I ran into a friend around the neighborhood recently. We hadn’t seen each other for quite some time and chatted about how we swore we’d get the kids together at some point. The small-talk continued, she babbled on about potty training, how her husband is always at work and the fact that her family managed to survive the recent virus that had been passed around. I tuned out when she began to go into detail about the illness and the bodily functions that followed.
She asked me about business and the family, to which I replied that things were going well on all fronts. I joked that my growing business was a good problem to have when expecting a baby soon; but as a rule, I prefer not to bore people with the details of my work. Most of the time, the people who ask aren’t the slightest bit interested in fitness no matter how often I hear the words, “oh, I’ve been meaning to get a gym membership” come out of their mouths. As we left, she mentioned that we really should get the kids together soon, now that I’ve got more time. As if.
Few people understand how much it is that I cram into each 24-hour day. Clients see the business side of me, and a few of them have an inkling of what happens outside of the few hours each day I spent on work. The mothers in my life know full-well how challenging it is to manage a family; never mind getting the laundry and dishes done. Close friends have a fairly good idea of what goes on in my day. And while Christopher probably has the greatest appreciation, I’m not sure that even he knows all that I juggle.
A while back I confessed that I’m simply not cooperative enough to participate in a cooperative preschool. At least I have the self-awareness and the fucking balls to admit it; which is more than I can say for the two families that I have the greatest issues with.
With the year-end in sight, the class chairs have begun planning the last parent meeting “party”. I haven’t been to the parent meetings in months. Mostly because they’re scheduled on Monday evenings and no longer work with my schedule, but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy the convenient excuse to get out of them. This month it’s scheduled for a Friday evening, and strictly parent-only. We receive an email this week asking to vote on whether we’d like to organize a “Mexican Potluck” or have each couple chip in $25 to have a catered dinner brought in. I reply quickly with my vote: CATERED! Without even knowing if we’ll be in attendance, I’d rather lose $25 than spend time thinking about the logistics of planning my culinary contribution.
With the increasing sunshine, I’ve been dying to get outside for some me time. Missing my morning runs along Puget Sound, watching the sun rise over the Space Needle. I’d give anything to hit up a 50-mile bike ride; and recently found myself drooling over a ride flyer, touting 8,000 feet of vertical climb in under 100 miles.
For as much as I miss it all, and struggling to come to terms with how long it will actually be before I have time for such endeavors, I’m so thankful to have been able to work out through my entire pregnancy. By this time with Dillon, I had already been on bed rest for nearly seven weeks and by the time I was released to normal activity, I didn’t want to move. I’ve continued teaching classes five days a week and though I’m officially heavier now than I was when I delivered Dillon, I feel much healthier, much stronger…and frankly, a whole lot less bitter.
I’ve come to accept the jokes from clients when they see me hopping or skipping as though I’m not carrying around an extra 35 pounds, reminding them that if I can do it, certainly they can. At nine-months pregnant though, it seems I’ve become quite the spectacle at Green Lake these days. While jogging with a client on Friday, she commented that she enjoyed walking while I jogged ahead of her, hearing the comments from other park-goers as they passed me.
We complete about a 1.5 mile walk/jog throughout the class. And while I do manage to run, it’s usually only in 20-yard intervals or similar. But what a sight it must be. My arms are barely long enough to reach over my huge belly to push the double stroller. With Dillon on one side at about 35 pounds, and the other seat piled up with his toys and my equipment (sometimes as much as 50 additional pounds of weighted balls)…I can imagine that people can’t help but wonder what on earth I’m doing.
I smile inside each time I hear someone pass me and say “Did you see that woman running back there?!? She was HUGE!! Perhaps the only time I’d consider “she’s huge” as a compliment.
I was intrigued by Katie’s recent post and went digging for our last few water bills. Turns out that we have averaged about 90 gallons of water per day over the past several months, with a spike of about 125 gallons per day at one point. There was one month late last summer where we went up to an average of 225 gallons per day, and I remember getting that bill and wondering what the heck happened. I think we finally chalked it up to the huge new swimming pool (of the blow-up kind) that we got from a neighbor. Rest assured that upon dumping the pool, the water was used on our poor excuse for a lawn.
You haven’t lived conservation unless you spent time in Southern California during the eighties. At the peak of a 7-year drought, residents of Santa Barbara were prohibited from watering lawns during daylight hours, allowed to wash cars only at local car-washes, and grossly all-too-familiar with the phrase “if it’s yellow, let it mellow.”
Old habits die hard, I’ll admit. And the idea of not flushing a toilet after every use has been a point of contention in our young marriage. But given that urine is (mostly) sterile and does little harm to sit around in the toilet for another few hours, it’s one of the ways that we do our part to conserve water. Chris humors my Southern California habits and I do my best to remember to flush when we have guests about the house.
At some point during pregnancy, sleep becomes nearly impossible. If I’m not waking up every few hours with an unbelievable need to pee, then I’m woken by jabs to my innards as little Erin makes herself more comfortable. The worst though began a few months ago, horrible pains in my hip from laying on one side. I had the same thing with Dillon. After a few hours sleeping on one side, my hip ached beyond belief. I’d lie awake for a few minutes, mapping out the steps necessary to maneuver my way onto the other side…only to repeat the process a few hours later when the other hip was screaming.
Having spent seven weeks on bed rest with Dillon, there was no relief. Except for the sofa. The ability to distribute weight more evenly, leaning against the back of the sofa and propped up with a variety of different pillows. It wasn’t long before our bed became increasingly uncomfortable this time around. I stayed for as long as I could; body pillow behind, and another tucked under my growing belly. But eventually I found my way back to the sofa several weeks ago.
Our couch is a complete disaster and in desperate need of replacement, though not until after the kids are old enough to keep their shoes off of it. It was an IKEA purchase eight years ago, both a sofa and chair purchased for less than eight-hundred dollars cash. Not only am I shocked that they’ve lasted this long without completely disintegrating, they still maintain the magical powers that can put me to sleep in an instant.
It’s been weeks since I’ve curled up under my down comforter next to my love. I miss him. But with a few precious weeks left to enjoy a full night’s sleep, I’m not willing to sacrifice the small comforts I find at 36 weeks pregnant.
tiredAt a time when Christopher and I are doing our best to trim expenses in preparation for the upcoming renovations, the idea of canceling our water delivery first crossed my mind a few months ago. A Santa Barbara native, I was raised on “real mountain spring” bottled water, delivered to our door every few weeks. The tap water in the area is among the hardest water in the country and certainly the worst I’ve ever had.
Canceling our water service would cut about forty dollars from our monthly budget and clear out space in the dining room where the water crock resided. Never mind the three huge bottles that I could move out of our basement. But it wasn’t until I began to evaluate the environmental impact of tastier water that I finally made the move. Adding it all up; huge delivery trucks, plastic bottles (made of the toxic #7 plastic), and the simple unnecessary need, the decision was a no-brainer.
The fact is that we live in a perfectly industrialized country and have better water running on-demand from the tap than most of the rest of the world enjoys. Seattle water is far superior to most of the water that I’ve ever had, with the exception of Roseville, CA…now there’s some real mountain spring water for you. Though I previously didn’t enjoy the taste of Brita-filtered water, we moved to one immediately after canceling our water delivery and I haven’t looked back. It’s not easy being green.
I’ve been on my own for a few days now, adjusting to the quite and barreling through “back-burner” work projects that have been collecting for some time now. Though I’ve got a relatively open schedule, I’m increasingly amazed at how easy it is to fill a day, and further impressed by how much I actually do manage to accomplish while chasing a three-year-old and carrying an extra thirty pounds of baby weight.
Though I often wish for moments of peace when I’m surrounded by the chaos of motherhood, the last few days have helped me to appreciate the place I am in my life right now. Certainly I miss the days when I was responsible for no one but myself; when I had all the time in the world to go back to school (and haven’t yet) or read great books (but didn’t). Sure I was busy with plenty of other pursuits, but in comparison I couldn’t have been that busy. I look at my schedule these days and wonder how we’ll get it all done; continually taking on more items without letting others go. And while I sit here in an empty house, surrounded by silence, I suddenly miss the insanity of normal life.
I hung up the phone with Dillon a bit ago, perhaps the longest real phone conversation he’s ever carried on. We chatted about Lincoln, his morning at the children’s museum with Daddy and Aunt Sarah. He told me all about the gift I sent for him and refused to give the phone back to Chris until they were back at home and he could tell me more about his new CD. For twenty minutes we talked about his week in Lincoln, and our home back here in Seattle. When he handed the phone back to Chris, tears streamed down my face.
The truth is that once your a parent, the insanity is just a part of the fun. You learn to accept that it will likely not all get done and that the perfectionist inside will learn to live with disappointment. You’ll make time for the important things and you’ll get to everything else one day at a time.
Running around all day, my schedule has been eased considerably today without having to cart Dillon from place-to-place. I grabbed my computer on my way out of the house this morning, figuring that I’d rather not head home between meetings.
The only coffee shop within a couple blocks of the medical tower, I parked myself in the Starbucks and began searching for free wireless. Though I pick up about a half-dozen access points, including the T-Mobile connection over-priced at $6 per hour and the for-fee Wayport connection coming from the golden arches across the street, it took me a while to connect to a free access point.
Viola! The stupidity of general public never fails. Thanks to yet another moron, I’m happily connected to a generic and unsecured ‘linksys’ network, and making the next half-hour as productive as possible. Or maybe I’ll just cruise Facebook.
There are two things we take for granted in Seattle; coffee and wireless Internet access.
I’ve had my computer parked on the dining room table the last couple of days, plowing through work at lightning speed without Dillon under-foot. Trying to take advantage of the silence comes at a steep price of boredom, however. Yesterday afternoon found me asleep on the couch for a couple of hours, a luxury I indulged in only because I was up at 4:30 AM to get the boys off to the airport.
When I arrived back home for lunch today, I again took my seat at the table and began to work away. An hour later, the food coma began to set in and I headed out of the house in an attempt to stave off the boredom-induced fatigue. Needing to end up in the U-District for evening meetings, I drove into Ballard in search of a decent coffee shop with good working space. Without Dillon in tow, my options were no longer limited to the kid-friendly places we usually frequent. I began searching for something off the beaten path, and most certainly non-Starbucks. Typically I’d head for the free wifi available at Tully’s, but I was in the mood for something more eclectic. More Seattle.
Remembering a local roaster, I headed to Lighthouse in Fremont. Good coffee, where I get to specify “for here” and it means I get a real cup. The pungent smell of roasted beans is almost over-powering, taking me back to my days of slinging coffee in college. I find a great table with an electrical outlet nearby, and chairs comfortable enough to get work done but not so much that I’ll be tempted to pass out. I settle in with my nonfat-decaf-whatever, and then suddenly…without warning…no wireless Internet. What?!
Thankfully some moron opted to leave his own network unsecured with default “Netgear” settings, so I’m happily procrastinating the work that I came here to finish.
I remember vividly the day I found out my mother’s cancer was malignant. A warm September afternoon in Davis, the emotion as suffocating as the heat. Ever-pragmatic, my family marched forward into treatment, completely unsure of the road ahead. Twelve years later, she’s far out-lived the odds and we consider ourselves lucky; so thankful for each day that we have. Her cancer remains in the periphery, and the side-effects of her medication a constant reminder of the fight that lies ahead. I have accepted the fact that this illness will likely take her from us some day. Probably not tomorrow or next year, but someday.
When we got word from Lincoln this week that a tumor was found on my mother-in-law’s pancreas, I could sympathize with Christopher in a way I hoped I’d never have to. The last few days have been spent waiting for test results, only to confirm the worst: cancer. We don’t know much beyond that, except that this will be a very difficult year.
This morning Dillon and Chris were packed and on a plane to be with the family, and I’ve never wanted to be in Lincoln more than I do right now. At 34-weeks pregnant, I’m officially restricted from travel and find myself in a rather lonely house. Though I’m looking forward to catching up on work this week, I had a difficult time saying goodbye to my boys as they skipped off through security at SeaTac; Dillon looking back with a huge smile and wave.
sad
