So You Think You Can Dance? Bitch, please.

I'm pretty sure that I'm an awesome dancer.

And I'm pretty sure that I've always been an awesome dancer.

When I took dancing back in elementary school, I knew I was the best one in my class.  Miss Marilyn knew it too; I could tell by the way she would say, "Great job" when I would step ball-change across the floor.  My ball-changes were steppier than anyone else's, my jazz hands jazzier, my chaine turns spinnier (that's right, spinnier; I can spot like nobody's business).  Even though I never moved past the easiest level of classes, I knew it wasn't because I didn't have the raw inner talent.  After all, I choreographed and executed some REALLY incredible routines in my room. 

And in the shallow end of my pool.

Oh yeah, because I'm also really good at synchronized swimming. 

My skills had to be moved to the back-burner however as I moved through middle and high school.  No one goes to school dances to dance, unless you count slow dancing with a boy, which is not really dancing, it's more like a rhythmic shifting of weight from your left foot to your right.  That's shuffling.
  
And then I got older and discovered clubs.  And cheesy bars with teeny-tiny dance floors (teeny-tiny dance floors are a nightmare for us true dancers). 

And alcohol.

As phenomenal a dancer as I am without alcohol, I am even better with a few drinks in me.

So when a friend suggested that we try a zumba class a few months ago, I was in.  I knew I'd be awesome at it.  Coming from a dance background, I knew I could pick up the steps quickly and would own the class.

Oh. WAIT.  I should tell you something before I get to this next part.

I'm white.

And of Irish ancestry.

Do you see where this going?

Also, I may have attended this zumba class wearing an oversized t-shirt and shorts that I bought back in college with my ex-boyfriend's Friends and Family discount when he worked at Reebok back in 1997.

There may have been an obnoxiously high pony tail involved as well.

Turns out, I suck at zumba.

I got the moves down alright, but when the woman I had been hiding behind left to get a drink and I caught a view of myself in the mirror, trying to do that booty-shaking thing that Beyonce is so fond of, a wave of horror washed over me.

Oh.  My.  God. 

That's what I look like?

It wasn't pretty.  It wasn't cute.  It wasn't even 'has a good personality'. 

I have yet to return to zumba.

Thank God I still have synchronized swimming.

Munchkins FTW

I screw up.

A lot.

And I have no problem with airing my failings because there's nothing I detest more than those women who act like they burp rainbows and poop hearts. 

You know the ones I'm talking about.

And you know that you want to punch them in the face every now and then, usually when you haven't had your coffee yet and your 4-year old was up every three hours because he's convinced there are bugs in his room, so convinced in fact that you spend 10 minutes watching for bugs at 2:30 in the morning until he tells you that they only come out when grown ups aren't watching. 

Right.

So on those mornings, you just want to punch these women in the face.

The rest of the time, you just sort of look at them and scratch your head.  Clearly they got some sort of Mommy handbook at the hospital that you didn't. 

Or they have access to some really awesome happy pills.

Either way, that's not me.  I try hard, really hard.  But I have, on occasion, let my sons watch marathons of Phineas and Ferb so I can play a little game I like to call Bash the Exes with my BFF (much more fun than Chutes and Ladders, btw).  I have used M&Ms to bribe my child to use the toilet (which we all know is exactly why M&Ms were invented), used ice-cream to bribe them to be good in the store, and Munchkins to bribe them to do almost anything else (everyone wins where Munchkins are involved; the kids do what I ask, they get their donuts, and I have an excuse to get a coffee).

I may, on occassion, even raise my voice.  And yell.

Oops.

Lucky for me, my sons didn't receive a handout at the hospital either (no "What to Expect From Your Parents").  So I still get wet, slobbery kisses at night.  When they are afraid or unsure, it's still me that they run to.  When they are sick, it's my lap they want to snuggle on. 

And when there is a bug in their room in middle of the night,  it is me they call to squish it.