Mission Impossible: Waking Up

You might think it's easy to be a night person but you'd be wrong. It would seem reasonable that if the most dreadful part of your day is the simple act of waking up, HURRAY, you've conquered your most challenging battle before the crack of 7:55 PBT/5:55 BST (Pre-Baby Time/Baby Standard Time) and it's all downhill from there.

What's so hard about peeling one's eyelids open, getting out from under the snuggly warmth of 500 threadcount cotton sheets, and standing up to greet the day? For starters, everything. Let me break it down for you:

Scenario #1: Wake up with Alarm Clock (a.k.a Public Enemy #1)
Set alarm clock the night before with master plan in mind. Allow time for eight mile tempo run, stretching, core work, leisurely drink of water, and shower before baby hand-off when husband leaves for work. When alarm goes off press snooze before first conscious thought forms. If had to choose between oxygen and Snooze Button at this point would definitely choose Snooze. Decide stretching can wait till another day.

Nine minutes later, alarm sounds. Reach for snooze button before becoming aware that the sound is supposed to inspire wakefulness. Need to make it stop. Return to drowsing. Decide core work not necessary today.

Nine minutes later, alarm sounds. Arm extends toward Snooze button reflexively. Feel ok about shortening eight mile tempo run to 6.5 mile run

Nine minutes later, alarm sounds. Resign self to getting up eventually and running with baby in BOB stroller. Will do tempo run tomorrow, slow jog with baby in BOB stroller today.

Nine minutes later, alarm sounds again. Rub eyes, stand up and feel guilty and ashamed of self for not following through with plans because only losers do not follow through with plans. Lack of discipline is obvious sign of being a shitty person.

Have first sip of coffee. Decide maybe can live with self after all.

Scenario 2: Wake up with Baby Crying
Hear "Eh-eh" from baby's room. Hope whining will die down and baby will fall back asleep. "Eh-Eh" escaltes to whine which esclates to cry. Hope cry will stop after five minutes. Cry escalates to madness within three minutes, then abates. Fall back to sleep. Cry starts again. Cry becomes singing. Fall back asleep. Cry starts again.

After thirty minutes decide continued taunting cannot be tolerated and retrieve baby and bring her to big bed in hopes of quiet mom baby snuggle time. Feel baby's full weight resting on your throat. Reposition baby without opening eyes. Baby scratches your face with the toenail she has refused to let anyone trim. Place baby lovingly on chest where offending toenail is far from your face. Baby gropes your nipples like drunk frat guy. Can't take it anymore. Get up.

Feel nostalgic for the times when baby would entertain self in crib for first hour of day. Wonder which of your parental failings have resulted in baby's inability to play alone. Take first sip of coffee and decide  maybe you don't totally suck at parenting.

Scenario 3: Wake up Naturally (Obv a Fantasy)
Merely considering this causes urge to weep for pre-baby life, in which weekend mornings were often spent lazing in bed with husband and Styles section of New York Sunday Times, sometimes coffee. Feel guilty for yearning for old life especially upon noting your beautiful, healthy daughter is one of life's most precious gifts and you are total ungrateful asshole. Repeat cycle of self-loathing/coffee drinking.

 Before Coffee

Seriously? My hair isn't even awake yet.

 After Coffee

Much Better

This post was brought to you by the Finish The Sentence Friday link up. The prompt this week was "The hardest part about my day is..."

Please visit the FTSF hosts:
Stephanie at Mommy For Real,
 Janine at Janine's Confessions of  Mommyholic
Kate at Can I Get Another Bottle of Whine
and Dawn at Dawn's Disaster.

Fourth Time's Not A Charm: Our First Family Camping Trip

"Yeah, maybe I could hold this position for four more hours," I whispered to Dan.

The scene was not a tantric sex retreat but a camping trip gone awry.  It was 2am and we'd been awake with Sweet Pea since about midnight. I lay on my side, propped on my right elbow, her head nestled between my bicep and the inside of my forearm. My headlamp was buried somewhere between the air mattress and the tent wall and the location of my sanity was completely unknown. Which would explain why I thought I might maintain this pose until daybreak.

"Are you sure?" Dan whispered.

I was not. Tentatively, I moved my right arm. Perhaps I could transfer her from my body to the Pack and Play without waking her up if I did it one millimeter at a time. I'd tried this stealth maneuver unsuccessfully about 358 times over the past couple of hours but I thought maybe this time would be different.

She let out a whimper, which escalated to a shriek.

Over her cries, we heard an unmistakeable "F*ck you!" from the guys a few campsites away.  The first time, we allowed ourselves to believe it was not necessarily directed at us. This time, however, we were pretty sure it was.

I figured probably they were drunk, angry and armed and it was only a matter of time until they busted into our tent and held us at gunpoint, the natural result of our crying baby interrupting their drunken shenanigans. Or at least they were going to slash our tires and beat us up.

I whispered to Dan, "I am worried about those guys."

I figured he would tell me I had read too many Ann Rule books and I should relax, they were probably harmless.  (It was actually the beating scene with the brother and the marine from The Paperboy I had in mind).

"I'm not really comfortable with them either."

With that, we gathered the necessities: baby, diaper bag, wallets, and car keys and scurried into the night like the pair of bleary eyed, desperate adults and sleeping baby that we were.  We drove 17 miles to the nearest motel and settled in for the night. Thankfully Sweet Pea didn't cry in the motel room because we didn't have a Plan C or even the Infant Tylenol, which, in our haste, we left in the tent.

I wish I could say we were shocked to discover that camping with a 15 month old did not offer the restful, rejuvenating sleep we'd anticipated, but we had tried camping in the backyard, not once, not twice, but three times, all with similarly bad results.

Optimism being a powerful force in our household, we hoped the fourth time would be a charm. Surely, real camping would be different, we told ourselves. Spending the day at the camp grounds breathing fresh air, frolicking in the woods and swimming in the lake would fatigue Sweet Pea to the point where nothing could keep her from sleeping.  Except swimming was thwarted by cooler temps and higher winds than we'd expected and Sweet Pea's frolicking took place mainly in the Pack and Play, as she played peek-a-boo while we attempted a much-needed mid-day family nap in the tent.

While our night did not go as intended, we were pleased to return to our tent in the morning to find it untouched by our neighbors. And we got to swim a little in the morning, before our reservation at the campsite expired. Sunday's weather was perfect- exactly what had been predicted for Saturday, actually, though we were too sleep deprived to fully enjoy it.

At least now Dan can't say I'm being a princess if I'm not enthusiastic about camping. I'm just being reasonable.

Seriously, though, do you camp with your kids? At what age did you start taking them? Have you had disasters? Successes? Have you learned any tips or tricks along the way? 

Where was our sleeping cherub at 2am?

I hit a turning point in my life when....

A little maroon bike changed my life. I bought it exactly ten years ago, with my tax return and a little help from my parents. I enjoyed spin classes, I was injured from running and planning to do a triathlon someday, and I longed to be able to exercise outside the four stifling walls of my gym. Never mind that I hadn't actually ridden a bike in about a decade. Road biking seemed a fitting hobby.

Speaking of fitting, my new sport necessitated I wear the requisite spandex shorts and blindlingly bright, loudly patterned jerseys.  Also, there were the shoes. Not only did they look ridiculous, I had to get over the paralyzing fear of my feet being attached to the pedals of a bike with really really skinny tires. But as with any fashion statement- be it bike apparel, jeggings, skinny jeans, what have you- I discovered, if you're going to wear it, you have to own it. Soon enough, I was hitting to the grocery store apres rides in my spandex like it it was no big whoop. (And in Boulder, Colorado it isn't. But this was when I lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where it kind of was. A few years later, it was In Rhode Island, where rocking spandex at Stop and Shop qualified me as an alien. Not the illegal kind, the kind from Mars that no one has ever seen).

Once I had the fashion situation under control, there was the small matter of actually riding the bike.
The thing about road biking is it is almost always done on roads. As in, roads where cars drive. This was terrifying to me. So terrifying in fact, that I would willingly seek out large groups of very fit strangers, whom I would meet in rural areas and then pedal for dear life for 30 miles or more, just to ride with other people, rather than ride alone.

On my first group ride, somewhere between deciding I would rather be anywhere but on my bike and wishing I could just die and let the torture end, one of the guys noticed I was having a hard time.

"Do you need anything?"
I think he was wondering if I'd brought enough water or needed a gel.
Between gasps for air, I said, "An ambulance?"

My ambulance never came and I had to pedal my sorry self back to my car. This would be the first of many, many times I had to keep going when I really didn't feel like it. Biking taught me perseverance.

A year passed since my ambulance request and I had gotten rid of not only a few extra pounds, but also my fear of clipless pedals (though not without taking down several fellow cyclists and sustaining a bloody gash in my ankle, the result of a poorly managed stop sign situation), as well as my anxiety about riding alone, and the dorky visor on my helmet. I'd completed my first metric century (62 miles) and my first sprint triathlon.

I still didn't know how to change a flat tire however. While biking did not do much to improve my anger problem, as my failed attempts to change a tire ended in crying, cursing, screaming, and throwing my tire lever, it did help me hone a much more important skill- getting people to do what I wanted. No, I could not change a tire, but I knew how to bake and could be quite friendly with the men folk.  With a fresh loaf of banana bread in hand, I could flirt my way to the front of the queue at any bike shop and get my flat changed in a hurry.

Inevitably, I had a flat tire during a triathlon and those cute bike mechanics who had always been so generous with their time and their strong, nimble hands were not there to help. A kind pair of sisters who were racing together (ps...is that the cutest thing you've ever heard of!?), stopped to help me. I was able to finish but my time was in the toilet. I vowed to learn out how to change a flat myself. So I sat with my bike and a knowledgeable, patient friend until I figured it out. It turned out, doing it myself felt a lot better than getting someone else to do it for me, and I didn't even have to turn on the oven (or the charm). From my bike, I learned self-sufficiency.

Now that I had conquered the unthinkable challenge of Changing My Own Flat Tire the obvious next step was to sign up for a an ironman triathlon, which consists of a 1.2 mile swim, a 112 mile bike and a 26.2 mile run. Because obviously, if you can change a tire, you can do anything. Actually, I think my main reason for doing my first ironman was that my friend said she was going to do it, and I'd promised her I would do it if she did. I never said the bike made me smart.

Over the past decade, I've ridden that bike up Mount Mitchell, the highest peak of the Appalachian Mountains.  I've taken her up Beech Mountain, the legendary training ride that took Lance Armstrong from his battle with cancer to his Tour de France victory. We've ridden through the countryside of southern Spain, including Pico Vuelta, Europe's highest road. We've seen nearly every back road in Rhode Island, as well as parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts, sometimes all in one day.  I've pedaled her across most of the state of Arizona, and across the windy plains and over the peaks of Wyoming. We've made it to the top of some of Colorado's most intimidating passes, including Mount Evans, Wolf Creek Pass, Slumgullion Pass, Rabbit Ears Pass, and the Dallas Divide. I've climbed our way out of Montrose's punishing Black Canyon of the Gunnison. I am not going to tell you how many of these suffer-fests were born of peer pressure. Like I said, the bike made me stubborn, not smart.

The bike has made me a lot of things- strong, fit, disciplined, tenacious, and fearless among them, but most of all, it made, and continues to make me happy. Riding my bike with the wind in my face and the sun on my back brings a smile to my face.  The bone aching fatigue of a  long day in the saddle makes my heart sing. The out of this world deliciousness of a medium rare cheeseburger after one of those days is enough to make this agnostic pretty sure God exists.

Resting my hands on a steering wheel and keeping one foot on the gas will never be more fun than hanging onto the handlebars and pushing both feet down on the pedals. It doesn't matter if I'm heading up Lefthand Canyon or taking the bike path to the library with Sweet Pea in the Burley. When I'm riding my bike, I feel like humming a song. Not that you could necessarily recognize it. I never said the bike made me a better singer- just a little better, braver of a  person.

We've had ten great years together.

This post was brought to you by the Finish The Sentence Friday link up.

Please visit the FTSF hosts:
Stephanie at Mommy For Real,
 Janine at Janine's Confessions of  Mommyholic
Kate at Can I Get Another Bottle of Whine
and Dawn at Dawn's Disaster.

Fat Talk: I'm totally quitting... tomorrow.

"Dude, my butt looks so big in this suit." 
"No man, your butt is awesome. Girls like a man with some junk in the trunk. Check out my hair though. It's thinning and I can't do anything with it.  Should I wear a hat or just shave what's left of it?"
"You have plenty of hair. Have you seen my crow's feet!?"

Said no men, ever.

So why do women talk like this all the time? You had to have seen the Fat Talk clip from the Today Show.  I even saw it and I don't have a tv. In case you missed it, here you go.

The experts on the Today Show run through a litany of reasons why women commiserate about how fat/unattractive we are. I agree with everything they said- especially that little part they mention, right at the end: Body bashing perpetuates poor self-esteem and you should never do it in front of your kids. 

No duh, right? Before I had Sweet Pea I promised myself and Dan that I would never do this once our baby was born, especially if we had a girl. Never again would I say any of the following:
I feel so fat right now
Does this outfit make me look huge?
I just ate so much cake. I'm gross.
Is my stomach sticking out?
I didn't used to have cellulite. Here, see? Look at the cellulite. LOOK AT IT.

It would be like a Fat Talk fast.... forever.. It would be good for me. I was actually looking forward to it.. Kind of like how I look forward to the 5:30 am workouts; they're so good in theory, yet so rarely executed.

I went to a really interesting talk on neurolinguistics last spring where I learned that you can influence your thoughts and feelings based on the words you use, both in your communication with others, and in your self-talk. I know this has been true for me with sports. Some of my best times have been recorded when my body was ready to quit while my mind said  "Yes I can, Yes I can." (This turned out to be a good strategy for enduring natural childbirth, too).

You might be surprised at how easily I can tell myself , "Yes I can" when in fact I feel like I absolutely can't, given the fact that I can hardly breathe and my legs are on fire. I do it because it's what I've always done.  I do it because I work so hard at moving toward my athletic goals, it would be a waste not to give myself the free speed that comes with a good attitude. I do it because I know how good it feels to see a faster time on the finish clock. I do it because I know how easy it is to back off, and how quickly you go from backing off to giving up once your mind goes to "No, I can't."

So why can't I give the same positive attitude and discipline into avoiding Fat Talk, especially around my child? Oh, yeah- all those resolutions I had about ending it just as soon as I gave birth- Just add that to the never-ending list of stuff I said I'd never do once I had a kid.

So I make excuses. Sweet Pea is only 15 months old. She doesn't understand what I'm saying. Even if she understands, she can't talk yet, so I have a few months till I really have to quit. I'll quit soon. Anyway, I always tell her I love her little body. I find her chubby tummy especially delicious and she knows that. And her pudgy thighs! I adore the thighs. She'll be fine. She's not really watching me.

Best. Lip balm. Ever.

Except I know that's not true. When she was a few weeks old, I would lie her down on her back on the bathroom floor while I scrunched some product in my hair and applied my makeup. I'd glance down intermittently and catch sight of her eyes darting around, following my every move. Lately, she has started to root around in my clutch whenever I go to pay for something. She's not just exploring, she's going straight for my lip balm and she doesn't stop until she gets it into her little hands and "applies it" to her lips. (Her inability to unscrew the cap is a minor detail). And I know she's been watching me when she goes to the closet and grabs the broom and the dustpan and drags them around the house. (If she were really paying attention she'd be focusing on the 2 foot radius surrounding her high chair, however).

She's got her eyes on me. And I'm still making disparaging statements about my body, albeit not as often as I used to. Though I would be lying if I said that was because my self-awareness and body acceptance have blossomed since I stepped into motherhood. (Or since motherhood trampled me; how I look at it depends on when you ask me). It's probably because I weigh less than I've ever weighed as an adult. But that doesn't mean I won't complain about the half full water balloon shape my breasts have taken on now that we're almost done nursing.

I want to believe that my body is beautiful, every single day- even if my tummy is bloated, despite my butt area sagging a little, regardless of the deepening lines around my eyes. And I want desperately for Sweet Pea to think it's normal for a woman to consider herself beautiful.

I know you can't do everything at once. Many, many years passed between my first near death experience jog around the block and the "Yes I can" that lead me to my first marathon, subsequent triathlons and (much) faster marathons. But I don't exactly have years to develop an awesome body image to model for my daughter. I need to start fast, like yesterday.

Do you struggle with this?  What are you doing to model good positive body image for your children? I know what I'm supposed to do, I just don't know how to do it, so I'd really love to hear your tips and ideas in the comments.

I Love the Gas Card Scene But That's Not Why Reality Bites is my Favorite Movie

My favorite movie of all time would have to be Reality Bites. Not because Ethan Hawke is so sexy (although he is) and not because Winona Ryder is so beautiful and gosh darn likeable (which she most certainly is) or even because of the scene where she and Janean Garofalo dance to "My Sharona." (while it is arguably  the best scene in the whole movie, except for maybe the love scene at the end with Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke. And is my choice of "love scene" versus "sex scene" a sign that I  am becoming crusty with age?)

I love this movie because I saw it when it came out in 1994, 598 times in college, about twice after college, and at least once since having Sweet Pea. Even though I know just about every line by heart, it meant something different to me every time I watched it.

Regarding the prolific Reality Bites viewing that went on during my college days: That was largely a function of it being one of the few movies my roommate and I owned. We watched it on our four head VCR because when we were at Circuit City shopping for this momentous joint purchase, a salesman with a sexy accent like Cesar Milan said "Two beautiful ladies like you need a four head VCR, not a two-head VCR" and we were sold.

The first time I watched Reality Bites, in high school, I didn't really see what was so bad about working at The Gap after college. Wouldn't you get a discount on the clothes? I thought it was kind of sad that our heroine doesn't get the job with the publishing house but then again, how did she graduate college without being able to state the definition of irony, anyway? My AP English exam was less tricky than that. And I didn't quite understand what was so funny and ridiculous about Winona Ryder trying to Ben Stiller her with the statement "I'm a non-practicing virgin." I might not have even picked up in the fact that Ethan Hawke despised everything about Ben Stiller and what he represented. I'm pretty sure I didn't know that Ben Stiller represented anything at all.

The next few hundred times I watched this movie, I felt bad for Janean Garafolo when her best friend completely insults her job. I got why Winona Ryder had mixed feelings about driving her father's BMW, even if it was an older model. I thought the idea of charging strangers' gas on your father's gas card in exchange for cash was positively genius. I didn't get why Janean Garafolo was being such a drama queen about the HIV test and the possibility of being like the AIDS character on a Melrose Place episode... if she was so worried about it, maybe she shouldn't have had sex with so many guys. And more importantly where did she meet all those guys, anyway?

And the last few dozen times I've watched it? I realized this movie is about figuring out what you want to be when you grow up. What kind of job do you want? What do you value? Who are your real friends and how do your friends define you? How much help are you willing to accept and does taking a handout or two from your parents keep you from growing up? Are you a prostitute if you take a job that will pay the bills but leaves your soul empty? Or are you just doing what adults do? And if you don't take responsibility are you a loser or a child? Or does that make a you an authentic person? Can you be true to yourself and make it in the world on your own? And life is so confusing, is it really so ridiculous to call a psychic when it gets too overwhelming?

So there's that. And also the fact that watching this movie always reminds me that there was a time when my college roommate/BFF and I used to sit around and talk, in vivid detail, about the way our lives were going to be, down to the names of our children, and exactly what types of guys our husbands would be. It reminds me of how we made a pact that if we weren't married by the time we were 30, we would live with each other forever. Which made complete sense because it was both a testament to how much we enjoyed living together (except when she ate all the chunks out of the cookie dough ice cream) and to our cool ignorance of the speed with which time passes. Becoming thirty (an entire thirty!) years old- the idea was almost laughable, our contract pretty much a joke. Though it was less funny when I was 29 and had not yet met Dan. 

What's your favorite movie of all time?

This post was brought to you by the Finish The Sentence Friday link up. 

Please visit the FTSF hosts, Stephanie at Mommy For Real, Janine at Janine's Confessions of  Mommyholic, Kate at Can I Get Another Bottle of Whine,  and Dawn at Dawn's Disaster.

Home is where the Mom is

I started this a couple of weeks ago. My mom had stayed with us for a long weekend. She came in to see the Listen To Your Mother Show. 

I stepped out from the car onto the pavement of the "Departures" area and peeked at Sweet Pea, who was content to play with her bee toy in her carseat. Then I hauled my mom's orange suitcase out of the trunk and turned to hug her. As soon as my face met the fabric of her shirt, the tears started to flow. 

"I hate it when you leave." My words were muffled, as I buried my wet face into her neck and shoulder, but she got the idea.
"But we will get to see each other again soon."
This was true. We have a wedding come up. And then I go back to Rhode Island for a long visit this summer. This takes away some of the sting.

You might think it gets a little easier every time, but I cry every time my mom and I part ways at an airport. It doesn't matter which of us is the one who leaves. It's just as likely to happen at TF Green as it is at Denver International.

You might assume I get weepy because I am overwhelmed, wondering who is going to whip up lunches for Sweet Pea, easily mend the the J. Crew skirt I got at Goodwill for $3.50, or organize my tupperware cabinet once she's left. And maybe that's part of it. Who doesn't treasure the capable and willing hands of a mother?

But it's more than that. It's the mom-ness of her- that makes you feel safe, loved, and at home. Not that home isn't the place where the mail piles up, the basement floods once in a while, and you sometimes forget to dump a poopy diaper into the toilet and you walk in the nursery an hour later and you're like "Oh my god what stinks?" Home is definitely that place.

Home is also the place where spontaneous dancing in the kitchen occurs (sometimes with the baby, sometimes without). It's where a vase full of flowers picked from the front yard by Dan and Sweet Pea might greet you when you walk in the door after work.

But home isn't just a place. It's also the feeling I get when I'm with my mom. And the older I get the more I realize, I don't think I'm going to outgrow it.

I Blog...

Because I love words. I love finding the right words. You wouldn't know it from talking to me, because I just say all the words, but I get a thrill out of finding the perfect words to say what I mean on the page. Or the screen. Whatever.

Because I can't fit everything I want to say into a Tweet or a Facebook status update.

Because I've had this blog since 2007 and I'm not a quitter. If I start something there has to be a really really good reason why I wouldn't finish it. For reals. I had a thirty hour labor and gave birth at home, without meds. Once you do that, it's kind of hard to come up with an excuse to quit something as benign as blogging.

Because how else do you remember stuff like the feeling of walking into Kids Korner at the gym and finding a two year old kneeling over Sweet Pea with his hands up near her throat, calmly telling the little shit to be gentle because she's smaller than him, wondering where the hell the adults were when the violence erupted, gathering your baby's soft little body in your arms to comfort her, as she grins, waves, and yells "Bye Bye!" repeatedly, as if nothing happened, and being grateful that she was not traumatized because a) that would obviously suck and b) you know you will probably continue to use the shitty Kids Korner childcare regularly anyway, just because it's so cheap and convenient. (Note to self: Blog about that).

Because I'm already registered for the BlogHer 2013 conference and it would be pretty lame to show up if I don't keep blogging.

Because I'm a blogger. I'm not sure when I made the mental switch from "having a blog" to "being a blogger" but I am pleased to say it was easier and more painless than going from "someone who runs" to "a runner." The latter took me about a decade and at least two marathons, while the former only took a few years and a couple hundred blog posts.

Because I always feel better after I blog. Blogging is a lot like working out. You don't always want to get started, but once you're done, you never regret it. Maybe you regret your outfit choice and the ensuing frostbite that occurs, or the fact that your internal compass failed and you got horribly lost, but not the fact that you did it. When running that is, not blogging. I have yet to dress inappropriately or get lost while blogging.

Because when I'm blogging I'm not really thinking about anything else. It's meditative. It's how I get into flow. And if you aren't familiar with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and flow, then you need to watch this. Flow is basically the secret to happiness. And it's free!

Because I'm an attention whore. A half dozen likes on Facebook and two comments on a blog post are enough to keep the needy toddler in me nourished until I hit publish again. I don't need much to survive. Which is good because if there was some caloric formula for blog love, my blog would basically be an anorexic. But the little crumbs I do get, they mean a lot.

Why do you blog?

This post was brought to you by the Finish The Sentence Friday link up. 

Please visit the FTSF hosts, Stephanie at Mommy For Real, Janine at Janine's Confessions of  Mommyholic, Kate at Can I Get Another Bottle of Whine,  and Dawn at Dawn's Disaster.