Spa Day

I have a tradition - when I ship a product, I take a day off work and spend it at an amazing local spa, Olympus Spa.  Olympus is different from any other spa I've been to - it's a Korean women's spa where they offer a variety of traditional Korean treatments as well as the more traditional spa services.  There is a large communal pool area, with a variety of temperature soaking pools where clothing is prohibited.  I spend at least the first 20 minutes giggling to myself and thinking "SHE'S NAKED!" before that becomes a part of the experience that I don't notice.

For this product ship, I booked a massage, full body scrub, and a moisturizing treatment.  It's been a pretty wet and cold winter in Seattle, and I was really looking forward to a day of being warm and relaxed.  My Mother in Law was scheduled to arrive Friday evening, and I had a long weekend of playing host ahead of me.

I arrived feeling pretty shitty.  BabyBoy was home sick with pink eye, a PENIS INFECTION and an ear infection and I was feeling like a selfish, bad mom for leaving him.  It took me a while in the massage to start to relax and feel like I was really there for ME.  One of the things I've found incredibly effective during a day at Olympus is that I assign the stresses that have built up, the demons that haunt me, and the people that have pissed me off to different parts of my body.  I also give the good things, the things that I want to nourish body parts, and as I move through different treatments, I give myself permission to let go and I also choose what I'm going to hold close to hold me over until the next time.

First up was the massage.  It was a perfectly nice, not long enough massage.  I think she could have devoted the whole hour to my neck muscles and the tension in my jaw, no one part of my body felt like it got enough work, but it was a good start to the day.  After the massage, I grabbed my phone to check in on BabyBoy, and I went into the Mud/Jade energy room.  They have 7 different far-infrared heated (or cooled) rooms, each based on a different earth element, and each with different properties.  The Mud/Jade room is heated to 170 degrees, and the floor and walls contain dry mud, jade, rose quartz, aventurine, aquamarine and germanium, which are though to promote blood circulation and release the toxins that are located within the body.  It's the hottest room there, and after 11 minutes I felt like I was actually WARM for the first time in months.   Afterwards I jumped into the Evlan stone reading room to flip through a magazine for a few minutes before I went into the cafe for lunch.

I made a critical error in ordering the yakisoba for lunch, it had a lot of broccoli in it, which is a proven cause of massive flatulance for me.  It was tasty, and I didn't even give the fart potential a thought when I ordered it, regret came later.  They also made me a lovely hot tea, which was simply hot water, honey and ginger pieces.  I read for a bit, and enjoyed my lunch before heading into the pools for the naked portion of the day.  I made one last text check-in with Hubby, BabyBoy was sound asleep for his nap and doing fine, and I finally let go of the voice inside that was calling me a selfish, bad Mommy and decided to enjoy the rest of the experience.


Photo from Olympus Spa Press Kit

Before a scrub, you have to soak for an hour, with at least the last 15 minutes of it being in a 104 degree pool.  I showered first and then poured some hot mugwort tea all over my body for the detoxification benefits before heading into the wet sauna.  Wet sauna, 104 degree pool, 60 degree plunge (OH GOD THAT'S COLD!), then into the 97 degree pool for more soaking before my scrub technician came looking for me to order me into the 104 degree pool for the last 15 minutes before we got started.  Her name was Sunny, and I was calling her "Sunny the sadistic scrub technician" in my head by the end of the afternoon.

During the soaking, I tried hard not to stare. It was busy for a weekday, and I am a bit voyeuristic by nature.  I've always loved watching people, making up stories for the lines on their faces, and watching how they move and interact with others.  Women of all shapes and sizes were there.  Tattoos, scars, mastectomies, beautiful young girls, "less than ideal" bodies (my own included) - it was a day where everything seemed to be represented.  I wondered about their own personal journeys and the roads that brought each of them there on that day.  I thought about my own marks and scars and I wondered if any of them were wondering about me as well.  It's always a treat to go to the spa with a friend, but I love the days there by myself, as well.  I like letting my mind wander without the pressure of conversation.  I watched small groups of naked woman, chatting around the mugwort trough like it was a table at a cocktail party.  I watched women that were there alone like me, relaxed with their heads tipped back and their eyes closed, and I let my mind go where it will.  I was safe, I was warm, and I was wrapped in the womb-like relaxation of the water.

In Gloria Steinem's first book, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, she includes an essay, "In Praise of Women's Bodies," which describes a few days at an old-fashioned women's spa. "Gradually, skinny bikinis, queen-size slips, girdles and other paraphernalia begin to disappear from our bodies and our lockers, like camouflage in a war we no longer had to fight. Without those visual references, each individual woman's body demands to be accepted on its own terms. We stop being comparatives. We begin to be unique. I know that fat or thin, mature or not, our bodies wouldn't give us such unease if we learned their place in the rainbow spectrum of women. Even great beauties seem less distant, and even mastectomies seem less terrifying, when we stop imagining and try to see them as they really are."

Photo from Olympus Spa Press Kit

Sunny came for me.  We went into the scrub area, where I started out face down on a plastic covered table, head pillowed on a towel, and she asked if I had any skin sensitivities.  I told her that I have a fair number of moles/freckles and that the raised ones are sensitive, but otherwise, I was fair game.  She took me seriously and started in, armed with nothing more than scrubby mitts and some Dial soap.  As she started working, I thought about the different body parts and the failings they represented in my mind.  She worked to slough off the dead skin and I let those negative thoughts go down the drain with the dead skin.  She did two complete passes with me face down, then two complete passes on each side, and then two complete passes with me on my back.  By the second pass in each position, I was gritting my teeth at the line between "that hurts so good" and "OK, that HURTS." As she rinsed off the dead skin with hot hot water, it stung and smarted on the new skin.

Instead of focusing on the way things were hurting, I tried to focus on the voices in the water.  I could hear the murmur of people talking in the pools, I could hear the voices in the running water.  I could hear my mothers voice in there somewhere, the voice of my best friend, the voices of other wonderful supportive women in my life.  To me, it sounded encouraging and loving.  They were encouraging me to let go of the things that don't matter and to focus on the things that do.  My husband, my boy, the love that surrounds me if I would only let it sing.

On the final pass while on my back, I was also quite distracted by a mounting urge to fart.  Damned broccoli!  I cannot think of a worse possible location for this urge - I'm wet, laying on a plastic table in a tiled room.  There was no chance that I could pull it off without being noticed.  I lost my feeling of zen, I lost the voice of my mother, and my brain chanted "don't fart.  don't fart.  don't fart."  I'm sure I would be neither the first nor the last person have an ill-timed passing of the gas, but I didn't want to be that person on that day.


Sunny the Sadistic Scrub Technician turned me loose to use the restroom and instructed me to wait in the dry sauna until she came for me for the moisturizing treatment.  I trotted off as fast as my arthritic ankles would let me to the restroom to relieve my urge to flatulate, and then I went to the dry sauna, as instructed.

Sunny came for me, and we repeated the face down position for the moisturizing treatment.  For this part of the day, I focused on the positive.  I gave each area of my body a positive thought that I wanted to hold close to my skin, one that I wanted to lock in with each moisturizing .  Sunny started with my toes, working through to finger tips, first with warm olive oil, followed by warm milk, and finished with honey.  The final step on the back was scalding hot towels to take away the stickiness of the honey before I flipped over to my back to repeat the process on the front.

The front half included a mini-facial with olive oil based cream and ICE COLD mashed cucumber, which sat while the rest of the body got the same olive oil, milk and honey treatment as the back.  I continued with my affirmations, reinforcing my own positives and the support of friends and family while she worked.

At the end, I was clean.  Cleaner than most adults will ever be.  Before I had a baby, I would say I was clean as a newborn baby.  Now, I say I was as clean as a baby fresh from a bath after the last of the weird cheesy stuff from birth is gone, and the baby starts to plump up and turn pink.  Clean as, say, a one month old.  And I felt reborn and ready to tackle the next challenge.

A week of upheaval

We'd had a rather eventful week with BabyBoy - the previous Sunday (3/11) I had to take him to urgent care for a really persistent cough, and while we were there being treated for croup (again), the nurse practitioner said "Oh!  His ear is infected!"  They started him on Amoxicillin, and Monday morning I woke up to a baby covered in hives.  Off Mama went for the drop in hours at the pediatrician (for the record, avoid monday morning pediatrician appointments like the plague if at all possible.  All the SICK kids are there!).  The pediatrician said his ears were "absolutely pristine" and that there was no need to continue with a different antibiotic.  I stopped at the drugstore for some baby benadryl, gave him a dose and he passed out on the drive to daycare.

When I was headed to the pediatrician, Hubby said "if the doctor says he can't go to school, call me and I'll come home."  I took that at face value, and called him from a parked car at daycare.

"He's totally stoned on benadryl and has passed out.  I can't take him in like this.  I think I'm going to take him home, but I've got a couple things that HAVE to be done at work.  Can you come home?"

"Well, I have  A LOT to do.  Why don't you just wake him up and take him in?  It's their problem now." He replied.

I got mad, like seeing red, mad.  BabyBoy has not had a TON of sick days where he's had to miss school, but I've covered all but one of them.  I've also covered their closures for holidays and in-service time.  The inequality of the work load at home around our son was weighing heavy on my shoulders, and I replied, "He's not 'someone else's problem'. He's OUR SON.  You SAID you would help me today.  YOU need to do your part."

"He's got a note to be allowed to go to school.  Take him to school.   If YOU want to take him home, YOU take care of him." he snapped.

"Fine.  I'LL handle it.", tears in my voice, I hung up on him.  I bundled BabyBoy out of the car, and stuck my head inside his classroom door to let them know BabyBoy would not be coming to school today after all.

"He's ok, just really out of it with Benadryl and an allergic reaction.  I'm going to take him home."

By the time I got him back in the car, I had two new voice mails from Hubby.  Nether of them were very nice.  I called him back and told him I was taking BabyBoy home, and to do what he thought was best about participating in his care.That's my fall back, whenever I get completely fed up with him, I tell him to "do what he thinks is best".  I've never been pleasantly surprised by the decisions he makes when presented with that option, but at least I can feel like a martyr instead of communicating what I actually need.

In this case, he surprised me by coming home about 2:30, and I went into work for 2 hours to do what I needed to get done.  BabyBoy's hives continued to improve, and we thought we were out of the woods.

Thursday night, I was getting the baby ready for his bath, when I said "I think there's something weird with his penis.  It's all SWOLLEN looking!  Can babies get a stiffy?"  I brought the baby into the bathroom, "Does his penis look weird to you?"We both turned a critical eye to our kids crotch.  "Yeah, I think it's different.", Hubby said.  He poked, and squeezed, and gently moved the foreskin a bit.  BabyBoy seemed completely nonplussed by our attentions, and Hubby put him in the bath.

I texted two of his daycare teachers to ask if they'd noticed anything, as well as texting a friend with a boy a year older than Z to ask advice.  Then I made my critical error of the day.  I googled "Uncircumsized penis infection".  For the record, I cannot recommend this action to any parent, new or otherwise.  You can thank me for this later.

After scaring myself silly, completely losing my appetite and reading some parenting forum posts, we decided we would take a look at it in the morning and see how it looked.

Friday morning, BabyBoy woke me up with an enthusiastic "HI!" and I got him up and out of his crib.  I changed his diaper in the darkish room, then took him into the bathroom to say hi to Daddy.  Hubby pulled back the shower curtain and immediately said "What's wrong with his EYE?".  I took a look and said "OH NO!  PINK EYE!"

Very calmly, I said to Hubby "He can't go to school.  You're going to need to take him to walk-in hours, which start at 8.  Are you ok with staying home with him today?"

"I thought you have the day off?", he asked.

"I do, but it's spa day.  I've had this on the books for a while."  I was fighting hard to give him the opportunity step up and to NOT do what I typically do and give in.  I let 'spa day' hang in the air for a heartbeat or two.  It was crickets in response.

"I guess I can cancel," I mumbled.

"No, go.  I can REARRANGE EVERYTHING," he replied.  It did not sound enthusiastic or supportive.  It sounded resentful.  Perhaps that's just how I heard it, but it's how it sounded to me.

Throughout the rest of the getting ready, the topic continued to come up.  I offered twice more to cancel and each time he said he'd take care of it.  So I decided that was enough for me.  Worst Mommy in the World was going to leave her sick child and go to the spa for some pampering.

Before pampering, I ran around like a mad woman and did a bunch of housework supporting my mother-in-law's arrival later on Friday night.  Hubby and BabyBoy made good time at walk-in hour (better on a Friday than a Monday, apparently),  and they made it back to the house to pick up a diaper bag before going to the pharmacy and out to breakfast.  BabyBoy DID have an ear infection after all, which had somehow caused viral conjunctivitis (pink-eye, simply by the nature of making his eye pink) and an infection of the foreskin, all treatable by a 14 day course of a different antibiotic.  As a mom, the frustrating thing was that the pink-eye and PENIS INFECTION (I have found it is absolutely impossible to type those two words NOT in all caps, it just sounds icky and painful) probably would not have made it to the surface if the pediatrician on Monday had not missed the ear infection in the first place.

Upside, he's feeling much better after 4 days of antibiotics.  As a couple, we need to find a better, more equitable way to deal with the fact that we're reliant on a daycare provide that has strict rules about health issues, and sometimes that means missed time at work.  Perhaps it's just taking turns?  Perhaps it's luck of the draw - even day of the month is mommy, odd day of the week is daddy?  Any both-parents working families out there have advice?

It Takes a Village.....

I've always loved the proverb, "It takes a whole village to raise a child", even before I became a mother.  I think it's actually bigger than that, we all need our villages to keep us sane and happy.  This life is too much to try and tackle on our own.

My personal village includes hairstylist, aesthetician, manicurist, massage therapist, accupuncturist, doctor, and best friend.  I reserve the right to add or subtract when it gets particularly busy in my head.  Just the other day, I mentioned that I'd like to get in contact with my post-partum doula to see if she could come over and hold me while I nap.  A job description like "Mothering the mother" doesn't end just because the baby is a year old, does it?  Based on the way BabyBoy throws himself into sleep with reckless abandon when I'm holding him, it seems like a great way to nap.  First we need a giant rocking chair....

I've started having migraines again, something I really do not want to revisit, but they're back.  I'd like to blame it all on methotrexate, but I know insomnia and stress both contribute, as well as a family and personal history of migraines.  A couple weeks ago, I got about 30 minutes of an aural migraine where my vision was blurring out in little c-shaped chunks before the beast got it's claws in my skull.  I put in an SOS call to my doctor, and called my accupuncturist to beg for a spot.  An hour in a quiet, dark room with specific needle therapy, as well as picking up a prescription for Imitrex got it under control, but I've been on the cusp at least two additional times in the past three weeks.

Yesterday was one of those cusp days.  I ended up cancelling out of afternoon meetings and just going home to take a bath.  It was GLORIOUS.  I sat in a hot bathtub, with bubbly, good smelling lush products in the water until my fingers went pruney.  I drained off the cooling water and refilled it with hot two seperate times, and I read a book in a totally silent house. 

I've come to a realization recently, partially of my own accord, partially from reading a blog post from one of my favorites, and partially at the request/nudging of my best friend.  I really need to find a therapist to talk to.  There's too much going on in my head and in my life, and I hear things through my own filter, which spirals into familiar internal conversations that poison me.  It's time for me to face this and to start to heal, and if I can't do it for myself, I need to do it for the people who depend on me.  I need to do it for my son, my husband and my best friend. 

And I don't know whether
I believe in me
But I still believe in my friends

by David Nields & Nerissa Nields
© 1999, Ambivalent Fins and Peter Quince Productions (ASCAP)

It scares me, my past experiences with therapy have been not-so-great.  From the psychiatrist who had me drugged so heavily that I was completely numb (but, man, I really miss the valium some days) to the psychologist that spent so much time trying to get me to dig through my past that I couldn't find a future, it's never really been an enjoyable experience.  I have a referral from a friend, but that thearpist has a policy in her practice to not see clients that have external relationships.  She gave me the number of a couple other therapists in the area, and I also got a referral from another source.  The thing I have to keep in mind is that I GET TO INTERVIEW these people.  I'm the only one who knows what I need, and how I'm comfortable working, so if it's not a good fit, that's ok!  It's also ok for me to set guidelines about frequency and time of day.  It's hard work, and I need to keep the rest of my life in mind while starting this. 

Being outside your comfort zone is where the magic happens, right?