The tedium of daily life can be such a drag, but I’m trying to lighten up a little and inject some merriment whenever possible. The kids are pitching in too, in their own devious ways. It’s been weeks since they rewrote their chore chart, but I haven’t had the heart to change it. Oddly enough, they are still consistently doing their original chores. There’s a lesson in there somewhere!
I started calling myself a runner 16 years ago and it didn’t take me long to realize I had found a soul mate in the sport. Running helps me make sense of my world and guides me through both the ordinary and spectacular crazies of life.
Running quickly became my number one elixir and my every metaphor. I found confidence, friendship, power and patience. I ran to empty my mind of the spinning thoughts. I ran for laughter and conversation and sometimes to be “alone together.” On darker days, the mileage helped me shed anger, sadness, weariness or disappointment. That fact that running was cleansing may be cliché, but it was fitting nonetheless.
I still gain all this from running, but these days the sport no longer consumes so many of my hours or thoughts. Like many women before me, motherhood abruptly and decidedly hijacked more than half my life, leaving little room for intense pastimes.
This fact has worried me. I’m proud to be a hands-on mom, but giving up everything for my offspring was never part of my plan. And because running was such a big piece of my life, even cutting back a little felt like losing something. For years this loss has been a small, but nagging source of sadness and guilt.
What I’m finally understanding (seven years after I became a mother–sheesh) is that my running life is actually mirroring the rest of my life, just like it did a decade ago when I was young and unencumbered. Today I am paring things down. I am doing fewer things, but they are more focused. I am socializing less, but with more quality time. I am running consistently, if not quickly. I run when I can and run hard when I feel like it. If I race, I race—but I don’t lose any sleep about pace.
I am cutting myself slack and making peace with the undeniable fact that I cannot do everything I want to do with my life, all at the same time.
If balance is my goal, I must remember that balance doesn’t always mean equal. I think this has even been covered on Sesame Street…three apples might weigh the same as only one cantaloupe. Perhaps not equal, but somehow even.
So right now I’m focusing on three little people. Soon I will add more of my career back into the mix. Eventually I will pursue my long list of interests. Maybe I will bump up my mileage, or maybe I will keep running a relaxed pre-dawn loop around the trail.
For now I’m content. My personal scale holds a mish-mash of passions, responsibilities and dreams, but somehow it’s steady and balanced.
Family, what are you thankful for today?
Highlights from this week:
Kombucha is now on tap at Whole Foods
This nice meal (wow–and it’s not even pizza night)
Spy Kids 3
Treasure hunts (a new family hobby: geocaching)
Phone chat with a little brother
The f-word question came up again, no surprise. When Doodlebug is curious, she is relentless. This time, I was totally straight with her, and I have to say it felt pretty weird intentionally saying the word fuck to a 7-year-old. But I always say I want her to feel comfortable asking me anything, and I figure this is part of it.
So I told her what the f-word was, and how it’s not a very nice word and I didn’t want her repeating it, etc. I explained that I was telling her because I believe in honest answers. She totally got it and promised to keep the knowledge to herself.
And then a pause, and then the question that I just knew would be next. “But what does the word mean?”
“Well…it’s a not-very-nice word for sex.”
“What could be not-nice about making babies?”
(I know–so sweet and innocent!) I did a little backtracking. “Remember how we talked about sex and how babies are made? Well sometimes grown-ups who are in love (Repeat: Grown-Ups. Who Are In Love) have sex just because they like it, even if they don’t want to make a baby.” She raised her eyebrows. So the conversation took a left turn and we continued down that path for a little longer. It was not entirely new territory, just elaborations on the same message she has been hearing for years.
I’m getting so comfortable with the birds-and-bees talk, that I barely blink when it comes up. But the f-word, well I’m still a little shaky on that topic. But knowing my daughter I will have plenty more opportunities to discuss it. Another thing I do know: telling her was the right thing. It takes years to build the kind of trust I hope to give my kids. I want Doodlebug to be able to ask me anything. She may not want to ask me everything, but she will be able to.
Before I tucked her in that night, she had one last question. “When did Pop and Granna tell you what the f-word meant?”
Ha! They wouldn’t have touched that conversation with a f-ing 10-ft pole!
One afternoon when Rascal was three, he complained about how I had not played with him all day. My reply was something like, “Are you crazy? I took you to the park and we played all morning!” He answered with what was then his longest sentence ever, “Going to the park and talking to the other Mommies is not playing.”
Ouch, right? It still stings to think about it, but it was such a clear and simple lesson–the kind that only your child can deliver. So today, like many days, I carried the memory in my pocket next to my keys and phone. Every time I felt tempted to hurry the kids along, or do a quick email check, or engage another Mom in random chit-chat, I instead turned my eye, my attention and my playfulness to the little ones swinging and laughing right in front of me.
Family, what are you thankful for today?
Highlights from the week:
Rainboots
Sunny skies
Friends who will run in any weather
A husband who covers Saturday breakfast and ballet so I can run in any weather
The zip-line Dad made for our secret messages
Your Mom, my wife
Our family’s good health
Library books
That the school hamsters survived the roof collapse
Yesterday my 7-year-old, Doodlebug, told me a boy on her bus was talking about the F-word. He used the phrase, not the actual word. She asked, “So, what’s the F-word? Tell me the word. I know it’s bad, but if you tell me what it is, I promise promise promise not to say it.”
While I was considering the merits of brutal honesty, she interrupted and said something that bothered me more than a 7-year-old knowing the word fuck. “I think I know what the f-word is…is it fat?”
Now, you may chuckle at that, but I’ve been chewing on this ever since. In our house we talk plenty about taking care of ourselves—eating healthy foods, exercising daily, getting enough sleep. Aside from the last one (ugh) we don’t just talk, we consistently walk the walk.
From early on, Doodlebug has known fitness is a family priority—she has grown up riding in the jogging stroller, cheering at bike races and marathons, and spending lots of family time playing outdoors. Now that she’s older she understands there’s a little more to it and that Mama is much happier when she gets her run in. (Bless those endorphins!)
With that said, I make a point of not talking about exercise in terms of losing weight or looking a certain way—I tell her it makes me feel strong and clear-headed. (Totally true, by the way.) But if she thinks “fat” is a bad word and thin is the only acceptable shape, are the right messages soaking in? Um, no.
So how do I balance the message that it’s important to be healthy, but that people also come in all shapes and sizes? How to convey that yes, it’s important to take care of your physical self, but that inner beauty is what matters most.
How to say it all so that it’s heard?
Even with my best parenting efforts, it’s sometimes hard to know how all the info is really being processed. Recently she asked me if it was dangerous that her fingers got wrinkly after a long shower. “Because you know,” she explained, “I learned in P.E. that smoking causes wrinkly skin.”
Well yes, and death too. Forget wrinkles, let’s talk about lung cancer.
In fact, let’s talk about it all. With apologies to Margaret Wise Brown, I’ll start here…
The important thing about smoking is that it can kill you.
And the important thing about your body is that you honor it.
And the important thing about the F-word is that you can’t use it until you are old enough to use it wisely.
Oooh, I love this time of year…the-clean-slate, organize-my-life, make-grand-plans time of year. The motivation and enthusiasm is intoxicating! I live for this kind of energy!
Yet, I’m tackling January differently this time around. Instead of charging forward and mapping out plans for the next 12 months, I am pausing to consider the enormous gratitude I have for 2009. I need this reflection more than I need a map or a plan, but I think it will ultimately point me in the right direction for 2010.
So…I’m taking stock, giving thanks and relishing as much as I can.
Thank you, health. I wish there was something besides illness to teach us full appreciation of our own health and possibility. I am still struggling to find a way to convey to the kids the gratitude and responsibility we should have for our physical selves. So far, all I have come up with is, “What? Your legs are too tired?? Be grateful you even have legs!”
Thank you, growth. So much learning and growing inside and out! New skills, bigger words, broader roles, rising independence, healthier conversations. My trust in the big picture and the connectedness of us all has expanded—and it has nothing to do with Facebook networking.
Thank you, contentment. I started 2009 by setting aside all career commitments to focus on the kids and relearn how consuming life with a newborn can be. The decision to drop everything was made neither lightly nor without tears, but once I made the decision—really made it—I felt weightless. Very little of the year was easy, but it was peaceful.
Thank you, family. To the family I was born with, the one I married into, and the one I created with friends…I am grateful for cheap phone calls, thoughtful visits, early morning runs, swapped books, and shared meals. Runners, I wish there was more time for all the great conversations we start on the trail!
Thank you, little family. You light me up. One recent night I told Hubby that I was totally in love with our little family. His response, “Well it’s not very little any more, unless you mean short in stature.” We are short on nothing that really counts.
I am feeling the love, people. Bring on 2010.
Immeasurably thankful for his first year.
Family, what are you thankful for today?
Highlights from this week:
Only 3 more days of school!
The map that Dad made for my lunchbox
My early morning birthday party with running friends
My housekeeper and babysitter
Mama (awww, that’s me)
My birthday!
Our Christmas lights are up outside
Learning to ride a bike without training wheels!
Me too…Learning to ride a bike without training wheels!
