It is raining very hard this weekend and the prospect of being cooped up in the house with a crazy active toddler just kinda melts my brain so when she wakes up from her nap we're going to take her swimming. We haven't done the whole Parents and Kids swimming lessons thing yet because I keep insisting AH be the one responsible for taking her. Why, I wondered this morning, as he isn't exactly pro-active about this type of activity, would I leave it up to him? Then I began to get ready for the pool and remembered. It's not exactly about looking like crap in a bathing suit, a life situation I am still in a form of denial about as I grew up bean-pole like and am trying to adjust to the reality of and the defeat of my new chubby shape. But it's partly about that, even though my bathing suit is a plain, racer-back sporty style. It's about the prep involved. I am not an armpit shaver, not really. Every week or so I trim them and keep them shorn and clean - but not completely shaved. It hurts and I don't think it looks that bad how I have 'em but then I put on a bathing suit and I feel weird. And I had to shave my legs of course. I also don't touch the pubic area, sorry if that's too much info, but I just don't. Red itchy bumps are not for me and I can barely afford regular haircuts for the hair most people CAN see. So there's that issue with a bathing suit. And then I had to get out of the shower and touch up my toenails with nail polish. What does AH have to do? Throw on some polyester long shorts - done. It really really burns my britches. I know I don't HAVE to do any of that and obviously I'm not terribly concerned as some women across America would rather die than not deal with armpit hair - but the worry is still there, you know? I for one would like an old school Victorian bathing suit. (And no, I hate boy shorts for their visual unfriendliness to the chubby thigh.) I bitched for the last hour about the patent unfairness about it to AH - he knows, he knows. But I worry too about transmitting all this female baggage in its many forms to Simone. So she doesn't feel like it's burden or a curse or a responsibility - you know? I was thinking about that too on Friday night - AH and his band had a show out in W1lmington, a little town on the coast, so we all decided to go and get a hotel room and stay over. AH went off to the show, and I tried to get a toddler to fall asleep in the same room as me watching "What Not to Wear" (verdict: near impossible) Around midnight I was awoken by the unmistakable sounds of sexy times and too thin hotel walls. A bunch of college kids were finishing up Spring Break and there was undeniable paryting of the beer and hooking-up variety going on. Sigh. I hate listening in. But all I could think about was Simone being grown up and going through the rites of passage and horrible boyfriends and that phase of being a girl where you seriously study the "How to be good in bed and drive him wild with desire" Cosmo articles and sometimes accept a sexual connection only with a boy rather than no connection at all - but how to balance prudence with an ease and comfortableness and fun about her sexuality and what my role is in all that or if it's just something she has to go through herself, even if she's not hetro-inclined. When she was born and I found out she was a girl, I knew it would be difficult to model good consistent female behaviour and a happy attitude when I'm so conflicted myself...and here it is, hard.
It was a pretty hard weekend in general, parenting-wise. We have traveled a bunch with Simone already and felt kind of proud of just hitting the road as usual after she came along. But Jesus, it's getting rough at 14 months. Sleeping in the same hotel room is torture (she doesn't sleep and neither do we, constantly worrying about the other hotel guests) and controlling her from destroying said hotel room - also torture. She's always been good in the car but now she actually gets bored and needs intermittent amusing. And finger foods, which is hell on your car and the rug and the floor of the restaurant you stop at. We took her to the beach and she insisted on running up to the beach herself. She tripped, face-first on pavement, chipping her pacifier and cutting her tongue badly with her teeth. Sobbed and bled for 20 minutes and cried when she saw the waves. We left after 15 minutes. We carried on to the North Carolina Aquarium, a decision I questioned the whole drive, as I wasn't sure she would get much out of it. Ha. Standing in front of these huge saltwater tanks and looking up at the big fish - she lost her little mind. Screamed "wowowowowowowo" while literally vibrating with excitement. She clenches her teeth, bends her knees and makes her hands into fists when she is so excited that she can't bodily contain it. It reaffirms my faith, makes up for bloody kleenex and broken plans, destroyed hotel rooms, peanut butter faces and worrying about her future. It's why I'll put on a bathing suit, for the hope of another moment of - there's no other way to describe it - pure joy.