Friday Fetishes

Barre Workouts

Before I got pregnant again this fourth time (!) I had decided to jazz up my fitness routine by doing stuff like aerial yoga, pole dancing, and ballet barre workouts. I went to one barre class in Las Vegas before we found out we were moving to Key West and I felt incredible afterwards. Like a bonafide ballerina. I exaggerate. But I was hooked. I can't even really put my finger on why. But if I had to speculate (and I always have to), I think it might have something to do with my daughter being a budding dancer. She absolutely adores ballet. And breakdancing. And when she's doing routines at home she asks for my input, or asks what a certain move is called, or asks for demonstrations. She thinks I can do anything, and I can't.

I have respect and appreciation for creativity in all its expressive forms, but I often feel ashamed of myself when she asks me to demonstrate plies and such for her. But in barre class I felt empowered being told to put my feet in "first position" and all that jargon, and I came home feeling a little more connected to that part of my daughter's character. Plus, my calves felt amazing the next day. Like I could kick some ass. (And I want to do pole dancing to amaze my husband; and I want to do aerial yoga because I already do yoga and it sounds like a fun twist, and because remember when Pink [who I don't even really like] did that fucking crazy bad ass aerial silks routine at the Grammys [or wherever]?? Life goal right there.)

Well, needless to say there are no barre classes in Key West. What else don't they have in Key West? About everything else you can think of. No prenatal yoga, no mommy and me yoga - although! I met a yoga instructor by chance the other day and in the span of our brief, maybe 4-minute long conversation, the marketing professional came out in me (as opposed to the usually unpredictable and unproductive whatever that comes out when my resting bitch face turns into speaking bitch face) and I convinced her to tell the owner of the elitist studio she works at to implement mom-focused yoga classes; and we've been in touch since and it sounds like it's happening! But, nevertheless, for the time being Key West has no barre classes. Though, to be fair they do have a pole-dancing place that I'll be joining to get back to feeling sexy after this baby gets here.

But to continue indulging in my barre infatuation I've found a bunch of workouts on Youtube. My favorite right now is this one below because it's only eleven minutes long, which most days is about all I can manage between my two kids and the one in my belly who's starting to really slow me down and make me winded (I have two hearts beating inside me right now and extra blood to circulate).




Being Pregnant

In a few days I'll enter my 3rd trimester of pregnancy. Three more months to go. So will begin the longest two months of my life, followed by the shortest most frantic and uncomfortable month ever. This is likely to be our last child (but who fucking knows really, what with my irregular periods that refuse to be properly tracked, and the fact that birth control pills give me the kind of extreme reactions that the package warns to stop and see a doctor immediately about, and the fact that our insurance won't cover the no-hormone IUD), so I'm feeling a little clingy about this pregnancy right now. Like I need to savor it. Like I need to birth him/dress him/decorate his nursery exactly right because there aren't gonna be any do-overs anymore.

 

Yeah, all he needs is love and blah blah blah, but he's a third child; he also needs some shit to call his very own. Like, at least his own brand new bedsheets instead of his big brother's old ones (which are still in fantastic condition, though). Because even though he's a third child, he's special too, and will have his own unique little personality; he should have some of his own unique belongings and shouldn't just be expected to use all of his brother's old stuff, essentially being coaxed into following in his brother's footsteps. 

But anyway, that's about where I'm at on this pregnancy's journey. And I can't stop obsessing over what he's going to be like. I already have a little boy and he is exactly half me and half my husband, if we divvy up all his attributes. Knowing that "every child is different," I just can't imagine that my genes and my husband's genes can be split up in any other way to make a new little boy. How can he possibly be different from his big brother? 

(and I'm about four months pregnant in those pictures. all preggo pics since then have been in bikinis)