Charlie the Kid Sticks it to Yoga

I don’t know how I do it. Sometimes it’s like I speak a prophetic word over myself. 2 posts ago I mentioned the idea that a skinny girl worries about the underground zit forming in her chin. While I am far from skinny, I now have that zit. Right in the center of my chin. Nice. Just earlier today, I posted a whiny blog about my cheating nature over the weekend, and closed it by telling you that I “will be working extra hard this week to get back on track. Which is a greater probability for something totally ridiculous will happen to me and ya’ll will get the funny blogs you love so much.” I should never have said that because, wouldn’t you know, that I spoke more truth with that sentence than you could possibly believe. Perhaps I should start from the beginning…

So just a couple of hours after I posted the last blog, my neighbor went on a date with her hubby, and we took on her sweet daughter for the evening. Her name is Gabby, but in this house, we call her Fred. Poor thing started out with a bit of a lisp, and couldn’t pronounce her ‘R’s very well. My husband thought it was so adorable, and he called her Fred just to annoy her and hear her say, “I’m not Fwed!” She has since outgrown the lisp, but the Fred remains.

Matt and Tim (our son) went fishing, while Fred and my daughters, Amy- who is 9, and Natalie, who is 8 like Fred, decided they wanted to do Fat Girl Yoga (a video I recommend every dieting woman purchases. Just My Size Yoga. Seriously, it is amazing!) in the living woom. I mean room. Sorry, Fred. As is the custom in our house when doing Fat Girl Yoga, we lit candles, turned the rest of the lights off, and spread out in our dinky living room. Fred and Natalie were in front, Amy and I scrunched against the couches in the back. And away we went.

The first few stretches went with no problems. Fred had never done the yoga before, but my girls were fantastic at encouraging her (bend your leg like this, Fred. There you go! Great job!) but both Fred and Natalie are rather clumsy. It’s adorable, really, because these are 2 girls that really understand each others’ physical limitations. And when one falls down, the other helps her friend up and doesn’t tease at all. It’s a friendship made in heaven for them. There wasn’t much falling down though, because the first 7 minutes are seated stretching. Hard to fall when you are sitting “Cris-cross Applesauce” on the floor. (For those of you over the age of 10, we are no longer to say Indian style because isn’t P.C. to our Native American brethren.) But once we moved into the next phase of Fat Girl Yoga, which was on our hands and knees, there was much falling down and giggling. And that was partly my fault.

Now you all know that I have issues with, uh, gas, but you may not know that I am the type of mother who seizes any opportunity to embarrass her children. So when everyone was stretching with our butts in the air, I let out this teeny tiny toot. Amy, who is practical, was horrified. Natalie, who is a drama queen, fell on the floor because she was sure that is reeked. She was right. And poor Fred, she fell on the floor because Natalie knocked her over. But when she realized her best friend’s mom had ripped one, she laughed and laughed. Finally, we all got our giggles under control and got back to Yoga-ing. We re-assumed the positions with our hind quarters flying high, and maybe it was the all the stretching previously, or maybe it was the pizza from yesterday causing a napalm reaction within, but I swear the next toot was at least 30 seconds long. Natalie, beyond embarrassed, swore she was adopted and I was not her mother, which is hilarious, because she is EXACTLY like me in every way. Right down to the drama and ability to cry in under 5 seconds flat. Fred’s eyes got as big as dinner plates, and she just wasn’t sure what to say. She wanted to laugh, but her friends weren’t laughing. How awkward! Amy said nothing at all, mostly because her nose had been closest to the source, and she ran to wash any air germs off of her face. (I told her to face the other way!) I, of course, was laughing to the point of snorting, which was not the best idea because it really was a foul stinker. But I love it when I can embarrass my kids. I only feel bad that Fred was in the crossfire. I bet she will always remember this day.

We all got back to Yoga, and finished the routine without further interruption. It was over, we were all feeling relaxed and stretched (and I felt de-gassed), and it was time to turn the lights back on. The girls all wanted to blow out the candles, which are on top of entertainment center, along with theatre memorabilia, pictures, and our son Tim’s beloved pet cactuses (cacti?) “6 shooter” and “Ole’ Western.” We got them a month ago, and they are in teeny tiny pots. Ole West hangs out in the corner right next to my favorite Caramel Corn scented candle, which we previously lit for Fat Girl Yoga.

I went to pick up the candle so that the girls could blow it out, and the spikes of Ole West must have stuck to the caramel corn wax when I set it back on the shelf before, because as I picked the candle up, Ole West came along too. Then he started to fall. Out of instinct to save Tim’s precious prickler, I tried to catch it by slamming my arm underneath the cactus against the side of the entertainment center. My depth perception must have been off, because Ole’ Western, still in his humble pot, ended up stabbing the side of my right arm with brute force, leaving 20 or so spines stuck deep my arm while still attached to Ole’ Western.

In a split second (and unwise) decision, my left hand automatically shot over to the right arm, grabbing the cactus to get it off, which caused another 5 of nature’s needles to be inserted into my left fingers. Finally, common sense came back, and I gently moved my right arm and left hand to let the cactus roll off of me. Thankfully it took the spikes with it. Unfortunately, Ole’ Western bit the bullet, and broke in half when he hit the back of the TV. Turns out he was rotten on the inside, which quite frankly explains his erratic and evil behavior. Even so, he is still fighting. He’s lying behind our television, where my darling husband is doing some fishing trying to retrieve the stupid thing, trying to avoid getting stuck himself.

I find it ironic that some of my best and funniest blogs end with a description of me taking 4 advil and having a diet coke. Tonight, I suppose I needed to shake things up, because I had 3 benadryl and some diet lemonade. My arm is sitting on a frozen bag of peas, and the swelling isn’t too bad. But my arm is sooooooo sore!

I had to break the news that I was unable to save Ole Western to Tim. I was preparing myself to have a memorial service complete with Cowboy hats in honor of the cactus that I tried so desperately to save from its doom. I don’t know if I was relieved or annoyed when I told Tim that Ole’ Western bit the dust, and he responded,


“Who’s Ole’ Western?”