It seemed like a good idea at the time

In hindsight, two recent events in my life originated from completely ridiculous ideas. Both, however, seemed like good moves at some point.

On Sunday, I waddled through a half marathon. Returning to running seemed like a great way to mark my recovery from pregnancy and childbirth. My "training" regimen was sketchy, but I had hoped that pushing a 20-pound kid around in the jogging stroller would offset my low mileage.

In truth, I was prepared for a 10k race. Under ideal conditions, I could have put together a respectable 10-mile run. Somewhere along the 13.1 mile course, I reminded myself that one needs more than a positive attitude to run that far after giving birth 5 months previously.

In the end, I set a personal worst time of 2:53. In the final kilometer, I felt like my bladder dropped from my torso and rolled around underfoot. There are not enough kegel variations on the planet to prepare a woman's body for her first post-natal half-marathon. 

Bad idea #2 took on a smaller scale, but was equally moronic. Anyone in Toronto today would have noticed the weather forecast calling for torrential rain. At 8:30 this morning, I ignored the sporadic raindrops as I pushed my stroller down Moore Avenue. BabyBear was tucked nicely under her rain cover and I felt protected by Goretex.

Within minutes, the heavens had opened and I was completely drenched. My yoga pants got heavier with each step, until the drawstring and my generously proportioned hips were no match for gravity. I walked the last 5 blocks clutching my pants in one hand and pushing the stroller with the other.

Upon arriving home, I let go of my pants to turn off the alarm and found myself nearly naked from the waist down. Mother Nature must have a sense of humour. Why else would she direct a gust of wind toward my open front door as my pants fell to the floor?

I've almost wiped my memory of the sight of power-walking retirees raising their hands in victory as they finished ahead of me on Sunday. Let's hope the neighbours soon forget the view of my backside they got this morning.

Little House on the Prairie

When a houseguest asks for a toothbrush, one would think that they simply forgot theirs at home. When that houseguest is my mother, however, she's asking because she feels compelled to clean the grout around my kitchen sink.

When my mother broke out the elbow grease this weekend, I wasn't offended. I was relieved and appreciative, largely because my house is looking rather rough. After all, I'm finding it hard to vacuum with a 20-pound baby in the Baby Bjorn carrier.

Unfortunately, grout grime is not our most obvious challenge. Rather, our weedy and unkempt lawn is. The grass in our backyard is so long that I've started referring to our home as the "Little House on the Prairie".

Although I'm not looking forward to entertaining a baby in winter, I am looking forward to a blanket of snow covering our front yard. Soon, everything will appear clean and white - on the outside of our house anyway.

Welcome to the Big Top

Life on my 25 feet of Moore Avenue was little piece of chaos last week. At one point, I was ready to charge admission to the neighbourhood's very own circus. I would like to think of myself as the lion tamer, but the truth is probably closer to the bearded lady. (My hairstylist recently offered to pluck my eyebrows gratis, just so she wouldn't have to look at them anymore.)

On Thursday, BabyBear and I kicked off the morning in fine form with a 6-mile run. If time had been free, we would have extended the distance a bit, but I had a friend/new colleague coming over to talk all things Harlequin.

Upon reaching the house, I learned that our eavesdrough dudes had moved up our install date and were on their way over to the house. As I changed Carly into her fashion statement for the day, a neighbour stopped by to chat about her new job. Amid the girly fun, my friend/new colleague arrived. Or perhaps it was the eavesdrough team...I can't remember. Simply put, traffic was a-flowin'.

Before long, the eavesdroughers were upselling me on my soffit situation. And BabyBear started to wail. And I realized that I hadn't yet showered, something that had to happen before we left for our lunchtime playdate. For a split second, I actually forgot that my friend/new colleague was standing there, waiting for my attention.

Something had to give and soon.

Between the din of power tools overhead and BB's protests, I whipped out a boob. A sweaty boob, in front of my friend/new colleague. It wouldn't be that weird if he (or yes, a HE...an important detail) were just a friend. When he accepted a new job at Harlequin, however, he became a colleague. And when I whipped out the boob, he became the guy who wanted to die right then and there. At least the poor guy had the courtesy to affix his stare on my forehead for a solid 15 minutes.

Fortunately, life has settled down somewhat in recent days. BabyBear has returned to her chilled out self. I have showered a few times. When the eaves team said last rites for our roof, I suggested that we just pitch a tent above the entire mess. After all, we are getting used to life under the Big Top.

Gaining entry into the manor

The NY Times features a mock school registration form here. It reminded me of the hoops through which I'm jumping en route to admission to our day care of choice.

A knowledgeable friend encouraged me to get on daycare waiting lists well before a rational individual would start such planning. She also shared her research on the options in our neighbourhood and we quickly set our sights on Little Tots Manor (The name really does say it all. I mean, it's a manor). 

When BabyBear was an 8-week old mass of cells, we interviewed at Little Tots. We toured around and asked enthusiastic questions. I oh-so-casually mentioned that Tom was available to chaperone field trips on his day away from patients. I offered to bake treats in my peanut-free kitchen. Our fingers remain tightly crossed and will only relax if/when we learn of our acceptance sometime next spring.

The NY Times' mock registration form may have been meant as a joke, but I take these things all too seriously.

Surprises in bottles, baths and Sarah Palin

Today brought on a feeling of eerie contrasts. Adjacent to the commonplace appeared the unfamiliar activities of a new mother. Such juxtaposition has a way of catching me off guard.

On countless Sunday mornings over the past 10 years, I have filled water bottles for my weekly long run. I did so again today and chuckled as the process extended to include bottles of breastmilk. My hydration dovetailed strangely with my preparations to leave Tom and BabyBear flying solo.

One of my favourite post-run rituals involves a deep tub of steamy water. I sighed today as my body eased into a soak as hot as I could handle. Where candles once appeared, I found a row of rubber ducks lining my bathtub ledge. Yeah, things are definitely different around here.

The final moment of surprise occured during a phone conversation with my mother, a woman who raised me to be a feminist. I was stunned to hear her suggest that Sarah Palin is not capable of serving as vice-president because she cannot help but be distracted by her children. That no mother can distance her family's needs from the needs of a nation. That a woman with a 5-month old baby cannot think with the clarity required to craft foreign policy.

It didn't matter when I pointed out that no one would question a man's ability to focus in identical circumstances. It didn't matter when I assured her that having a child did not affect my ability to question, negotiate, and articulate my point of view.

It didn't matter, because she believes that mothers don't get to demand what is fair and equal. In a nutshell, a woman can do anything, until she has a baby. It was odd to hear this from the woman who has ensured that I had every opportunity in life.

I imagine that these contrasts will continue to appear as I navigate new motherhood. I will wash bottles. I will set aside bath toys during my recovery soak. And will more perceived barriers emerge as I strike a balance in my responsibilities and aspirations? Time will tell.

Progress on all fronts

To those tuning in for updated action in the Mom vs. Baby Sleep Habits war, we have progress. Heck, we have progress on all fronts in the Paton-Greavette household.

1. Sleep

BabyBear has been sleeping better. She is napping at least once a day for a solid hour and waking me up just once each night. If I bring her into our bed when Tom heads to work, she'll even drift back to sleep until 8 am. Decadence, pure decadence, I tell you.

I must confess that I let BB "cry it out" for 10 whole minutes yesterday. She was miserable and wouldn't nap, despite rubbing her eyes constantly and giving me this "why won't you let me sleep" look. After 10 minutes of wailing, I rushed into her room, scooped her up apologetically and swore to never abandon her again. In return, she threw up all over me. There was puke in my hair, on my clothes, and - wait for it - in my mouth. Fabulous.

2. Running

BB encouraged me through 4 miles of run/walk shuffling this morning, bringing our mother-daughter mileage to 26 miles in the past week. While Paula Radcliffe runs her marathons in 2:15, I prefer to spread 26-mile efforts out over an entire week.

3. Functioning 

I don't know if other moms hit their stride around the 4-month mark, but I think I'm starting to function again. I feel like I'm walking among the living and doing things that normal 33-year women do. I'm paying bills. I talk to myself less (technically, I'm talking to the baby, but it must look like I'm talking to myself). I even washed my kitchen floor last night in a fit of domestic productivity. 

Next up...who knows? I'm exhausted by the aforementioned. Maybe I'll trim the ivy that has started to envelop my house. It will be nice to see out the front windows again.

Tough Love

I've been a giver and receiver of tough love lately.

The Beltline Trail was hard on me today when BabyBear and I traced its entire length. The cool, crisp morning promised by the weather man must have disappeared before I got my act together. In fairness, it takes me a while to get out the door, what with baby feed/diaper/dress details and the effort required to hoist the girls into the most powerful sports bra in all creation. (It takes 8 hooks and a massive zipper to keep things under control. But this is what we women do to be givers of life and all.)

By the time I got the baby jogger humming, it was nothing short of damn hot. I considered the heat a means to intensify my training. (Yes, you heard it here first. I'm training for a half marathon that has the nerve of taking place in less than 4 short weeks. Ugh.) On the whole, I am proud of completing my longest post-baby run without toppling over. Let's not talk about how long it took me to cover the 6 miles.

When not receiving the tough love, I've been doling it out on BB's sleep schedule (or lack thereof). I'm not a cry-it-outer, but I'm also not going to breastfeed my daughter to sleep into her teen years. So we are trying more gentle approaches to generate falling-to-sleep habits that don't involve the snack-and-snooze pattern developed to date.

And now I'm officially a hypocrite. In the midst of writing this post, I just could not take another second of BB's "I'm too tired to nap" whimpering. So I moved her into what is starting to become the "family bed" (yeesh, I never thought I'd end up here) and fed her to sleep.

I guess it's fair to say that I'm just a receiver of tough love now. I'll let you know when I have sufficient strength to dish it out too.