In a week that was supposed to yield really decent mileage, I barely have 8 miles to my name.
Why might you ask? Because motherhood slapped me in the face.
We live a very scheduled life in this house right now. Everything has been timed out to make sure that we get up, leave, nap, and eat on time which makes life run so much more smoothly. Being a type A personality, I have a schedule that starts at about 3.50 AM and ends at about 9.30 when I'm getting ready for bed. This week that schedule got pushed to the wayside.
Ali and I were supposed to run 4 miles on our daily runs. We completed Monday with no problem. Tuesday morning, she woke up ill so I happily used that as an excuse to crawl back in bed, thinking at very least I could maybe get one in that evening and if not, then this was my rest day this week and I'd just run the rest of the week.
Little did I know that Monday would be my only run for the week.
After crawling back into bed at 4, A woke up about 5 and wanted to be fed. This was a little out of her normal routine as usually she sleeps 12 hours at night, but she's an infant. Infants, if you don't know by now, have their own rules that they live by, chiefly the rule of FEEDMERIGHTNOW. Plus, we have been waking her up at 5.45 during the week to feed her, so it wasn't a huge step out of the ordinary. So, hubby got up to feed her while I went to pump and jump in the shower. She fell back asleep after that feeding which freed us up to get ourselves and R ready to go. A was a little grumpy when I woke her back up to change her and buckle her into her seat, but who likes being woken back up to be messed with?
When I dropped her off, she was pretty fussy. Normally she falls back asleep in the car and I'm able to put her into her crib at daycare where she naps until about 8. This time, however, she cried when I went to put her down and she just wouldn't settle. I hated leaving her like that, but I had to go.
The day progressed uneventfully and hubby picked up the girls after school so I could organize my milk supply in the freezer to donate another batch of milk to a local mama. Hubby got home right before the couple came to pick up the milk and said that he didn't think A was feeling so great. After the couple left, we checked her temperature and it was 101.7. For a baby under 3 months, that's ridiculously high. We gave her a dose of tylenol and then called the pediatrician's office. We had to wait for the after hours nurse to call us back (because babies never get sick when the doctor's office is open). When she did, she chastised us for giving A tylenol (We were told by the pediatrician's office to give tylenol if necessary for her most recent spate of vaccines and exactly how much which is what we used when dosing her this time.) and then in the next breath said we needed to get her to the ER and make sure that she was still breathing on the way, making it seem like because we gave her tylenol, she now would possible stop breathing.
I took A to the ER while hubby stayed home with R. We ended up staying there until midnight while they ran a myriad of tests on her. It was wretched as they gave her a catheter to do a urinalysis, a nasal wash to test for RSV and flu, and pricked her no less than 3 times to draw blood. The only positive thing was because I whipped out the boob to comfort nurse her while they checked her vitals, we were offered a private waiting room. Oh, and another positive thing was that our vitals nurse told me that giving A tylenol was exactly what she was going to do anyway and thanked us for doing that. She said that the after hours nurse was wrong and if A was even just 3 days old, she would have given her tylenol.
A didn't have any other symptoms other than the fever and her tests all came back negative. I thought she might be sick with the same cold both hubby and R had been sick with (especially since 2 year olds LOVE to share), and sure enough the only positive test was for a virus, but not RSV. Score one for Mommy's Intuition.
A continued to have a fever for the next 48 hours and hubby had to stay home with her both days (normally we'd each take a day off) because I'm out of sick leave due to maternity leave (Remind me again why we live in a country that perpetually screws over women?). Hubby took A to the doctor on Thursday since her fever still hadn't improved and she wasn't eating very much. Thankfully, they said she was well-hydrated and doing well. Aside from the fever, she was still responsive and would smile when we would talk to her.
So obviously, Wednesday morning's run was out because by the time I got back from the ER, settled A, and pumped, it was after 1 AM, resulting in about 3 hours of sleep without getting up to run. Then A couldn't settle Wednesday night because of how the fever was making her feel, so we were up until a little after 2 AM trying to make her comfortable. It wasn't until hubby went to the guest bed and positioned her with her resting half propped up by his legs that she finally fell asleep. (Score one for co-sleeping, which by the way, has been a sleep saver for us, especially in the early days of A's life.) So that meant only 2 hours of sleep without getting up to run on Thursday. I guess I could have run Friday morning, but Thursday was the first night of normalcy and I was beat. I needed as much sleep as I could get after having a combined 5 hours of sleep in 48 hours, teaching, an observation, and of course dealing with our normal family routine and a sick baby. (I don't know how single moms do it?!)
So yeah, needless to say, it was a bit rough this week. I have been amazingly ok with the lack of mileage because really I have no control over it. I love running and I have some tough goals to reach, but I can't do that without sleep, and really, my family is the most important thing to me. This week was a good reminder that if they aren't happy and healthy, then what's the point of me running?
Because really, being a mama is what comes first.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
A day where I'm transformed into "Supermama"...
Being a mom pretty much guarantees that you are superwoman. There are so many things we juggle as a mom, especially as a mom who works another job on top of the career of being mom. Trying to balance it all and trying to find balance in it all is difficult. On September 1st, I transformed myself into Supermama because I did find that balance...with a lot of help from my husband.
Two weeks ago, I knew that as soon as my maternity leave ended, that I would be back to juggling life. During the first year of R's life, I developed a routine where I would spend one Saturday, every other week, cooking all day. I would then freeze these foods so we would have easy and healthy freezer meals to eat during the week. It was awesome and really there was no way we could have eaten so well that first year if I hadn't done this. I slacked off from doing this last year, and while there were some weeks where I contemplated starting up again, we made it work. It was alright to cook immediately after school since R was older and could entertain herself and could eat snacks by herself. However, I knew that with a two year old and a little one, there was no way I could make dinner and eat at a decent time after school. I can't always count on my hubby's help because he coaches the never-ending sport of basketball. Right now, he's only gone one or two nights a week, but in a few short weeks, he won't be there at all most nights. As an example of how life is when he's not there in the evening, a recent evening went like this:
Out of school at 5, Pick up the girls at 5.20, back at the house by 5.45, needed to pump so get hooked up to the pump, R is playing nicely on the iPad, A decides she needs to eat RIGHTTHEN, unhook from pump to feed A, realize that now it's 6.40, give R some leftovers for dinner hoping she'll eat while I'm pumping, R decides that dinner is the next closest thing to dog puke even though she happily ate it last night and pitches a huge fit, try to reason with my unreasonable tired and hungry 2 year old to no avail, unhook from the pump, try to feed R her food (which sometimes will get her started on eating it) only to result in a bigger temper tantrum, send R to time out, A wakes up and wants to eat RIGHTTHEN, R comes out of time out, pitches another fit about eating but starts eating nicely just as hubby gets home. Meanwhile, the last 2 hours I've been topless, in pain because I'm overfull, and dripping milk everywhere.
Needless to say, I don't have time to make dinner every night.
And I knew this would be the way it would be, which is why I decided to again pick up the art of cooking a ton so we just have to defrost it and eat. This time I attempted to do that with the crockpot so it will be hot and ready by the time we are home. I love Stephanie O'Dea's website where she attempted to use the crockpot every day for a year. She has a ton of recipes and she blogs about how to make each one and if it was any good. We've eaten some of her recipes before, but for this endeavor I decided to really peruse her site and then google some more. I made a mixture of her recipes and Once A Month Mom's crock pot offerings.
After picking out 8 recipes, I went shopping for what I needed and ended up spending about $50 less on our grocery bill than I normally do. (That can't be a coincidence, right?) I came home and put together the meals into freezer bags - no cooking necessary. The only thing I had to do was chop up some veggies. Even that was limited because I used frozen veg to replace a lot of veggies that were called for. It took 2 hours to assemble everything and clean up. I only had one minor mishap of a bag tipping over and spilling chicken, broth, and veggies everywhere. Basically for about 4 hours of time (including shopping), I had 8 bags which equals 16 family dinners.
But you might be asking yourself, "Ok, fine, so she cooked some meals. Big deal. I do that all the time. How does that make her Supermama?"
Well, ladies, I'm Supermama because earlier that day I got up early and ran my first 5k of the season. I ran the Dr. Piper Legacy 5k in a time of 27.39. I totally surprised myself with that time. My pace was an 8.45/mi and my first split was an 8.02. I got to the mile mark and I almost fell over with shock. I did not intend on going out that fast. I was about a minute slower on my subsequent miles and really had to push myself to finish the last half mile running. The race started at 7.30, so the sun was already up and the humidity was already ridiculous. It was a hot race. I don't do well in the heat standing still, much less running so that compounded why I was surprised with my time. This was also the first race that I can remember where I didn't do well on my finish. Normally I can out-sprint anyone, but I couldn't this time. In fact, I got out-sprinted by two ladies I had passed. I know it's a product of going out so fast, but I guess I should be happy because I may not have even been close to those ladies or that time if I had gone out slower. I ended up finishing 4th in my age group - one place away from medaling. This race gives me a lot of confidence for our next 5k on the first of October - Lexington Cares. I'm hoping with consistent mileage at or above 3 miles, my 5k time will be even better next race. I need to take about 7 minutes off of my time to meet my goal, but with consistent training with longer distances, I think it will be do-able.
I'm so proud of Ali on this race because it originally had been her goal to finish in under 30, but she ended up either breaking or severely spraining her toe earlier that week. She finished in a very respectable time just over 30 given that situation.
So this is why I was Supermama...not only did I cook enough food for half of a month of eating, but I also ran a 5k that morning.
(And I have to end on this shout-out: Of course none of this could have been accomplished without my hubby's help. His support makes all of the above happen.)
Two weeks ago, I knew that as soon as my maternity leave ended, that I would be back to juggling life. During the first year of R's life, I developed a routine where I would spend one Saturday, every other week, cooking all day. I would then freeze these foods so we would have easy and healthy freezer meals to eat during the week. It was awesome and really there was no way we could have eaten so well that first year if I hadn't done this. I slacked off from doing this last year, and while there were some weeks where I contemplated starting up again, we made it work. It was alright to cook immediately after school since R was older and could entertain herself and could eat snacks by herself. However, I knew that with a two year old and a little one, there was no way I could make dinner and eat at a decent time after school. I can't always count on my hubby's help because he coaches the never-ending sport of basketball. Right now, he's only gone one or two nights a week, but in a few short weeks, he won't be there at all most nights. As an example of how life is when he's not there in the evening, a recent evening went like this:
Out of school at 5, Pick up the girls at 5.20, back at the house by 5.45, needed to pump so get hooked up to the pump, R is playing nicely on the iPad, A decides she needs to eat RIGHTTHEN, unhook from pump to feed A, realize that now it's 6.40, give R some leftovers for dinner hoping she'll eat while I'm pumping, R decides that dinner is the next closest thing to dog puke even though she happily ate it last night and pitches a huge fit, try to reason with my unreasonable tired and hungry 2 year old to no avail, unhook from the pump, try to feed R her food (which sometimes will get her started on eating it) only to result in a bigger temper tantrum, send R to time out, A wakes up and wants to eat RIGHTTHEN, R comes out of time out, pitches another fit about eating but starts eating nicely just as hubby gets home. Meanwhile, the last 2 hours I've been topless, in pain because I'm overfull, and dripping milk everywhere.
Needless to say, I don't have time to make dinner every night.
And I knew this would be the way it would be, which is why I decided to again pick up the art of cooking a ton so we just have to defrost it and eat. This time I attempted to do that with the crockpot so it will be hot and ready by the time we are home. I love Stephanie O'Dea's website where she attempted to use the crockpot every day for a year. She has a ton of recipes and she blogs about how to make each one and if it was any good. We've eaten some of her recipes before, but for this endeavor I decided to really peruse her site and then google some more. I made a mixture of her recipes and Once A Month Mom's crock pot offerings.
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| A quick shot of the remainder of our dinners from that cooking endeavor. |
But you might be asking yourself, "Ok, fine, so she cooked some meals. Big deal. I do that all the time. How does that make her Supermama?"
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| Ali and I commemorate our first race of the season. Many more of these to come. |
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| Sprinting to the finish |
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| Crossing the finish line |
So this is why I was Supermama...not only did I cook enough food for half of a month of eating, but I also ran a 5k that morning.
(And I have to end on this shout-out: Of course none of this could have been accomplished without my hubby's help. His support makes all of the above happen.)
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