it’s pictures of baby decor that generate chatter. A crib and an Ikea dresser-turned-changing-table, that’s what gets your juices flowing.

In the spirit of pretty pictures, I decided to return to the Lance after a long hiatus with a post dedicated to my office makeover. I was especially resourceful when it came to this overhaul. Now that we’re minus an income and living on tuna fish, I can hardly justify a new Aeron chair. This is why I got a wooden one for $30 at an estate sale.

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Pregnancy Confession No. 8

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[I'm saying no to drugs.]

According to the latest labor statistics,
99 percent of women in the United States
still give birth in a hospital.

This woman, however,
ain't planning to.

I'm the one percent.

ONE PERCENT!

Does this make me crazy?
Brave?
Foolhardy?
Smart?
Adventurous?

Maybe all of the above.

But I'm superstitious
and hesitant to write much about it at this point.

The IT being the fact that Joe and I decided
to have Henry at a birth center.

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The psychic boy and the toy horses

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I swung by Dollar General yesterday afternoon to pick up some odds and ends.

While I was standing in the discount DVD aisle, a little boy about five years old ran up to me clutching two stuffed horses.

He was galloping. The horses were pretend galloping and pretend neighing.

I was considering purchasing a $4 As Good As It Gets DVD.

The child nuzzled me. The horses in his hands nuzzled me.

I put down the DVD. Wondered what Jack Nicholson was up to lately. Turned my attention to the kid at my waist; the brown horses neighing at my enormously pregnant stomach.

“You like my horses?” He asked.

“They’re very beautiful,” I said, bending down to meet him.”You take good care of them.”

“They’re race horses,” he replied.

“They look very fast,” I said.

“They need a bath.”

“They look perfectly clean to me.”

“Oh no, they stink like dirty horses,” he said turning his attention to the DVD display in front of us. I scanned the store for his parents. The only adults I could see were two presumably homeless men buying generic cola at the checkout counter.

“You buyin’ a movie?” He asked.

“Was thinking about it. You got any suggestions?”

He thought about it for a minute and then wildly galloped his horses in the air.

“I think you should buy a horse for your son,” he said.

I looked around for sign of another child. Surely, this kid had seen another boy in the store and assumed he belonged to me.

There were no other kids in the store.

Just me. The boy. The clerk. Two horses and two bums.

I wasn’t sure how to address his comment.

Technically I don’t have a son. Not yet anyway. I mean … well … I do, but he’s not exactly running around the house begging for toy horses even though lately some of his kicks and jabs make me think he’s ready to come out and play.

I looked at the boy suspiciously.

Where are your parents, dude?

I was in a hurry and in no position to explain pregnancy to a five-year-old.

So I said, “I don’t have a son.”

The boy tilted his head to the side. Nudged my stomach with one horse.

“You will soon,” he said, grinning.

—-

True story. It’s rekindled my belief in animal spirit guides.

The one about my sister’s fake toe nails

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lips.

This is a true story, as are all stories on The Lance.

It’s short, unsettling and involves my hapless sister PK and her flawless toe nails.

Over the summer, our favorite Bristol Palin lookalike began adhering fake toe nails to her piggies.

She was covert about her new weird beauty habit, choosing short white nails with french tips, which she refrained from revealing were artificial, until one day I said, “Jesus PK. Those nails looks so perfect they could almost be fake.”

She started giggling.

“That’s because they are fake. I got ’em from the Dollar Store,” she said.

“Well I’ll be damned,” I replied, half-disgusted and half-impressed with her ingenuity.

I’ve not seen her real toe nails since June. It would appear that the regime has (pardon the pun) stuck.

A couple weeks ago, she shared with me this story while we were heading to a chocolate festival in Tampa. (Yes, I said chocolate festival. I’m a pregnant chocoholic. My primal instincts kicked in.)

The story goes:

PK runs to the Dollar Store to pick up a new pack of falsies and a bottle of nail glue.

She returns to her apartment with the goods and begins her routine of replacing the old acrylics with the new acrylics.

She’s in a hurry.

To expedite the process, she decides to bite open the nail glue rather than fetch a pair of scissors.

With a firm grip on the cap, she begins to gnaw. At this point, she’s thinking it would have been easier to retrieve the scissors from the kitchen.

She gnaws too much.

She successfully loosens the plastic tip. In a matter of seconds, nail glue begins to ooze into her mouth. By the time she realizes the severity of the situation, it’s too late. Her lips are glued to the cap. Her tongue is glued to her teeth.

She lives alone so there’s no one around to a.) help her and b.) mock her.

“It tasted disgusting,” she said. “It took me like 30 minutes to pry my lips apart.”

“I hope it doesn’t interfere with the taste of the chocolate,” I said.

“I don’t know,” she muttered. “I’ve still got glue stuck to the back of my teeth.”

—

PS. Photo by Anthony Kelly.

Interview with a best friend

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We had a garage sale in 2004, shortly before I moved to Florida. We made $6.

On Dyngus Day in St. Pete, Florida. April 2010.

—-

Back in April my best friend Ro flew down to Florida to spend her spring break with me.

The visit was so succulent and memorable and FUN that the second I dropped Ro off at the airport (to return to Buffalo) I began bawling.

But before she left, I interviewed her. I intended to post the interview back in April, but I’ve been busy, stressed and cranky, which is unfortunate because during her stay I felt weightless. Young. Just reading over this thing makes me giggle — something I could use a little more of lately.

Rose and I have been friends since 7th grade. To fully understand the kind of friendship we have you’d have to see our high school yearbooks. Every June before summer vacation we’d exchange yearbooks and fill three full pages each with memories.

If we were handed yearbooks as adults, Rose and I would still fill three pages each every year.

And we live 1,300 miles apart.

Ro is getting married next Saturday at a beautiful old church in South Buffalo. I’m her matron of  honor. The conversation below touches on that and everything from pussy willows to swim caps to that time in 8th grade when we apparently didn’t speak to each other.

Dear Ro: I’m sitting at the Tampa Airport, waiting to board my flight to Buffalo. I’m so excited to see you get married that my restless leg syndrome is keeping the man next to me awake.

—-

What’s on your mind at this current moment?

“Trying to find the picture of the dress I’m wearing for my shower.”

Would you ever consider wearing a jumpsuit or a romper to your shower?

“Yes, I can wear anything I want to my shower. It’s my one chance to be ridiculous. I’m kidding. You should write that I’m kidding”

Is there a particular shower gift you’re anticipating or really want?

“No, not at all. I’m anticipating not getting a tandem bicycle. Yeah, no. There’s nothing I really want because the things on my registry would be good to have, but they’re probably not necessary.”

Your mom was going to get you a tandem. Why did she nix the idea?

“Well, as you well know, it’s difficult to live with people who do not share the same level of fitness energy as you do, so I thought it would cause many fights. It felt like I would predominately ride the tandem bike single.”

Was she crushed that you didn’t want it?

“I think she’s relieved that she didn’t waste $800 on a bike no one would ride.”

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