Help the music impaired get fit!

As I've mentioned before, I have a music disability. You all helped me so kindly the last time I asked for suggestions that I thought I'd hit you up again.

I started a running program a few weeks ago and have been taking it pretty slowly and not really enjoying it all that much. The first week I was pretty sure my heart was going to explode, after that I felt better, but wasn't really feeling the love if you know what I mean. Today though, I kicked my run's ass! I even added an additional running segment at the end and kicked that part in the ass too! Exclamation point! The difference? I brought my iPod along today and had the 80s mix in my ear. Whip It indeed, Devo.

So music it is, but I need a better mix. What are your favorite songs to run to? I only need about 10-15 songs since my run/walk is 25 minutes. (Tamara, I already know you're thinking Eye of the Tiger.)

The art of declining gracefully

I suck at this.

A friendly mom with a daughter Amelia's age approached me at Fiona's school and asked if I'd be interested in joining the mom's group that she participates in. "Sure!" I said, "That sounds nice." I had heard good things about the local PEPS group programs and had always been too lazy to look one up when I was home with Fiona when she was a baby, so it was nice to have an actual invitation to the group and a friendly face I could seek out. Except, this was not a PEPS meeting, this was a similarly-named-but-definitely-not-PEPS meeting. I seem to have been a little confused about which moms group was which. They have the same concept, but see if you can catch the subtle difference in their mission statements:

PEPS - PEPS' mission is to provide community-based programs that enable parents of infants and young children to meet the challenges of parenting through mutual support and shared information.
NOT PEPS - We’re here to encourage, equip, and develop you as a mother of a preschooler to realize you’re [sic] potential as a woman, mother and leader in the name of Jesus Christ.

I'm sure that there are plenty of very lovely women who attend this group and that, if I continued to attend, I would certainly make some friends. I am just really uncomfortable with any group that wants to develop me as a woman in the name of Jesus Christ. I don't want to offend anyone who enjoys this group (which is why I didn't put the name in the post), it's just that as a non-churchgoer, it's not for me.

I'm so bad at declining gracefully that I almost want to just keep going and just fake it when the topic turns to being a Christian mom. I don't think it would be fair to the women who enjoy the group and find support there for me to be there thinking snide thoughts when the topic turned to things I don't agree with.

I need to just say, "Thank you so much for the invitation. I appreciate you thinking of me, but I just don't think that the group is going to be a good fit for me. How about we schedule a play date and get the kids together some time after school?" That would be nice, right? Why is it so hard to be honest and nice? I think my honest and nice skills might be broken.

Suburban gymnastics

Fiona likes gymnastics. I enrolled her in a gymnastics camp at the community center this summer and she had a great time, so I found out what gym had provided the instructors and signed her up for lessons there. She loooves it. Me, not so much. This isn't just "having fun" gymnastics, this is a "serious school for the sport of gymnastics" kind of place. An Olympian was trained there.

I inadvertently signed Fiona up for the session that is taught by the owner of the gym and thus, I signed myself up for dealing with psycho sports parents. The kind that have had their kids in gymnastics since they were 18 months old and drive miles and miles out of their way to put their four year old into "the best training facility in the state."

The parent that irritates me the most is French Dad. He is not only a psycho sports parent, he is a psycho sports parent who only speaks French when his child is around. I know he was born here and speaks English as his first language, because I have had a short awkward conversation with him , but now whenever he sees me he says, "Bon Jour!" Dude! I get it! You're Cool-Bilingual-Dad-Who-Is-Teaching-His-Child-French! You don't need to bon jour me, buddy. I already know how fabulous you are with your hothouse children. I'm not sure exactly why he irritates me so much. Maybe because he was all weird and competitive when I told him that this was Fiona's first year in gymnastics. Maybe because I hate the French.

I'll have the last laugh though when Fiona triumphs over the adversity of not starting lessons until she was five and wins not only the gold but a multi-million dollar movie deal about how hard it was to be the only non-French speaking child in gymnastics. We'll see who's crying then, won't we, French Dad!

Sleep deprived

It's been about two years since I've had a completely uninterrupted night's sleep. Amelia made it her mission almost from conception to get me up at least once during the night, either to puke or pee. After she was born, she'd wake up herself, and me, every hour and a half. She gradually improved, but for the past several months she'd still wake up at 11:30, 2:30, 5:30 and then finally at 7:30.

I've been working really hard to get her to sleep all night in her crib for the past couple of weeks. She's slowly cutting down to waking up just once during the night, usually around 4:30 (when she wants to get up and play and talk about uh oh and ball and Nanna and Shasta and Dada). Saturday was THE NIGHT. I heard her cry at about 1:30 and got out of bed ready to try to get her back to sleep before she wound herself up, but then, miracle of miracles, she stopped crying. She slept through the night! Finally!

Fantastic, right? I must have gotten such a good night's sleep! Wrong. Fiona woke up screaming for the first time in a year. Not once but twice.

God hates me.