Old and Tired

Last night, my husband and I pretended that we were 21 again. We shipped the kids off for sleepovers with their grandparents, and had an old fashioned night. Old fashioned, like we did in the days before we had kids.

We hung out for a little while in a quiet house, Mr. Lindstrom prepared a nice dinner, we set a table for two, and enjoyed each other's company. Quickly the conversation turned to the three little people who were absent from our house.

At 9:30, when I am usually in jammies on the couch, we left our house bound for a club in St. Paul where we were to see one of our favorite bands. We knew they were taking the stage at midnight. Midnight. That's when I've usually been asleep for two hours. I had prepared. I had napped for two hours after the kids had been picked up by their grandparents, but still I had anxiety. I didn't know if I could make it. I am old.

Around us, we watched young girls pass out at the bar. We watched handsome young men get droopy and sloppy. While I imagined that they would spend the whole of Sunday wrapped in blankets in front of a TV with no obligations, dozing off and maybe ordering in when they felt like eating, it tickled the back of my mind that in a few short hours, my kids would arrive back home, and it wouldn't matter how much sleep I got, it would be go time again.

But then our favorite band took the stage. We danced, we sang, we rocked. For two hours, I forgot what time it was. I forgot that I wasn't 21. I forgot that I would need to be awake in 6 hours to play with play dough. I forgot that I had been wondering if all the young kids in the bar were glancing our direction and thinking about how old and lame we were.

And then it was 2:00 am.

The moment we walked through the doors of the club into the bitter cold, I couldn't wait to get home. To my warm bed. I couldn't wait for morning to come. For my kids to come home. For the chaos to start again. It turns out 21 is just fun to visit... I'd rather be old and tired!

A Body At Rest

Remember ninth grade Physics? A body in motion tends to stay in motion (unless acted upon by an equal opposite force).

Today, the equal opposite force was a pedicure.

I finally realized that the reason moms over schedule is not because they want credit for do, do, doing, but instead because they don't want to fall asleep. If you are moving from one item on the to-do list to another with no stopping, it's not because you can cash in at the end of the day for some award, it's because if you sit down, you're as good as out of the game. And we all know, a body at rest stays at rest.

Every 6 weeks I have it on my calendar. Every sixth Saturday, in black letters, like a light at the end of a very busy tunnel, PEDICURE. I go to the cheapy $25 joint in my neighborhood. I usually get the guy who takes to my callouses with a sandpaper while no doubt imagining that he is sanding the deck. I chant to myself, "this is supposed to be relaxing" while he "massages" my tender little piggies (or rather treats my feet like he's shuffling a deck of cards). It is 40 minutes of peace and quiet. I read a book, check facebook, tweet a little, mindlessly watch the Gameshow Network on their big screen TV, anything but respond the word "mommy." And sure enough, at some point during the experience, I find my eyelids drooping. A body at rest, stays at rest.

This particular Saturday, the strangers in the chairs around me included a mother in the final stages of pregnancy and another mother who had just gotten some good news from her child via cell phone and signed off just in time to have a lovely shade of blue applied to her toes. Sure enough, 30 minutes in, I looked to each side to notice that we were all practicing the same head bob. The one that means that we stopped for a moment.

A body in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted on by an equal opposite force. Or a pedicure.

It was delightful.