I’ve had my nose to the grindstone this past year and when I looked up everyone was wearing a weighted vest.
Or at least people my age.
My beach buddy uses one and she mentioned it last summer, but unlike this summer, there was no sign of them in my news feed, so I continued to go for my weightless walks.
A couple weeks ago I told her I was considering one. Two more beach buddies piped up about their vests.
Then I was driving back from Cuffy’s (can never have too many things that say Cape Cod), and there was a woman walking with what I can now identify immediately as a weighted vest.
Everybody’s been wearing them and I had no idea. Now it was just a matter of which vest.
As I perused the reviews of different vests, one said,
“If you’re middle-aged and you don’t have one, what are you even doing?”
What have I been doing?
I’ve been walking unweighted.
Some people said the vest is ridiculous and just put on a backpack.
It brought me back 8.5 years to when we lived in Boston and the only way BB breastfed or slept was in a moving sling attached to my body.
I went for so many weighted walks.
I’m not sure how much money someone would have to pay me to do that again, but the feeling of the weighted vest high up on the top of my body as opposed to a backpack or a baby is worth the purchase.
I’m addicted to walking. I’m going to walk no matter what. I don’t have unlimited time for walking. So adding the weight and getting some thigh burn feels ideal.
Don’t even talk to me about running. Not my thing. Not happening. Last time I ran was when we were on the beach and RB said,
“I need to go potty, the poop is coming out.”
Even then I slowed to a trot.
My thighs need to be ready for skiing in the Alps by the first week of December. I do not intend to be the last travel advisor down the mountain.
In the meantime, I’ll be wandering around suburbia 16 pounds heavier. Chest hair optional.
When I put in weighted vests, these popped up. Good to know there are hairy options.This weighted vest kept gaining weight and was a little fussy.Forgive the million photos of BB in the sling. There are SO MANY. She lived in there for the better part of a year. Weighted baby sling arrives in suburbia, circa 2017. I did not consider myself middle-aged yet.
It’s that time of year when I’m assessing all of my life choices.
Our town override vote failed by a significant amount and now our schools are losing SO MANY teachers. When we bought our house, I was not paying attention. If a town leans right, it’s bad news bears.
My 42nd birthday is approaching and I have a bottle of blood pressure medication on my counter that promises to cure my middle-age acne, while also giving me numerous other side effects considering I don’t have high blood pressure.
Captain’s 50th birthday is approaching which really makes me feel very good about 42. Also he’s overdue for his colonoscopy since they moved the marker on him and now you’re supposed to start getting them when you’re 45.
RB and I headed to Target to pick up Captain’s Miralax and all that fun stuff.
I would’ve been going on my own, but the day before, RB came home from school, sat down in the living room and wouldn’t get up. Several hours of sleep later she asked me,
“Can you carry me to the art room?”
“Why?”
“I want to be with BB.”
“Go ahead.”
“I can’t walk.”
“You can’t walk?!”
“My knees hurt.”
“Both knees?”
“Yes.”
“Did you fall and get hurt today?”
“No.”
An hour later we were supposed to be headed to a fun event at her preschool. Captain and I stood before a seated RB. I told her,
“I don’t think we can go to the art show.”
“I want to go!”
“Then I need you to walk.”
“You can carry me.”
I stood her up. She screamed like I was trying to kill her. I put her down. I called the doctor’s office. The nurse said,
“Bring her in.” She also asked,
“Does her throat hurt?”
“RB does your throat hurt?”
“No.”
At 6pm we headed for the doctor. My 7:30pm book club plans were vaporizing before my very eyes. I was envisioning a night at the hospital with a child who could no longer walk.
The doctor came right in. She asked a minimal number of questions, shined her light in RB’s throat, took a swab and said,
“Looks like strep, we’ll know in a minute.”
STREP?! She can’t walk and she said her throat doesn’t hurt. The doctor said,
“Have a look.”
I peered down RB’s throat. Yup. Sure looked like it hurt.
I explained my confusion to the doctor. She said,
“Sometimes kids don’t even know what their throat is.”
Great point.
The rapid test came back fast. Positive!
I have never been happier to get a positive strep test. My imaginary night at the hospital was no more. One stop for antibiotics and off to book club I went!
So that’s why the next day I had RB’s company to collect colonoscopy supplies.
On the drive to Target RB asked,
“Is Dad sick?”
“No not at all.”
“Then why does Dad need medicine?”
“For his colonoscopy. He needs medicine to get all the poop out of his intestines so the doctor can go in his butt and look around.”
“She’s going to fit inside Dad’s butt?!”
“I mean she’s going to look inside Dad’s intestines with a stick.”
“The doctor is using outside things inside Dad?!!”
WOW I’m really butchering this conversation.
“No no no. I’m sorry. The doctor is using a special doctor tool to see inside of Dad and make sure he’s healthy.”
“Oooh. I don’t need medicine to poop.”
“Right!” And I don’t either.
When my doctor offered the oral, blood-pressure medicine he said,
“It’s hard to put topicals all over your back.”
Well it’s great for my shoulder mobility and I’ll happily do that instead of taking my chances with the thirty-seven side effects.
My acne is now under control; I have three more colonoscopy-free years and I don’t know what will happen to our schools. Please send help.
One of the people I live with has a flexible relationship with the truth. RB will say whatever she wants to get what she wants. Add her darling smile, munchable cheeks, long lashes and I must continue to remind myself that she’s the most untrustworthy person in my life.
If I call her out, she’ll double down and get VERY angry. She can be an absolute lunatic. All she needs is a spray tan and she could run for president. Which is very triggering.
RB does not have stacks of confidential documents in her bathroom, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she did.
I often pick her up from school and one of her hands will be closed in a sweaty, clenched fist. I now know to ask,
“What’s in there?”
“Something I found.”
“You need to go put it back.”
“I found it.”
“Yes, and it belongs to your school.”
The first time this happened one of her teachers was so kind and said,
“Oh a rock, she can keep that!”
I knew she couldn’t. If that’s the route we took back in September she’d have brought home an entire play structure by now.
At one point, she started filling her backpack with toys from inside the classroom.
She seems to have a hoarding personality. She wants more food on her plate even though she’s not going to eat it. She wants all the animals from Noah’s Ark even though her friends want to play too. She wants our entire collection of popsicle sticks, even though she doesn’t know what she’s going to do with them and now I have no idea where they are.
BB got a magnetic marble run for Christmas. It came with 12 large marbles. There are now several missing. RB offered,
“They might be in my room.”
As if they magically rolled upstairs and she had nothing to do with it.
I was in her classroom the other day and I noticed I didn’t see the book we brought in for her birthday. RB tells me,
“I think someone put it behind the book shelf.”
Uh huh.
The other morning I took BB to the bus stop, when I came back in one of BB’s drawings had been ruined. I confronted RB about it. She said,
“You didn’t see me do it!”
The idea of a teenage RB terrifies me.
Another presidential quality of hers is that she is very happy to hold everyone else accountable for things she has no intention of applying to herself. She inspects the trash on a regular basis.
The other day she spotted a Reese’s peanut butter cup wrapper. She picked it out and waved it at me. For someone who’s so OCD about a drop of milk while she’s eating her cereal, it’s unfathomable that she continues to grab things out of the trash.
I have nothing to hide, except my favorite candies, I tell her,
“I ate a Reese’s.” And you didn’t see me do it.
RB looks forward to a bag of fruit snacks AFTER swim lessons. I haven’t eaten fruit snacks in 30 years, but somehow, now that they’re in my handbag, they’re hard to resist. I munch on them on the way TO swim. RB yells,
“How come I smell gummies?! ARE YOU EATING MY GUMMIES?!?!?!”
You are eating my gummies and not until after swim.
The first sign that she may be running for President was when she was two. Her grandmother took her to brush her teeth and asked her which toothbrush was hers. She pointed to it. Her teeth were brushed and off to bed she went.
Grandma then took BB in to brush her teeth. BB picked up the SAME toothbrush and brushed her own teeth. At which point Grandma realized she had been bamboozled and it was too late.
Don’t try to tell me RB didn’t know which toothbrush was hers. She KNOWS. She saw an opportunity to use her sister’s and she took it.
Also at two, RB’s grandma was helping her get her shoes on. She was asked to go get socks. She came back with a pair of her sister’s socks and had a whole spiel about how these are HER socks and she got them for HER birthday.
When we arrive at school, there’s a table with everyone’s name tag. The tags have a photo and their name. RB grabs hers easily. One day all the tags were turned upside down. It had their name only, no photo. RB was perplexed. She stared and stared.
Proof that what I thought was true: she doesn’t know her letters. Another presidential qualification?
She picked up a tag with a name the equivalent of Theodore. I said,
“Good try, but that’s not your name. Try again.”
Instead of going back to the table, she thrust the Theodore tag at me and hollered,
“IT IS MY NAME! It has two “Es”!”
So President Theodore she is.
Reality and the truth have never felt more subjective or imperiled. May there be mercy for our country and my home.
The self-declared fastest skier on the slopes. You don’t need me to fact check that for you
Good Times with Jess 