Smile and Say Stuck!

They say age is just a number.  I think age is more how you feel mentally.  I’m turning 40 this summer, or should I say that I am reaching level 40. While I know this monumental birthday is imminent, in my head I still feel like I am in my 20’s.  Especially when I’m with my girlfriends. However my skinny jeans, side part and slang usage says otherwise. Oh and I hurt myself when I sneeze now, that’s fun.

Remember when I said age is how you feel mentally? Well that is a big fat lie.  The lie sometimes loses weight and then gets big again, reminding you of the futility of ignoring it. I’m sorry I lied to you.  Age is also how you feel physically.  I had a friendly reminder of that this week at school.  I teach preschool and seriously love it.  I left the world of finance to stay home with our three fantastic kids.  Then one day thought to myself, wow my mental instability from the craziness of my own children wasn’t enough.  Give me 20 more! I joke, seriously I love my job.  Kids are the best and they have the most unfiltered honesty of any human being on the planet.  Want to know how that shirt really looks? Want to know how your cooking really tastes? Want to know why cleaning is a waste of time? Ask a toddler, they are savage! They may not give you the answer you think and that’s the hilarious and wonderful part.  They also give the best hugs and the sweetest compliments, because they are 100% genuine. 

Well on this particular day of preschool we were taking the teacher pictures for our yearbook. It got me thinking that we needed to do something fun and different, like us!  Instead of the side by side, smiling by a tree pic.  So I convinced my co teacher to take our picture on the slide at our indoor playground. I would sit on the slide and she could pop out behind me. A totally cute and fun pose! 

The indoor playground is so much fun.  It has this brightly colored giant plastic monstrosity with slides and lots of fun things to climb.  The slide I had in mind for the picture was bright yellow, curved to the side and has a little overhead piece that you have to duck under before you slide down.  

We find someone to take our picture and then climb up into the giant plastic maze of steps, twists, turns and surprisingly tight spaces.  I have no idea why I thought I could just mosey my way through there, up to the slide. It was like trying to navigate a shopping cart through the clearance racks on a Saturday afternoon in Walmart. I’m the shopping cart by the way.  We get up to the top of the slide and I sit myself down and start to scoot forward. I quickly realized that I’m not moving forward anymore.  My hips have come to an abrupt stop. Instead of coming to terms with my size (I guess my hips are a lot bigger than a 3 year olds) and accepting defeat I push forward.  As I’m scooting harder trying to wedge my body down the slide, I’m also tilting my head trying to get clearance from under the overhang. That’s when I really get stuck. 

The day before this, I did my first ab workout in what felt like a month.  So In rebelion with the rest of my body, my abs started cramping. It felt like someone had shoved their hand into my stomach and squeezed as hard as they could.  Paralized in pain I sat there for a moment not knowing what to do. I panicked! My head was stuck to the side. My lower half was stuck with my legs dangling over.  I looked comparable to a busted can of Grands Biscuits.  And to make it worse, little preschoolers were walking by looking completely perplexed and disturbed. My co teacher was behind me laughing so hard and didn’t know what to do either.  

While chanting a chorus of Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow, I get my head back to the other side and lay down trying to get my abs to relax a bit.  As I’m laying there feeling and looking like Augusts Gloop from Willy Wonka, waiting for the Oompa Loompas to come and sing me a lesson about not playing on playground equipment meant for children, I finally muster enough strength and pull myself back out. With what shreds of dignity I had left I made my way out of the playground.

We ended up with a lovely picture of us standing by a tree.