Yesterday was my half birthday. I am pretty certain that most adults don't think about their half birthdays, or even realize on a particular day that it is their half birthday. But of course, I am not most adults! Working with a class of 5 year olds year after year does tend to make me more aware of these things. Although to be honest when I arrived at work yesterday I had not yet realized it was my own half birthday until I was checking our calendar and saw that it was Nicholas' half birthday, and since I remembered that Nicholas and I both share the same summer birthday, I realized with a jolt that that meant we share the same half birthday as well. As I prepared the sticker and card for Nicholas I wondered if the parents would have their children make cards for me the way they had for my co-teacher on her birthday last month. (At our school if you have a birthday in the summer we celebrate your half birthday instead). Sure enough the kids hopped out of their cars with a variety of homemade cards. I was touched to receive the drawings of trucks ("I know bulldozers are your favorite" one little boy told me confidently though I have no recollection of ever mentioning a favorite truck-) cut out shapes, hearts, paintings, even a penguin bottle cap card, and an origami card containing a small chocolate bar! But for the first time since I turned 30, I felt a stirring of consternation about the passage of another year. Or half year, whatever. I know 48 1/2 is not a milestone birthdate, and yet I cannot describe the feeling as other than panic and increduality at the realization that in half a year I will be 49, which in and of itself is not so bad, but it means that in a mere 11 and a half years I will be . . . . .I don't even think I can write it and have it relate to myself . . . . 60!!!
Skip right over 50, that doesn't worry me a bit. I have friends and a sister who make 50 look totally appealing. They are wise and experienced, but not old. But 60, there is no denying, 60 means you are getting old. Now I can totally see myself still teaching maybe even in my current job in 12 years, but I cannot see that it means I will be doing it when I am 60! I started at this school 11 years ago when I was in my 30's! And I swear I haven't aged a bit. Have I??? It feels like I am somehow catching up to my mother's age! I know I should dwell on the positive aspects like, well once I know what they are I will dwell on them. In the meantime I better savor every day for the second half of this year, and maybe no one, least of all me myself will even notice that in half a year I will be turning, gulp, 49!
'
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
A Convenient Theory
Ahhh, February. One of the most challenging months of the year, at least for me. Busy at work with multiple celebrations - Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year's, the 100th day of school and half birthday celebrations for all the kids with August birthdays, of which we have 7 this year, busy with the end of Caitlin's school basketball season, and this year busy with my mom recovering from hip replacement surgery (she is doing well, the PT's have described her progress as "stellar". Usually John and I (well mosty John) get all our tax stuff organized and done.
But even beyond that, February provides some personal challenges for me. It is a month of perverse timing. A month when the glow of last summer's tan has long since flaked off, and hair is blah and static-y. A month where because of the hours spent sitting on the bleacher's at Caitlin's games, or on the couch watching the Carolina games instead of in the gym, my muscle tone is the lowest of the year. It never fails that just when I have decided that it really is time to get exercise back into a routine, that maybe now is the time to actually open the book about the South Beach diet, the Girl Scout cookies arrive. All-Abouts, Trefoils, Samoas ---- and Thin Mints are delivered and their bright array of colorful boxes beckon to me from my counter. It seemed like a such a good idea when I ordered them back in January. Something to look forward after the letdown of after-Christmas, something to brighten midwinter blues. I try not to look but I can't help taking a quick peek at the nutrition labels. Surely they are wrong - there is no way that 2 little Samoa's can contain 8 grams of fat! For Pete's sake, they even have a hole in the middle. It must be a typo, my mind hungrily rationalizes. But the thin mints are my real weakness. And at least with the thin mints you can have 4 and it is only 7 grams of fat. So, if I leave the Samoa's for Caitlin (who in a disgusting show of self-discipline will have only one each day with her lunch) I will be making the healthier choice of just binging on the lower fat thin mints. I am being so good! Of course I have bought more boxes of thin mints, but I have a theory. A convenient theory, but a theory nevertheless. If you eat enough thin mints at one sitting you don't really absorb all of the grams of fat. They max out after, say, 8 cookies. Kind of like vitamin C. You can take a ton of it but your body only uses a certain amount and the rest is flushed harmlessly out of your system. And it really does seem like the mints are conveniently packaged in single-serving wrappers. Two servings to a box. (I didn't peek long enough to see that the label claims there are 9 servings in a box). So I happily sit down with my roll of thin mints and a glass of milk to look at the mail. And it never fails. There, staring up at me with my winter-dull hair and pasty skin speckled with cookie crumbs, will be some scantily clad waif of a model with an exotic name like Yamilla or Daniela or Fernanda wearing a piece of yarn with a button or two "covering" strategic areas of their golden nubile bodies, on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. This is usually disturbing enough to send me to the kitchen to fetch another roll of thin mints. But now I will feel guilty about it. In a quest to prevent John from seeing the magazine (after all, I don't want him to realize there is a little bit of a schism between how I look and how those models look!) I have been known to rip off the cover,or hide the magazine at least until I can apply some self-tanner. But the best solution I ever had to deal with it was to past a photo of myself wearing a bikini and taken on the last day of a college trip to St. Thomas, over the girl on the cover. I don't know if John noticed, but it made me feel better. And now that I am a bit more, shall we say mature, I barely even notice when the magazine arrives. And I don't feel as guilty about enjoying the Thin Mints. Another theory I have is that the faster you finish off the boxes the less impact they will have on your body. In fact, I think they are good for my mental health. My brain at least gets a good workout from thinking up all the ways to rationalize eating a couple of boxes of thin mints, and maybe even a samoa or two. Still, this year I think I will let John get the mail, and I will eat my cookies in front of a good book.
But even beyond that, February provides some personal challenges for me. It is a month of perverse timing. A month when the glow of last summer's tan has long since flaked off, and hair is blah and static-y. A month where because of the hours spent sitting on the bleacher's at Caitlin's games, or on the couch watching the Carolina games instead of in the gym, my muscle tone is the lowest of the year. It never fails that just when I have decided that it really is time to get exercise back into a routine, that maybe now is the time to actually open the book about the South Beach diet, the Girl Scout cookies arrive. All-Abouts, Trefoils, Samoas ---- and Thin Mints are delivered and their bright array of colorful boxes beckon to me from my counter. It seemed like a such a good idea when I ordered them back in January. Something to look forward after the letdown of after-Christmas, something to brighten midwinter blues. I try not to look but I can't help taking a quick peek at the nutrition labels. Surely they are wrong - there is no way that 2 little Samoa's can contain 8 grams of fat! For Pete's sake, they even have a hole in the middle. It must be a typo, my mind hungrily rationalizes. But the thin mints are my real weakness. And at least with the thin mints you can have 4 and it is only 7 grams of fat. So, if I leave the Samoa's for Caitlin (who in a disgusting show of self-discipline will have only one each day with her lunch) I will be making the healthier choice of just binging on the lower fat thin mints. I am being so good! Of course I have bought more boxes of thin mints, but I have a theory. A convenient theory, but a theory nevertheless. If you eat enough thin mints at one sitting you don't really absorb all of the grams of fat. They max out after, say, 8 cookies. Kind of like vitamin C. You can take a ton of it but your body only uses a certain amount and the rest is flushed harmlessly out of your system. And it really does seem like the mints are conveniently packaged in single-serving wrappers. Two servings to a box. (I didn't peek long enough to see that the label claims there are 9 servings in a box). So I happily sit down with my roll of thin mints and a glass of milk to look at the mail. And it never fails. There, staring up at me with my winter-dull hair and pasty skin speckled with cookie crumbs, will be some scantily clad waif of a model with an exotic name like Yamilla or Daniela or Fernanda wearing a piece of yarn with a button or two "covering" strategic areas of their golden nubile bodies, on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. This is usually disturbing enough to send me to the kitchen to fetch another roll of thin mints. But now I will feel guilty about it. In a quest to prevent John from seeing the magazine (after all, I don't want him to realize there is a little bit of a schism between how I look and how those models look!) I have been known to rip off the cover,or hide the magazine at least until I can apply some self-tanner. But the best solution I ever had to deal with it was to past a photo of myself wearing a bikini and taken on the last day of a college trip to St. Thomas, over the girl on the cover. I don't know if John noticed, but it made me feel better. And now that I am a bit more, shall we say mature, I barely even notice when the magazine arrives. And I don't feel as guilty about enjoying the Thin Mints. Another theory I have is that the faster you finish off the boxes the less impact they will have on your body. In fact, I think they are good for my mental health. My brain at least gets a good workout from thinking up all the ways to rationalize eating a couple of boxes of thin mints, and maybe even a samoa or two. Still, this year I think I will let John get the mail, and I will eat my cookies in front of a good book.
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