This is a story about control…

… my control.

Whining yesterday about how my hobbies are ALL! RUINED! by my inability to actually DO something WITHOUT, you know, having to MASTER it really got me thinking.

This running thing?

Boils down to ONE thing.

Control.

Because I’ll be honest.

I’ve not always felt this way about running. I mean, I enjoyed how I felt AFTER a run before now. And back then, I always had MOMENTS where, as I was running, I felt good.

But this is a whole new mindgame.

When I say I love running, I mean I REALLY LOVE RUNNING. Right now I’m on a three day-a-week running schedule. And by the night before my run, I’m grumpy and annoyed and frustrated. It’s enough that J’s commented on the fact.

If there’s a snowstorm and I can’t run, I get upset.

When I had my sinus infection a couple of weeks ago, I ignored the nurse’s warning to stop running until I felt better.

There have been runs which, in the middle, I’ve actually thought to myself that I understand how a person can be addicted to drugs.

My friend D calls me obsessed.

She’s right, of course.

I am the classic oldest child. The overachiever. And for whatever reason, when I do something, I feel this need to PROVE that I can be good at it.

(If I want to get all pyschobabble and navel gaze about it, it’s probably because I always felt like my parents’ love was conditional when I was a kid. But whatever.)

The one thing I know about myself is that my happiness is directly correlated to how much I improve on my PERFORMANCE of that hobby.

And it’s all about control.

Truly, with the acceptance of our infertility, I imagined that I had ceded all control of my life to some Other Thing out there. That I had NO impact on outcomes, only putting the pieces in place to make something happen.

Believe it or not, it’s carried over into parenting very well. Because, certainly. With an infant and toddler, you can’t MAKE them do anything. You can’t FORCE an outcome. All you can do is put tools into place to INFLUENCE them to make a certain decision.

But this running thing.

I’m seeing RESULTS. It’s the one thing in my life where, if I work hard enough and put in the work, I get the outcome that I want. I run up the hill that always defeats me. I run a 10k in less than an hour. I shave inches off my butt, my thighs. I lose 20lbs and maintain a weight which I haven’t seen in maybe 20 YEARS.

And I’m finding that – wait a second! – there ARE things over which I have control.

And, in my typical overachieving self, I need to see just how GOOD I can be at this running thing in order to be happy.

Until I decide that I’m never going to be good enough as I want, and it’s not worth doing it anymore.

And I find ANOTHER hobby and repeat the same spiral.

LAME.

So I’m saying it here, right now.

I’m stopping this spiral.

I will continue to work at this running thing to see how good I CAN be at it.

But I will never be an elite runner.

And I will stop comparing myself to chicks like Treadmill Girl.

Because really. Running a 10k in under an hour should be good enough for ME.

I’m the only person judging me – no one else is.

I am in control.

And I love it.

Racing.

My last race was in September, when my good friend D came up to visit and I managed to hoodwink her into running a 5k.

And that race wasn’t my best, not by a longshot. Though I finished officially at 32:47, it was a TOUGH one for me. I walked a lot more than I should have. I didn’t eat enough before the run, so I was tired and sluggish and pretty much just wanted to quit.

I hadn’t run a race since.

Until yesterday.

Mind you, thus far training for my half marathon is going pretty well. I have days that are really HARD. But I also have days where, as I’m running, I can see how people get ADDICTED to things.

Anyway. My long runs are between 6 and 8 miles now, so I thought it would be a good idea to sign up for a 10k, just to see how my training has been progressing.

And going into it, though D told me that she bet I’d break an hour for my overall time, I had NO expectations. I figured I’d be okay with just over an hour. I just wanted to see how I could do.

And the first 5k was AWESOME. I felt great. I ran the entire time, slower than I would have otherwise because I knew I had another loop to do. But I felt like I could have gone forever.

And I did that first 5k in 28:58.

(For those of you following along, that’s nearly 4 minutes quicker than September’s race.)

The last half of the race was tougher, I ended up walking a few more times than I would have liked.

But I crossed the finish line with a time BEFORE one hour.

My official race time was 59:13. For 6.2 miles.

Which works out to be a MINUTE PER MILE faster than I usually train.

I’m happy with it.

Mostly.

I mean, for me, the pace is SO much better than I’ve been doing. And I AM happy with the improvement.

But see. I ran the race with two other girls. And one of the girls is also training for a half marathon in May.

But she runs a treadmill. Because I “am crazy for running outside in the cold.”

And it’s been my mantra that running a treadmill isn’t the same as being outside, that my insistence on doing the outdoor thing is what’s going to make me faster and better.

It’s what gets me out the door at 5am when it’s 10 degrees out, most weekday morning.

Damned if Treadmill Girl didn’t finish the 10k in 56 minutes. And ran the entire time, whereas in the last mile I walked FAR more than I had intended.

And I mean, 3 minutes better than my time? It’s no big DEAL, not really.

I AM happy with my race. It’s much improved for ME. And given that even 10 years ago, I was a 12 minute-mile runner, 9:36 is something to be PROUD of.

But now it’s gotten me all COMPETITIVE. I want to keep shaving minutes off my time.

I want to get faster and run longer.

Well. Faster than Treadmill Girl, anyway.

I always do this. I get into a hobby, and then I really want MASTER it. Like I have to WORK at it to prove that I can be GOOD at it. Or something.

I LOVE running. If it were a person, I’d want to marry it and have its babies. On my off days, my rest days, I get grumpy. I love the way I feel after a run, sometimes DURING a run, the Zen it gives me.

And I suppose I just want to be good at it, too.

Moments.

3:55am.

O is crying.

For the past few nights, he’s cried in his sleep, but needs no help from J or I to get back to sleep.

He settles relatively quickly, but it’s not long before he’s crying again.

I go into his room, where he’s under his blankets, crying into his mattress. He lifts his head, and I pick him up, blankets and all.

We go downstairs to get some milk. As it’s warming, he looks at me and whispers “dark.”

We go back upstairs with the warm milk and sit in his rocking chair. He sucks the milk down, then rests his head on my chest.

And we rock.

When I whisper that it’s time for bed, he shakes his head and whispers “Rock?”

And so we rock, just he and I, in the silence of the early morning, my heart so full it actually ACHES with love for him.

He’s growing so quickly. And it seems like every day he changes. And I love every moment of it.

But the moments in that chair, in the quiet, are my most favorite moments of all.

Wordless Wednesday: Problem-Solving.

Click here for more WW images.

Toddlers vs. Patience (Score: O=1, Serenity 0).

It was one of those weekends.

Where I was too low on patience to continuously redirect, too tired to come up with new! fun! ways! to keep O from trying to pull out the socket covers or throwing cars or climbing up on everything to turn the lights on and off.

J was out yesterday, test driving new cars, since his 12 year old truck has been BEGGING us to put it out to pasture. (This weekend the poor old beast not only popped a spark plug but also decided that radiator fluid was non-essential. Nice SLOW leak, thankfully, but a leak nonetheless.)

And so I was on single parent duty. During the two hours of downtime O gave me, I kept myself busy. Instead of napping like I really wanted to, I did our taxes (because holy SHIT I am freaking out about having to, you know, BUY A CAR) and loaded the dishwasher and ran and folded multiple loads of laundry.

I have noted that my level of patience DIRECTLY corresponds to how few tantrums we have in the Serenity household.

The higher the patience threshold, the less tantrums we have.

And I’m reading a book right now, which my good friend D recommended. Since we are very much aligned when it comes to parenting philosophies, I knew I’d enjoy the read.

For the most part, I really like the book. I love how it marries the two things that are most important in my approach to parenting: respect and boundaries. I love that there are ways to enforce the boundaries while also letting your child know that you UNDERSTAND their view, too.

And that’s what I was missing this weekend.

As O gets more and more verbal, and more confident with his physical abilities, he’s pushing the boundaries.

Sometimes it’s deliberate – he will LOOK at me, but won’t listen to me say no, he shouldn’t touch the slow cooker, DANGER, OWIE. And I end up having to remove him from the situation. Which I do – with varying levels of exasperation.

Other times, I can’t even get his ATTENTION. It’s actually sort of amazing, because not only is he is HARD WIRED to DO stuff, but sometimes he gets so INTO what he’s doing, he isn’t really aware of anything other than what he’s doing.

So this book makes me realize that I have to put myself in his shoes, and really UNDERSTAND where he’s at. And I can’t expect him to think the same way I do.

Which is hard now that he’s getting much more verbal. Honestly, I sometimes have to REMIND myself that HE’S NOT EVEN TWO yet. And what he’s doing right now is not only developmentally appropriate, but it’s how he is learning.

Hard to do in the moment.

So maybe this weekend was a Big Fail in terms of patience and kindness and fun on Mommy’s end.

But I am still committed to making sure that O grows up ALWAYS knowing that he’s loved. That he feels free to form his OWN opinions on things and that Mommy will listen to him, even if she disagrees.

Just need to find that well of patience, that’s all.

Or at least find a way to REST when I need it.

Or something.

GOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!

Two words:

GOAL WEIGHT.

As of this morning, I am 1/2 a pound UNDER my goal weight.

Which means this.

I have lost 20lbs from January of last year – and 15lbs since November.

And it’s funny. I have a hard time REMEMBERING that I’ve lost that much weight. Because every time I get on the scale, I expect to see a number 10lbs heavier than I am right now. When I end up at the gym because I can’t run outside, I actually do a double take in the mirrors because I don’t actually recognize myself.

And whenever I go shopping, I still estimate myself as two sizes bigger than I am.

So clearly the change in how I view myself is slower in coming than it took me to lose the weight in the first place.

But I feel great. Like I’ve taken back my body. I’ve gotten rid of the infertility weight. The pregnancy weight. The baby weight.

All of that baggage? GONE. And I’m left with… well… ME.

This is the best I’ve felt about myself in years.

Things I love.

1. I love that my husband and I are equal partners in everything that we do.

For example. I do daycare dropoff, he does daycare pickup.

We split cooking duties, including food shopping. One week one of us plans the menu, does the shopping for the week, and cooks dinner. The other person is responsible for bathtime and bedtime and then dishes after dinner.

And we switch off every week.

2. I love that O is talking.

See, we have real conversations now. He asks me for what he wants. He can tell me if he has an owie, if he wants to eat, if he wants to come up and watch me cook, etc.

After feeling around this parenting thing blind for so long, it’s just so GRATIFYING to be in a place where we can really interact.

3. I love running. I love how I feel when I have a good run; I love having to WORK at the balance between my breathing and muscles and pace and time. I love that I can attack a hill one day, cruise up it another day. I love how it makes me feel like anything’s possible.

And even when I DON’T love the run itself – like today’s awful, achy, head-pounding run with a sinus infection?

I love that it reminds me that I am NOT all powerful and still have to WORK at it.

What do YOU love today?

Worth the Cost?

Julie at A Little Pregnant got me thinking on this last week, when she posted her answer to the following question. And Mel put up this post this weekend about it, too.

Is it worth all the shit when you finally have a baby?

Here and there, when I have moments of silence, I’ve been rolling this idea on my tongue, trying to find the feelings that resonate with me.

I think if you had asked me this when O was a few weeks old, I would have answered, probably in a shaky voice, no, I’m not so sure it was. Because I distinctly remember that mostly I was overwhelmed with fear and responsibility and sleep deprivation and all of the NOT KNOWING. The well of emotional and physical energy I needed at that point to be a mom scared me. My reserves of all of that were nearly non-existent.

Because the best (well, really the ONLY) coping mechanism I had to get through my pregnancy was, well, denial. I never really believed I’d bring home a baby until he was here and in my arms.

And then I was taken by how UNPREPARED I was to parent a newborn.

So it’s no wonder, then, that I didn’t have any sort of emotional preparation for being a mom.

And I recall thinking how selfish and WRONG that seemed. Because for YEARS all I wanted was a baby. A live baby, sleeping in my arms. And for so long I had doubted that it would ever happen for us.

Clearly that’s changed.

Because you all can probably tell that right now, my answer to whether or not it was worth the cost would be a huge, resounding YES. Once I accepted the identity of mom into myself (and by this I mean REALLY accepted it as part of who I am, not just the external label of “mom”), things got easier, and I became much more comfortable with trusting my instincts. And O is growing, and thriving, and really digs J and I.

So really. It’s EASY for us to say that it was all worth it. We spent $35,000 of INSURANCE MONEY to bring him home. The only burden we bore during those three years was the emotional cost. Which, yes, I admit. It was REALLY rough at the time. It required a LOT of managing and introspection and discussion and coping. It took up a LOT of space in our life together and was one of the biggest marital issues J and I dealt with thus far.

But. Almost two years after his birth, that emotional cost has ebbed away. I have a hard time putting myself back into that fear, into that coping. It’s tatters, remnants of our history. And when people ask me how we dealt with it, all I can say is “it was hard.” Because it was. It was really hard. But that hard is BEHIND us.

And we have O now. And every day I wake up grateful for him. And I love him more than I’ve ever loved any being, any person, any SOUL in this world. And during the whole process we worked hard to make sure that we remained focused on the idea that we wanted to be PARENTS. Together.

So yes, for us, it as worth it. Not simply because we have O, though. But because J and I came through that dark into the light together. And we didn’t put ourselves into foreclosure to afford the treatments which brough him to us. We didn’t have to make the hard decisions that so many people need to. We just had to manage the emotional cost.

Now see. With a potential number two? We’re in the same place. We’ll have to manage the emotional cost of the treatments. Given the level of distaste I feel when I think about even going back into my RE’s office again, there WILL be management required.

But this time, it’s not just the emotional cost on J and I, and our marriage. This affects O, too. And now that I know how much I need in reserve for being a parent to a newborn, this time I HAVE to closely manage the emotional cost. Not just for me. Not just for J. Not just for a new baby. But for my sweet, sensitive O, too.

And see, THIS time, it’s not about beating infertility. THIS time, it’s about family-building. Even as much as I tried to resolve our primary infertility about being focused on being a parent… there was an element of wanting to beat the fuck out of IF itself. There was ROMANCE in putting myself through the wringer so that I might end up as a mom.

And see? I viewed birthing a live baby while we were trying as the END of a journey.

And it wasn’t, not at ALL.

It was the BEGINNING.

And so that’s why I am unwilling to sacrifice ANY of myself this time around. I will not let secondary IF suck the happiness from my family. And if that means that our family is comprised of just us three? Fine.

And that’s my CHOICE. Being happy, fulfilled, a good parent, a strong woman. Over depleting my emotional reserves on something which may or may not happen. Just as I had no control over whether or not we got pregnant in the first place, I have no control over whether or not it might happen again.

So instead, I’ll focus on the things I CAN control.

So yes. For me, whatever happens, will be worth the cost. Because I’ve exercised my choice and made decisions for which I am happy. And that, in itself, is right for me.

For all of us.

Wordplay.

I often hesitate to talk about O’s personality on this blog; mostly because I’m worried about painting him into a self-fulfilling corner. (For example, if I say that he’s shy, I will avoid social encounters and therefore he WILL grow up to be shy.) Part of what I love about being his mom is that I get to observe and WATCH his whole personality develop and change over time. I’d hate to paint him as something *I* want him to be, not who HE is, if that makes any sense.

But the one thing I CAN say about O is that he’s a chatterbox. From the moment he wakes up until the moment he goes to sleep, he’s talking, talking, talking. And when he doesn’t know the words to something, he’ll chatter away in gobbledegook anyway – even now that he knows words. There are kids who won’t say a word until they have it perfect, and there are kids who don’t seem to care that they can’t say it right – they’re practicing the modulation of conversation.

My O is the latter.

And as his enunciation gets better on some of the things he CAN say, I find myself wishing that I had record of some of his cuter wrong pronounciations.

So here are some of the things he’ll say that make me giggle.

Truck is still “guck” or “cuck.”

Elephant is “EP-etant!”

Octopus is “OP-etus!”

Pepperoni is “peppa-MONY!”

Remote is “meer-mote.”

Yummy is “nommy!”

Pretty is “pity.”

Light is “Wiiiight.”

Button is “But-tah.”

He says “Happy NEW year.” Just like that. Emphasis on NEW.

And nowadays, whenever he does something new, he’ll breathe, “COOOOOOOL.” (Another one of my catchphrases, I suppose.)

He sings to songs in the car. Bingo is “Bee! AY EEAH! Bee! AY-EEAH! BEE- AY EEAH… BEEGO!”

He also sings Ring a Round the Rosie. Except when it comes to “Ashes, ashes… we all fall down!” He’ll sing “All done, all done, ALL FALL DOWN!”

Which, of course, sounds like “ahh FAH DUN!”

And the cutest thing he does now is stand in his crib in the morning, when I come in, and he’ll say, “Ready… Set… GO!!!!” and fall face forward on his bears. Or puppy. Or monkey.

I cannot tell you all how much I LOVE this age. He surprises me EVERY DAY with what he knows.

And I put this out there all the time, but there isn’t a day where I don’t FEEL this way. We’re SO lucky to have him. He’s such an amazing little soul, and every day I wake up thankful that I get to spend time helping him turn into the man he’ll be some day.

Wishful thinking.

I thought it had actually happened this time.

My body’s signs, pointing to ovulation, were VERY clear. And strong.

And we had timed things perfectly, without really being aware that we were doing it.

And though I usually have 5 days of spotting before AF shows up, I had gotten through THREE without seeing anything.

And of course my chest was sensitive. And I had broken out on my forehead, just like I did when I got my BFP with O.

So last night I said the words aloud to J.

“I think I’m pregnant.”

And here was my thinking. Really, it would be my LUCK that I would get pregnant on my own. Because I want to focus on running this half marathon. Because I still have a little weight to lose. Because, you know, I’m convinced it’ll never happen on our OWN – that we need a doctor in order to get pregnant.

Surely those three things would invoke Murphy’s Law, right?

Not this time. Sure enough, just before bed, I saw that I was spotting.

Silly infertile.

Babies aren’t made in bed, with your husband, in love.

They’re made by shots and doctors and embryologists and catheters and semen analysis.

And though I’m grateful for the technology that gave us O?

I still wish it could be different.