If it's January it Must be Mom's Swimsuit Season

Manic Motherhood

Something happens in January that I hate with a passion. Oh, it's not the whole "new year, new calendar" thing. Although, if you must know, I did forget to get a calendar until two weeks ago. Do you know what was left in the calendar section? Yes, "12 Months of Cats" or-and I'm not joking here-"Porn for Women." Yes, I chose the cats. I wanted to be daring, but it seemed weird to write my husband's dental appointments on another man's bare…chest.


Anyway, something worse happens in January. Because that, my friends, is when the stores put out the swimsuits. It's like a conspiracy. The swimsuit industry waits until we've all eaten our fill of cookies and pie and turkey and roast beast and then they dare us to stuff our fat butts into tiny pieces of Lycra without having the Lycra explode.


Yeah, like that's going to work.


Anyway, normally I can just walk right by those bathing suits and not feel a thing. Oh, whom am I fooling? I hate them. They are objects of torture determined to show off my cottage cheese thighs and extra-large butt. Sure I might be taking this a little personally, but you have to know this: this year, I needed a new swimsuit.


So, I decided to be brave--and by "brave," I clearly mean "stupid." I went to the store and tried one on. And that's when I realized that all those cookies I thought weren't hurting me in December, had settled in for a lifetime on my thighs. In fact, it only took one suit for me to realize that I was either destined for a swimskirt or I had to figure out a way to bring 1920's swimsuits back into fashion, bloomers, tights, little hats and all.


Obviously, that wouldn't work. So I decided to do something daring. Yes, I decided to exercise. Now truthfully, I'm not what you might call athletic. Or coordinated. Or even willing to break a sweat anywhere but a shoe sale. But my thighs are chunky, people. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And I was desperate.


I bought a DVD that my sister, she of the thin thighs and taut abdomen, recommended. Yeah. I should have known that anything my sister recommended would be more than a workout. It would be torture. Oh, it started out okay. I mean, it was a little rough and I did sweat. And by the time it was over, I realized that not only had I survived, but that I could probably do this exercise thing a few times a week. And then I realized I had only gotten through the 4-minute warm-up.


Oh. My. God.


That's when it took a turn for the worse. I'm telling you, it was awful. There were squats and lunges and something that required me to stand, bend, kneel and then stand again. Holy cow. I nearly killed myself with that one. My legs just don't bend that way. If they did, I wouldn't need the DVD. Anyway, all this stuff was done while I waved my arms around like a lunatic windmill, praying my hands wouldn't get all sweaty and the weights wouldn't fly out and break a window.


After that was finished, we moved onto the crunches. Now that looks nice. After all, you get to lie down for crunches. It's almost like napping while you work out. Yeah, no. It's not. In fact, it's about as far from napping as you can get.


Anyway, I started crunching. And I might, just might, have been moaning and groaning in pain as I did so. Or, you know, screaming. Anyway, at that point, the dog wandered up, sniffed me, and then sat her entire 25-pound body on my chest and licked up my nose.


Hello? Having a dog lick up your nose is not conducive to a good workout. Obviously anyone with abs of steel has never lived with my dog. Because she wouldn't get off. Nope, she settled in, like it was naptime or something. I tried pushing her off, but honestly, my arms hurt from the whole windmill thing. So I told her to get off. She blinked, lowered her head and apparently was quite comfy.


So I figured this: if you can't beat them, join them. And I stopped crunching and closed my eyes. Maybe, if I tried hard enough, I could dream of a way to get those 1920s bathing suits back into fashion.

-------------------------------------

About Manic Motherhood: Laurie Sontag is the author of the popular humor blog, Manic Motherhood and has been a humor columnist for California newspapers since 2001. If you can't find her there, check under the sofa. She's not there, but she likes it when somebody else tries to find the lost socks and freak out the dust bunnies.