The Curse of the Good Girls

I spent some time at Rogers' house tonight. I just dropped by to check in since she's on bed rest right now. And we had a discussion about how much bed rest sucks. She did it for months with her first pregnancy. I only had to do it for a short time around my surgery. Now she's back on it with this pregnancy and we're all keeping our fingers crossed that it's not going to as long as it was when she was pregnant with Curious J.

What struck me most about the conversation was that there are these definite similarities in the way that Rogers and I were raised, because they both led to these crazy expectations we have of ourselves.

Good girls keep their wits about them. Good girls are always there to help. Good girls are self-sufficient, responsible, reliable. Good girls get good grades, date nice boys.

What has happened is both good and bad. As adults, we have trouble trusting people. We let most people in to a certain extent, but not enough that if they totally disappeared we'd be heart broken. We think we should be able to take care of everything in our lives by ourselves and we should always be able to do it well. We set extremely high expectations of ourselves and consider these expectations to be the bare minimum acceptable performance. We are terrible at admitting that we need help or asking for it. We keep things to ourselves far too often. We beat ourselves up for our mistakes, even though we learn best by them. We don't want to be a bother to anyone. And we're okay not being noticed at all.

And I wonder what it is about our cultural upbringing that put all of those ideas into our heads. Because the truth is that we're both very high performing, empathetic, smart women. So why do we keep ratcheting up the expectations? Why can't we just be okay with who we are? Why do we continue to frustrate ourselves when we've learned time and time again that we have very little control over things like diseased gallbladders and babies?

Is it just us, or are there other people who feels this way too?

Weeeeee on the Wii

Tonight I Wiied for the first time at Rogers' house. I haven't played video games in a long, long time. And, of course, with the live action no sitting down rules... this was a whole new ballgame. 

I beat Rogers at tennis.

She beat me at golf. 

Then she trampled me at bowling.

Then she killed me at baseball.

Then we found the Wii fit option. I managed a 39 (which is only 7 years more than my real age -- which for a first time-ever player, I'm pretty proud of). Rogers (being a highly competitive, serious player of all games and just coming off three huge wins) was dismayed by her 62. 

So I'm pretty sure if we play again in a couple of weeks, she'll be like a 20 year old and kicking my ass in every game.

On a note, if you haven't Wiied before. I recommend not doing it around the toddlers. Perfectly appropriate and correctly used four-letter words just start flying out of your mouth, as a side effect of playing. Plus, when you're punching the daylights out of someone in the middle of a boxing tournament, you're not really watching your child. 

Curious J had been in bed a while, but I realized that I completely lost my "mommy eye" in the back of my head while I was playing. 

Either way, we played for like an hour and 30 minutes. I sweated a bit and left pretty happy to to go back and give it another go.

An average summer day

Sure it only got in the low 70's today, but it finally felt like summer. MacTroll took X-man today with his Doc and Lightning McQueen in the cacti to school(it was show and tell.) 

While they were gone, I picked up a few things and checked my mail. A few minutes later, Rogers called to ask if I wanted to go to a garage sale and help her out today. 

So, one garage sale ended up turning into three in Prairie Fields, but sadly we bought nothing. And then we packed her car full of stuff to take to the University's YMCA dump and run collection.

I could hardly believe it was almost noon when I left to go home. I got home, had some lunch and then went out and mowed the backyard, planted the happy tree (finally!) and started the trimming in the backyard around the hot tub, garden, sandbox and fence. MacTroll finished the job later.

At 2:30 p.m. I came in and took a shower and got ready to go see the Illini Baseball team take on Purdue in the first game of a doubleheader. 

We met some of our CARE friends there and had a blast. First of all, it was for some reason free tonight -- hooray! There's a new Dana in the group, who I think is just awesome, so we jabbered most of the night. She and I have a lot of similar viewing and reading habits. Plus, Lightning McColin was there, which always makes X-man happy. 

The scariest part of the whole game was when a foul ball came over the backstop and fell within a few feet of Colin's head. Next time I'm taking my glove, just in case. That scared me, Heidi and Colin a bit. I'm not sure why I didn't have the sense to shield him since I was the closest. It just kind of happened so fast. I couldn't take my eye off the ball.

Now I'm pooped. MacTroll passed out playing a computer game about 15 minutes ago. X-man was in bed and passed out around 7:30 p.m. I'm not quite sure why I'm up... just that, I think maybe something interesting in the world is happening right now and I'm missing it. :-P

Teaming up: Parents of kids with pink eye unite

So, my kid was restless after only 24 hours of staying at home. He can't help it. He's very social. He likes to get out and about. He likes to go to the park. He likes playdates and roaming and walks with the dog... so the fact that he has a contagious virus and that it's been cold and rainy for two days straight does nothing for him.

At 9 a.m. this morning, I came to my wits' end and called in the reinforcements. My good friend Rogers lives just a few blocks away, and by some kind of miracle both of our kids have the exact same contagious virus... so we decided to start a pink eye colony of warmth and acceptance. I went over to her pad and the boys played and played and played for two hours (with awesome non-sick mommy assistance by Rogers' mom Mimi). There was sharing and hugging and all kinds of good stuff going on between the X-man and his buddy Curious J. I was very proud of them both.

Afterward X-man ate his grilled cheese, drank his milk and took a nice 2-hour nap. 

In 24 hours, my single parenthood is supposed to come to an end for the weekend. I think I'm going to try and spend it sleeping to get rid of my cold and my sore throat.