So I hit the pool... and it hit me back, hard...

...so I'm trying to at least stave off the peeling by drinking tons of Propel (which I do anyways) and applying lotion as often as I can stand to (meaning after every shower or whenever I'm changing clothes.) I've never liked lotion, which I guess comes from being an oily-natured (compared to most people, although not Ed) ex-jock - where lotion=sticky and sticky=bad, therefore by an axiom of analogical congruence, lotion=bad... see, who says I can't remember geometry... it's the only 'math' I was good at and can remember somewhat. All my other math knowledge is lost in that blur of depression that was college.

We're still reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory... I read somewhere the other day that when Roald Dahl saw the first movie he didn't allow any subequent ones... after reading part of the book and seeing the movie, I can see his point. They ruined a great book the same way Jurassic Park was ruined - the essence, the point, the overall tone of the book and the movie were completely different. It's good, then, that they found the *only* person that hadn't seen the original movie but was old enough to write a screenplay to re-adapt the book for movie-dom. Don't get me wrong, I still love the movie - it's just way different in demeanor than the book I'm reading now. Sure, all the characters are there and the plot is about the same (at least it is overall), but *why* they get from A to B is completely different.

I went to a yoga class this morning and Natha hung out at the kids area (officially termed nursery, but we don't want to call it that). I hadn't done yoga in a while- and this was more strenuous ashtanga-ish style than the hatha I'm used to. For those not yet labelled a yoga nut, that means that instead of the more relaxing, stretching-only, seated postures that I had been doing for a while (http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/485_1.cfm, or Half Lord of the Fishes pose) I'm now going for things like this http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/468_1.cfm or the Crane pose, and http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/785_1.cfm or the Eagle pose. Boy are my hamstrings sore, and I'm more flexible than most... Ed's supposed to go to a class tomorrow morning, and I've warned him to not get frustrated and to stay cool - it doesn't take long to get good at a lot of postures, especially if you focus on the pose and try to keep good form. He's just been stretching his hamstrings the last week and he can already feel a difference.

There are two things that weird me out lately - one's something that just can happen now and I go on, and the other's something I need to work on in a more private, emotional way. They're also completely unrelated, really. The first one that 'happened' and is just something odd is that I can now pick Natha up under the armpits without having to bend down at all. That's a weird thing to be able to do. I wonder how old most mothers are and if it's related to the height of the mom - but then I'd think it wouldn't be that much since taller people have longer arms, generally speaking.

The second thing is how I 'naturally' feel when Ed goes out somewhere without me (or without me and Natha). Now, the logical part of me is ok with this - we're not connected at the hip like Chang and Eng nor would I want to be. The irrational part of me (which I am no good at hiding, especially around him) makes me huffy, snitty, and otherwise not accepting of his non-work activities with other friends. I think part of it comes from being the person 'left behind with the kid' when Natha was younger - people around me went out and hung out with friends I wanted to see too, but I got the short end of the stick on more than one occasion - it was the rule back then, not the exception. Not only do I usually want to go, but there's usually some conflict with having a kid when the people you're around don't have that sort of responsibility to consider when making plans. If our friends were married with children, very few gatherings would be kid-lacking unless there was much planning and deliberation on everyone's part. However, Ed's friends (which I lovingly adopt as my own now) are both single and married (not simultaneously, duh) and there's not a kid in sight, so parties spring up semi-spontaneously without much time to make other arrangements for the simultaneous care of the precious progeny. So, the gatherings in question aren't kid-friendly or kid-acceptable - not because they don't like us or want Natha there, but they're not used to thinking about someone who has a kid - and they shouldn't be expeced to change just on our part - that would just be weird. Most people who have kids drop off the face of the earth as far as their single friends are concerned and they no longer have friends that don't have children, sometimes I think out of pure convenience. You just don't usually have the same things in common, plus it's a pain in the butt to get just the adults alone together to spend significant time doing nuthin' much.

Bottom line is that I don't like being the one who has to stay at home while others go to a gathering I want to attend just because Natha shouldn't go. Mind you, I had the kid, and he's mine... but when I was single, there wasn't another choice - and I had more days without Da Kid just for things like this. Now that he's with us the majority of the time, though, there's less likelihood that the gathering will fall on a night when we're kid-less. I didn't have to watch someone else in the family go out and have the fun while I stayed home back when I was single - I could just rationalize that it wasn't in the cards, like I just had some other commitment that particular night. The last time I had to watch someone else go out while I was stuck was a long time ago, but it really hurt me for various reasons, thus I don't forget it easily. That translates into irrational baggage at this later date, baggage that I'm incapable of stashing in the closet now for the sake of simplicity and consideration for others, although I sometimes wish I could.

I'm also somewhat conflicted about the situation otherwise because I don't think that Natha's schedule should be interrupted for him to go to a drop-in daycare for a night just because I want to go over to someone's house - he shouldn't have to suffer, and he really does want to be with us and not leave most of the time. So I think frustration is the key element at play here - sure we could stash the kid somewhere, but I don't want to put Natha out, yet I don't want to be the one 'stuck' at home as the babysitter. Not sure what to do about this one. I'll have to think about it some more... I don't think the solution is to have Ed stay home, most certainly, or for me to get better about hiding my irrational disdain. There's got to be some better solution. Just don't know what it is yet.

I have been more angry, irrational, emotional, and otherwise charged up lately, all around, and I can chalk some of it up to hormone fluctuations - but the cause of the rest I'm not sure. (Like a semi-intelligent woman, I feel I should analyze it to death before just accepting it.) Some of it might be from staying home with Natha semi-full time, some might be left over from when Ed was working like a robot (AKA all the time) a couple weeks ago, and some might be from the funk I tend to get into when I'm not busy enough. I hope, however, that it's not that I'm having more of these emotions overall, it's just that I'm letting more of them out in different ways than usual. Not many people have seen me cry, and even fewer have seen me get really angry. My lack of emotions coming out and feeling staying bottled up is a huge emotional health no-no for me and is an emotional habit I worked hard to limit if not break a long time ago. I still find myself lapsing back into that old habit, though, like someone who had just about completely quit smoking, congratulated themselves, then stopped paying attention to changing the habit and fell back on the unhealthy wagon again. I go in these cycles where I do things the right way, put it on autopilot, then lapse again... So I hope the root of this is in opening up more, not that I'm feeling more in general. I'm not sure which it is yet...

I had a pizza delivered tonight for dinner for Natha and I, thinking I'd feel better about the Ed-being-gone situation. Since I did yoga, today, though, I just feel like I ate icky food. It sucks that I would think that junk food would make me feel happier (which it has most of the time in the past, and it's worked like a charm back then), but it's good that it didn't work now. It makes me have to deal with my emotions, though, which isn't easy when you're not used to it. The pizza-therapy was easier and tastes better (usually), but it doesn't help things in the long term. I suppose I should change my mindset in that direction, but pineapple pizza, when it's good, it's *oh* so good. There's also pizza and cheesesticks left in the refrigerator. I'm not going to go eat them just because I'm somewhat bored and like the way they taste, though. I'll wait until I wake up in the middle of the night and have a craving for them that won't go away until I have some. Yep, that's always happened to me, even when I wasn't pregnant - I wake up wanting pizza, then I go grab some and come back to bed. I can't sleep when I'm hungry, though, and if there's pizza to be eaten, it'll stay in my mind until it's gone. Let's hope that with continuing yoga and working out that last couple-sentence raving rant turns from the imperfect to the pluperfect to the past tense entirely.

I need to go to bed now - Ed's not home, but I hope he will be soon... I get freaked out being alone in a big house at night, even if it's in a safe neighborhood - I spent too much time living in East Nashville not to scrutinize every outside noise for its potential dangers... again, an irrational thing, but still a *thing*

Word to your mother, G.