Weekend Worrier

So, I'm having one of those "single parent weekends." Not that I'm a single parent, but that I feel like one in that my husband has been busy working all weekend. He "watched" (parented) the boys Saturday morning when I went to the gym, but complained about not being able to work with the boys in the room. Hmm, don't know what that's like, Jay. I always accomplish everything easily with the boys underfoot. ;) Often literally in Harrison's case. He's a leg-grabber.

Of course, though Jay is so busy with his work, he still managed to go to bed earlier than I did on Friday night, and get up 2 hours later. Last night, he went to bed an hour or so later than I did, and is still enjoying his sleep at 9:30. No, I really have no bitterness about the fact that he doesn't feel physically sick when he hears Harrison cry in the mornings, and I am the one who does feel sick and am forced to get up at 7:30 a.m. or earlier. Yes, I'm sarcastic. I'm also the parent who gets up with the boys every morning (I think Jay "let" me sleep in one time in January so far this year), prepares 90% of our meals and bathed them and put them to bed both nights this weekend so far. Jay does help out, but I'm not feeling it this weekend. I'm feeling like I'm going to need to start playing soccer again soon so I can have at least a weekly night out!

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I told my online moms group about this already, so I feel like I can start getting this off my chest. It will be a huge relief to stop living a lie. Well, that last part is a stretch. I'm not living a lie, just being pretty stupid!
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I'm having an existential crisis over my, ahem, toy collection. Some of you may know that I'm a true freak, and have a huge collection of Fisher Price Little People toys. I started getting them when Hutton was little, and now have just about every set of the "modern" Little People toys, made from 1997 to present day. Though I have managed to get rid of some of the bigger pieces here and there, like the airport, and older versions of "Discovery City" and Main Street, I have kept the figures that go with these sets. My collection is about 500 or so. Yes, I do have that many Little People people and animals spread around on shelves in our lovely "home office" / play room. I told you I was a freak.

So, one of my collector friends (another freak like me!) IM'ed me Friday to tell me she's considering quitting the collecting thing, because it's so expensive and ...well, neither of us is willing to admit it's just pretty stupid. ;) I am now thinking I should get rid of my collection, too. Just keep a few sets that the boys actually play with. But, I've spent 3 years obsessing over these things, I don't know if I'll be able to do it! I guess I can just start slowly selling the ones I don't really care about, and then maybe it will get easier.

It really has become an addiction though. Fisher-Price came out with a huge new group of toys this year. I managed to calmly wait about month before I had to go to Target to buy the new pirate sets and animals add on to the new improved version of Noah's Ark. That's something evil Fisher-Price does to suckers like me and the rest of the Little People collectors-- every few years, they change up the designs of some of the toys, and re-release them, with the accompanying figures painted just a little differently so the freaks MUST HAVE THEM NOW! They did that this year with the Noah's Ark set. Mind you, the "old" set was from 2003, and the only changes are that the ark is a different color plastic and half of the animals are different molds of the same animals -- more babyish looking giraffes, elephants, etc. I have been strong and NOT bought the new ark...yet. I go and look at it every time I go to Target, though, and my hands start itching to pick it up and put in the cart, before my mind yells, "NO! You already have that damn ark at home, just in tan plastic instead of red! You don't need to spend $20 on this crap just because you don't have those 4 freaking plastic animals!" Did I mention it's an addiction?

Ok, you don't believe the addiction. Well, in January I found out that I could get a PayPal debit card that would allow me access to my PayPal account at real stores, not just ebay. So, I applied for one, and when it arrived, I rushed off to Target for those much-needed Little People. Then I kept them hidden in my car for several days. Then I sneaked them into the house and hid them in a closet until my husband was away at a meeting, when I finally got around to getting them out of the boxes and putting the toys on the shelves, where they'll blend in with the other hundreds of Little People. These toys do come packaged with zillions of twist ties, you know, so it takes a while to get them out of the boxes. I can now rationalize that any money I have on PayPal can go to my Little People "collection" and my husband won't realize I'm spending any money on them. Sad, sad, sad. Of course, this was BEFORE I decided I'm going to start selling my collection. Maybe now I can use my PayPal debit card for worthwhile things, like my son's visits to the various doctors he sees. Or new workout clothes.

So, if I take it one day at a time, I can NOT buy the Noah's ark (come on, I'm not even religious! But I also have a Little People Hanukkah set. ) I am focusing also on not starting any more "collections." If you just have some toys, and are not obsessing about getting every new version you see, then it's not a collection. This is the case with the Thomas the Tank Engine stuff - we just have some of the trains, and I don't freak out over it. Right now, I am quite at peace with the fact that we don't own every engine to ever chug along the tracks on the Island of Sodor. At peace! Really!

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Yesterday I went to the gym for the first time in 2 weeks. Because it had been a while, I did two classes in a row (step and total body conditioning). Surprisingly enough, today I am not sore! How did that happen?

Anyway, there was this woman there who had such an amazing body, that I found myself immediately going into Catty Mode. I was thinking to myself, "There's no way her boobs are real! The rest of her body is too fit for her to just keep the fat in one place!' And then I started scrutinizing her. (I was behind her and to the side in the class). She had very toned but muscular legs (and everything else for that matter!). Not skinny, but no fat that I could see, just enough to make her not look veiny and body builderish.

I just thought it was interesting that instead of being inspired to work out by this woman, my immediate reaction was to cut her down by thinking that her boobs were fake (well, they were big and very non-bouncy in her spandex). As if that makes the rest of her obvious hard work worthless. Guess I'm just jealous because I have less than admirable boobs after 2 pregnancies and years of nursing! But, really, I don't want big boobs. Just less gravity-affected.

It would probably be easier to be happier for her if I knew her, right? Maybe next time I see her in class I'll go up to her and tell her she looks amazing. Then we'll both feel good, right?