Things to avoid when you are going into labor...

Anything labeled spicy, hot, Cajun, jerk,  four alarm, extra chunky, or high fiber. Foods containing corn, peas, hot peppers, jalapenos, habaneros, any and all types of beans, including but not limited to pinto, lima, black, red, kidney, Boston baked and Mexican jumping. Any products containing psyllium, flax seed, hemp, rope, netting, barbed wire,  fishhooks, and/or blow darts. The old adage, "what goes in, must come out", will never be more apparent to you as your baby's head is delivering. Your nurse can and will overcome anything, however, your partner will be with you forever...

You know you need a cleaning woman when...

...Your dust kitties are so big that they require a rabies certificate
...You find jello in your cabinet that still contains Red dye #2
...You have a diaphragm in your medicine cabinet and you haven't ovulated for six years
...The vacuum cleaner bag has confetti in it from your 1999 New Years Eve party
...You pull a newspaper from the pile and the headline is "Mount Saint Helens Erupts"
...You ask your husband for the milk and he asks you where you've hidden the refrigerator
...Your friends love your green carpeting and you realize it was originally white
...Your favorite show is "Hoarding: Buried Alive" because you can relate to it
...You feel so lucky because no one ever asks you to host a Tupperware party
...Your son goes to sit on the love seat and realizes it's a mushroom
...Your dog doesn't want to come in the house during an F5 Tornado

Gotta go get the cleaning supplies....

Trapeze school, here I come!

For my 46 birthday, my daughter presented me with a gift certificate for a lesson at Trapeze School of New York.  My first excuse not to go was to tell her I couldn't possibly go to New York with my busy schedule (obsessively vacuuming and re-vacuuming a virtually endless supply of dog fur). That didn't work since it's only four towns away. Wracking my brain for another excuse, I told her I couldn't possibly wear a leotard because the spandex industry couldn't recover from that kind of a hit. She assured me that I could wear whatever I wanted, so I've been looking on EBay for a Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak but haven't had much luck. Once I get that, I will make an appointment and I might even let her videotape me. Wearing the cloak, of course...

Breaking down a 12 hour shift...

Hour 1: getting report from your night nurse sprinkled with a little discussion of your latest marital problems

Hour 2: sharing report with your peers while discussing your latest episode of bowel incontinence

Hour 3: getting to know your patient while wondering if your dog has pooped all over your living room

Hour 4: running to the OR propelled by the gas from your bowl of Fiber One cereal

Hour 5: helping your patient to breastfeed while doing your best impersonation of Quasi Modo

Hour 6: continuing breastfeeding education as your plantar fasciitis reenacts a Tony Robbins fire walking seminar

Hour 7: listening to your patient explain how nipple confusion will cause their baby to flunk the SAT's

Hour 8: transferring your patient from a stretcher while wondering if your 20 year old is having a RAVE in your backyard 

Hour 9: trying to explain to your new patient that your ketone breath is not a new brand of perfume

Hour 10: finally going to lunch and realizing that it has been thrown out in the weekly refrigerator clean out

Hour 11: running to the OR for a stat c-section as your daughter texts you that she needs $800. for school books

Hour 12: giving report to your night nurse as you discuss the 5K you'd like to run even though you need a wheelchair to get to the parking garage

How is a flash mob like a hot flash? And why is one so popular and the other not?

People are making such a big deal of flash mobs, like it's something you've never seen before. Well, if you are a woman in your 40's, you've seen plenty of them. You often see flash mobs at the mall, but I've been having hot flashes at the South Shore Plaza long before they became a You tube sensation.  Flash mob dancers work up to a frenzied sweat; I just have to stand still and I'm sweating like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.  The flash mobbers are wearing colorful costumes, I look like I'm wearing a habanero pepper suit that sat under a heat lamp too long. The mobbers are gyrating and singing their lungs out, I am fryolating and wringing my blouse out. Please, oh please can the next hot thing be Arctic karaoke, because I'm gonna get in on it.   

My mother's meltdown, or how she realized she had waterfront property...

So there's a certain quality you relinquish when you live with your elderly parents. It's called your sanity. My husband, who loves to tinker but in the process makes things virtually unusable, has rigged our garden hose to go off automatically at 3 a.m. without any human intervention. That is unless you count mopping for three hours after waking up to your entire kitchen filled with 2 inches of water a human intervention. Now, I wish I had filmed my mother when she discovered it, because I would submit it for Oscar consideration. The wailing she displayed would put Meryl Streep to shame. The one thing I will have my husband do now is attach the hose to a wine barrel so the next time it happens, we can drink it straight off the kitchen floor. That might be an actual invention you could make money from...

Do you think paddle boards have a weight limit...

I have decided that tomorrow I must try paddle boarding. It is the newest craze among the young and fit. (Neither of which I am, but I doubt that will keep the surf shop from taking my credit card.) It looks like so much fun, standing on that slippery, wobbly, glossy piece of summer fun. I like to think of it as a diving board to a shark's stomach. Paddle boards are so brightly colored, too, like a beacon for all those innocent day-trippers. They will be able to witness me in all my cellulite glory as I try to straddle it and "work my core", wherever the heck that is.   

Zip lining while managing my fear of hornets....

I have always wanted to try zip lining, even though I have a huge fear of heights and bees. So the only way to do it was to go in the winter when the bees are hibernating (cuz that's what Normal people do). After signing our lives away with a 5 page disclaimer, we buckled into our gear and were taken to the mountain. We climbed into this crazy van that had four point restraints (which have apparently increased in popularity since "50 shades of gray") came out. After getting to the offloading area, we were secured to the line and told to take off. I have never been so scared in my 45 years, but it was one of the funnest things I have ever done. It also helped that I was wearing a diaper under my ski pants. It was definitely a challenge to my fear of heights, and we didn't see one hornet....

The reason I started this blog...

Last year, I was flying on a plane to take my son out to visit college prospects. There was an article in a magazine about Cameron Diaz. Now, I had never really thought about her other than being in movies, some good, some not so much. But, after reading the article, I was inspired! She does a lot of fun things! They basically said that she never says no to any kind of fun. I thought that I could kind of be more like that in my own life. So I started incorporating the phrase "What would Cameron do?" into my daily life and I have to say, it has made a huge difference. So this blog is basically about me, trying to become a more positive person and do things that initially inspire fear, but make my life more exciting! Kind of like the movie "Yes, Man"...but more realistic since I am somebody's mother and someone has to plow through those piles of laundry and unload the dishwasher occasionally...Hope you enjoy my journey!

What's that noise?

Zipping around the kitchen, getting ready to make dinner when it occurred to me that Rocco's nails must need trimming. All I could hear was "click, click, click, click". I realized he was fast asleep on his dog bed; it's my hip clicking!

Jogging isn't for hobbits...

Cameron probably runs, so I thought it would be great to go for a "run". So many of the girls at work do it and they are all slim, veiny and statuesque. Well, I should be asking the hobbits at work what they are doing for exercise and not the gazelles. We started out well, but good God, my lungs must be as big as kidney beans. I feel sure that my lips were turning blue because I had to keep stopping so that I could gasp. I'm not sure many marathon runners gasp. It just doesn't seem normal. Plus, the Rocco was trying to poop at the same time. We made it though, 4 1/2 miles in just under six hours. Not too bad for our first time.

Should I pee or should I go...

When you are a childbirth "survivor", there are so many things nobody tells you.  Sharing the thrill of your son's first steal to second base in little league. Watching your daughter giggling about her first crush. Taking the bladder you were born with and willfully exchanging it for a deflated water balloon. Nobody tells you that you will have exactly 37 minutes from the time you drink that first morning cup of coffee to when you will need to hit the johnny on the spot. Nobody tells you that you will map out your morning walks so that there are at least 3 toileting venues along your route. Can I make it once more around the supermarket? Can I make it once more around the block? Toilet paper is not a flexible spending account deduction my friends, but an IUD is....

I never realized that buying a good bra is like buying a new car

As an aspiring jogger, I realized the first thing I need is a good bra. Since the only "gym" bra I own is my 14 year old nursing one, I decided that now was the time to take the plunge. Walking into that high end athletic shop was like walking into a used car dealer. They could smell the fear coming out of my pores. There were jogging bras with reinforced straps, side air bags, reflector stripes; some had leather and some had 5 star rated front impact zones. One even offered a 10 year/100,000 mile warranty. Tomorrow I get to wear it for the first time; I am going to get it appraised for my homeowners insurance....

Nurses need hair and makeup people too

I can tell you one thing Cameron would not do, and that would be to work as a labor and delivery nurse. To do a 12 hour shift is similar to standing inside a proton accelerator. The only problem is that what you are accelerating is the aging process. You can experience firsthand as your varicose veins grow and swell like purple grapes before the harvest. You tell yourself that Whoppers and saltines really could be considered a nutritious breakfast. But then out comes that baby that you've worked so hard to help get into the world, and it all feels worthwhile, until you stand on the scale the next morning. Ahhhhh......

I am limping away from the running....

So, it has been awhile since my last post, and the running has not been going so well. After traversing down a steep hill, I jocked my right foot and when I walk, it feels like I am wearing a glass shoe. Not like a Cinderella glass shoe either. This shoe has shredded glass uppers, glass lined arches and crushed glass insoles that really give you the sensation of walking on a broken windshield. Once it feels better, I plan on resuming my quest to become more gazelle like. The Rocco is quite happy as he didn't particularly care for the sprints, since it prevented him from smelling every grass blade and old dung pile he encountered. Let me tell you another thing, if Cinderella was around today, she would be wearing a nice pair of Chuck Taylors...

Next up...going for a hike!

I am so thrilled to say that me and my husband are going to go for a hike this weekend. It's going to be a moderate hike (for me) and a very difficult one (for him). You see, I will be traversing the steep slopes with my water bottle, sunglasses and extra sweatshirt. He will be carrying his stuff plus some other things I might need. The sani can from our boat, compression stockings, motion sickness pills, toilet paper, massage oil, coleman grill, iv fluids, pneumoboots, camera, tripod, laptop, hand sanitizer, rifle, slingshot, pepper spray, sleeping bag, oxygen bottles, nasal cannula, knee brace, neck brace, head gear, slide board and fire extinguisher. If all goes well, this could maybe become a little bonding thing for us!