Bad to the Bone

Moms, if you’re anything like me, you’re a busted-up hot mess.

Having children has knocked off our equilibriums, put pressure on our joints, and altered our abilities to focus. Not to mention, it lowers our alcohol tolerance, causing us to fall off our chairs after one mojito (or maybe that’s just me). So it’s no wonder we’re constantly falling, tripping or losing our balance.

Unfortunately, when we go into work on Monday with weekend injuries, there are no longer cool bad-ass backstories behind them as there was when we were 20. Busted lip? No, I didn’t get decked in the mosh pit at a Primus concert – the baby threw her head back and popped me in the mouth. Black eye? No, I didn’t fall off the bar at a wet t-shirt contest – I was trying to squeeze into a pair of skinny jeans and fell face first into the three-way dressing room mirror.

Those little injuries that come with parenthood and aging can affect your ability to hang with your kids. Sure, I can “run” a 5K, but chasing two girls around in a game of tag leaves me dry-heaving in a corner. Picking up the four-year-old before I’ve grounded my stance causes me to collapse into a mom-sized puddle on the floor.

So when my daughter’s Girl Scout troop announced it was hosting a sleepover at a skating rink, I had to prepare mentally and physically.

First, Mom doesn’t sleep on floors. Mom has a busted coccyx that didn’t heal appropriately after a wrestling match with her husband.

“Oooo, kinky,” you’re thinking.

No, it’s not kinky. We were wrestling. Like WWE wrestling. Like two 11-year-old boys. Only when my husband picked me up to show off his fireman’s carry takeover, he misjudged my girth and dropped me flat on my tailbone.

Today, if I sit or lay on the floor, I can’t get up. In yoga, I stay in Savasana the whole session while my cohorts contort themselves in downward facing dog. “I’m meditating,” I hiss to everyone giving me the evil eye.

So while my spending the night was off the table, I was all about watching my daughter and her friends take a spin around the rink while I downed boxes of Do-Si-Dos. But then the girls started encouraging the moms to don some skates and join them.

If anyone can kick butt on the rink, it’s a middle-aged mom. We’re girls of the 80’s, having spent our formative years skating around the basement listening to Thriller and “Eternal Flame.” So, we put our vanity to the side and laced up, ready to show our daughters a thing or two about skating.

Here’s the problem – when you’re 37 and haven’t been on skates since puberty, your shins scream at you in agony. It feels like running the Ironman in stilettos while Jeff Gillooly and Shane Stant beat at your legs with a baton. The only way to ease the pain is to skate as fast as you possibly can, shoving innocent Girl Scouts out of your way so you don’t have to stop and endure the wrath of shin splints.

When you start skating fast, you start feeling graceful. Like Ice Capades graceful. It all comes back to you – The Bangles, the harmonious click clack sound you grew up with, the memories of couple skating with that boy you liked in sixth grade.

And that’s when you fall.

Immediately, moms began dropping like flies – it was my own Saving Private Ryan, but set to a Katy Perry soundtrack. When little girls fall, they giggle and pop up like Weebles. When moms fall, it’s busted knees and bruised shins and twisted wrists. It’s laughing your head off so little girls don’t see you crying in pain and pulling yourself up while using a 50-pound child as leverage.

I saw my friends stumble toward the exits, searching for bags of ice for their 40-year-old knees, and feeling victorious as one of the few moms standing upright – until I took a corner too fast and did a massive wipeout on the floor. With my vanity trashed, I lept up as fast as I could, positive no one saw my fall and I could hold on to my small shred of dignity.

“I’ve never seen anyone move so fast,” my friend chortled behind me.

“I didn’t want anyone to see me.”

“Nicole, everyone saw you.”

And that’s when the pain started raging through my body. “Oh, my osteoporosis,” I groaned. My wrist was already black, my elbow was purple and I had a path of bruises up and down my arm. I would give every roller derby competitor who does this daily an imaginary fist bump, but I couldn’t make a fist to save my life.

I hobbled over to the snack bar, gasping. “Boniva,” I whimpered to the 16-year-old behind the counter.

“Um, I’ve got Ski.”

With Ski in hand and on my wrist, I settled onto the bleachers to watch my little girl skate around the rink without a care in the world. The way God intended to be.

The next day, I went swimming at a hotel with some friends with my bruised-up, banged-up arm.

“Oh my god, what happened?” she exclaimed.

“I went skating and did a massive wipeout.”

“Yeah, it was a big crash,” my seven-year-old piped in. “I’m sorry she got hurt, but I’m so happy mommy went skating with me.”

Those words? All I needed to make me feel like the bad-ass mom I am.