The Fitness Struggle

Our first summer vacation is right around the corner.  While I am really looking forward to a relaxing week at the beach, I am not so excited about the extra pounds I'm carrying around.  Lack of exercise combined with a sweet tooth has left me quite soft around the middle and carrying a little extra baggage in the back if you know what I mean.  It is really no one's fault but my own and I take full responsibility.  Now that the weather is getting warmer and the days longer, there really is no excuse not to make time time to go for a run several times a week.  Well, other than my body feeling old anyway!

I have set a few fitness goals for myself this summer and I am hopeful my body will cooperate!  I have split it into three bench marks:  a 5K, 5 mile, and 7 mile race.  I am putting little emphasis on race and more on completion.  I am not a "runner."  It has never been something I have enjoyed nor felt very comfortable doing, but with limited workout options and a desire to lose some weight, it is the route I am taking.  

A few summers ago, after I had my fourth baby, I committed to the Couch25K program and had success.  Much of training was more of a mental struggle than a physical one, so this time around I am a bit ahead of the game.  I have already proved to myself I can run over three miles, now it is time to push it even further.  I have gone on two runs this month (not many, I know!) and been able to run over 2.25 miles each time.  It took me weeks to get this point two years ago, so I am pleased this is my starting point.   

While I was stretching after my run last night, my husband and I were talking about how it went.  He is very encouraging and said something to me that really struck a chord:  "I don't think you give yourself enough credit.  You are an athlete."  Huh.  He is right.  In my younger years I played many sports.  I was not a star, but I was skilled, and very competitive.  After high school, I spent many years working out in spurts, but have struggled to consistently stay in shape.  It has been very frustrating and an area in which I would like improve.

I suppose it would make sense to do this during this year in which I have declared to "Get it Done!"  It also aligns with my word of the year:  discipline.  The biggest challenge will be creating and sticking to a schedule.  With four kids and a husband who travels for his job, sneaking away for 45 minutes to an hour is not always easy, but with some planning I have faith it can be done.  

This mama needs to make time for fitness.  Three years ago I was in the best shape of my life and the smallest I'd been since high school.  I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I am going to dig deep and find that inner athlete again.  It won't be easy, but I am hoping by the end of July I'll be able to finish that 7 mile race with a smile on my face!

Do you struggle with setting time for your health and fitness?  What holds you up?  Have you successfully implemented a fitness routine?  Share your tips!

The Power of "No"

A few months ago I wrote about finding my best yes.  I am a self-proclaimed doer.  I have a hard time sitting still and often say "yes" to commitments without really giving it any thought.  As this trend continues, though, I am starting to realize the importance of carefully considering how I spend my time and choosing activities that align with my goals and what I have been called to do.  Saying "no" is not easy, but if I don't, my best yeses will suffer and there will not be time for the activities that bring feelings of joy and fulfillment.

After a long period of evaluation and contemplation, I said my first "no" this week.  This year I have served as the vice president of the PTA at my kids' school.  What I hoped would be a fulfilling experience has turned out to be a frustrating, disappointing, time-consuming year.  As a former teacher and parent who highly values education, I wholeheartedly believe in the importance of being involved at my kids' school and thought stepping into this position was a great opportunity.  As the year progressed, the lack of parental involvement left me and a few others to shoulder the load.  While my kids are proud their mama helps out at school, I believe there is a way to be supportive without holding a position on the board which leaves me feeling incredibly unfulfilled and my tank empty.  With the school year winding down, I have made the decision to step down and shared that at our meeting this week.

My load has been lightened and I could not be happier.  Saying "no" has been so freeing.  When I attended the Hearts at Home conference in March, I sat in on one of Jill Savage's breakout sessions where she discussed ten ways to reduce your stress.  There were two main points I took away from this session I want to share with you today:  never say "yes" on the spot and limit yourself to one major commitment and limit the minor commitments.

What is the difference between a major and minor commitment?  A major commitment involves you actively planning, organizing, and participating in an activity.  A minor commitment may be an activity where you simply need to show up.  Overloading our schedules with major commitments stretches us too thin and leads us down a long and frustrating path.  This idea has resonated deeply with me.  Though I love to get involved in a wide variety of activities, it truly is not in my or my family's best interest to accept a large role in all of these activities.  This advice played a big part in my decision to step down from the PTA board after this school year.  I can still be involved, but on a much smaller scale.

Choosing my major commitment was easy.  From Cover to Cover, the literacy charity I co-founded, easily takes the cake.  It is a project I believe in with every ounce of my being and the joy and fulfillment it brings to my life is indescribable.  Outside of my family, this will be where my time and energy will be spent.  From Cover to Cover encompasses so much of what makes me, well, me.  I can use my education background to serve others in need and network with people all over my community.  The experiences I have had in the two short years we have been up and running have been life-changing and as we continue to grow, I know this will continue to fuel my soul.

Narrowing down my minor commitments will be more difficult.  As a doer, it will be so hard for me to step back and not take the lead.  By nature I am an organizer.  In the past ten years I have founded a handful of groups to fulfill the needs in my life.  When my son was born and I was a new stay-at-home mom, I was lonely.  To combat the isolation, I started a moms and babies playgroup with a few other gals I met during those early months.  When we joined a large church and felt isolated as young parents, I started a mothers of young children ministry to connect with other families in our parish.  When we moved, I did it again at our new church.

See a pattern developing?!  I get an idea in my head and tend to run with it.  If I were wealthy, I would have started at least five businesses by now.  By nature my mind runs on overdrive and at times my body tends to follow.  Reigning this in will not be easy, but I am trying to focus on the activities in my life that bring my joy.  By reducing my commitments, I can spend more time baking, exercising, writing, and reading.  Hobbies tend to get shoved aside when you are overwhelmed with outside commitments and I look forward to regularly indulging in activities I enjoy.

 Relationships also tend to suffer, because there is not enough time in the day to tend to all of the responsibilities weighing you down.  I often find myself engaged in activities to better others while my family may be caught in the crossfire of an overstressed, over-scheduled mom.  Clearly this is not the way to live.  My eyes have been opened, now I mentally need to slow down.

This year of getting it done is filled with many goals.  Ironically many of those goals are meant to rid my life of overcommitting and, in turn, make decisions that align with our family purpose statement.  I hope to slow down and enjoy what is right before my eyes.  Not what may or may not happen a week, month, or year down the road.  This is a growing process and it is going to take far longer than 2015 to complete.      

This once again traces back to my word of the year:  discipline.  One must be disciplined and learn the art of saying "no."

When Seasons Change

Today I am linking up with Jill Savage and Hearts at Home for Third Thursday Thoughts.  This month the theme is:  Unleash Your Power to Rise Above.

This morning, as I was toting my two-year-old around on my hip, I randomly thought, "This is my normal."  For eight years I have been holding babies or balancing a toddler on one hip.  Having the use of one or no hands has just become the norm.  For some reason this moment that occurs so many times each day struck me:  how lucky I am to hold and carry my child.  I have been blessed to have my arms filled with four sweet kiddos to hold, soothe, carry, and snuggle for so many years.  What has been the norm for so long, may soon be fading.

Our youngest turned two this week.  Sure, two-year-olds still like to be held, but the desire to be independent soon reduces the amount of time they want to be.  I've done babies for so many years, it is hard to fathom that phase of life may be ending.  That old saying, "The days are long, but the years are short" keeps ringing in my ears.  All of those years of little sleep, nursing for hours a day, having no time to myself, and being needed by someone all.of.the.time may soon be gone.  Oh my.  How did that happen?  The bigger question, am I ready for it to end?

Life has a strange way of unfolding.  When we're in the thick of the hard seasons, the days seem to be so long, so challenging, so exhausting.  We may soon find ourselves feeling hopeless, desperate, and lost.  For me, this hard season lasted for 4 long years.  It did not start with my first or my second baby.  The hard years started with my third.  He came just 16 months after his older sister and on the day of his arrival I became the mom of three children 3 1/2 and under.  I was pretty sure I was up for the challenge, but this little blue-eyed, blonde-haired bundle of joy quickly made his presence known and not in the most pleasant of ways.

He was ornery.  He wanted to eat all of the time, every hour at night in fact, and would spend a great deal of the day and night crying.  Actually crying isn't a strong enough word.  He screamed and was inconsolable.  After six weeks of this, we figured out the culprit was dairy.  I felt strongly about nursing, so I removed dairy from my diet.  While it was challenging, I stuck to it without cheating once for over a year.  He calmed down for a bit, but then the ear infections kicked in.

I rarely slept longer than a few hours at a time.  My younger two had sixteen ear infections between them in 6 months.  I was so sleep-deprived it was not even funny.  In fact, it was dangerous.  One day, I stopped by my in-laws to drop off a few of my kids while I took my daughter to the doctor.  I got out of the van to unload them and the door was locked.  Upon trying to open the door, the van began to move forward.  I had left it in drive and it slowly rolled forward, with my children in it, right into their garage.  To this day, I still don't know how I got back in the van.  It was a terrifying experience.

That first year-and-a-half of my son's life was a blur.  Days rolled into months and before I knew it, a year.  There were plenty of beautiful, joyous moments, but they were hard to see at times due to the circumstances.  In time, we came out of the fog.  He finally started to sleep through the night at 18 months and we had a bit of a reprieve.

That summer we moved back near my parents.  I was so excited to be near my family again and felt relieved to know there would be help, if needed, somewhat nearby.  This was a welcome change and helped me feel less overwhelmed.  That summer went relatively well.  Though we struggled with some sleeping issues with our daughter who was experiencing newfound freedom in a toddler bed, we could see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Or so we thought.  Late that summer we found out we were expecting our fourth child.  While it was a bit of a surprise, I was fairly confident it wouldn't be nearly as overwhelming as the addition of our third.  Until the tides changed.

What came next rivaled the challenges of the incessant crying of our little guy.  Shortly after two he figured out how to crawl out of his crib.  He went from sleeping through the night to refusing to go to bed, nap, and woke at 4:30 A.M. for the day...for months on end.  Naturally, his behavior became difficult due to the lack of sleep and we entered into a whole new hard season of life filled with little sleep, temper tantrums, and very challenging behavior.  Throw in a pregnant mama and things went south quickly.

We struggled and struggled and struggled.  Our fuses became short.  The nap battles and bedtime battles were physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting.  There were days I put everyone into the van just to get him to sleep and have a break.  I'd pull back into the garage once he was asleep, turn off the engine, and pray I could get the older kids out without waking him.

The days were so long and the nights so short.  I was desperate, looking for the light, and all I could find was darkness.  This may sound dramatic, but I had hit rock bottom.  I had always dreamed of being a mother and raising my family, but our reality was far from the images I had conjured up in my head.  I felt like a failure and wondered how I would make it with the addition of another baby.

Well, that sweet little baby came and we did our best to "survive" during the baby phase.  For the first time ever I co-slept for the pure and simple fact I needed to sleep.  Our son's sleeping woes continued and after speaking with his pediatrician about his sleep struggles and behavior, it was suggested we try Melatonin.  It has been a game-changer.  Bedtime is no longer a struggle and the 4:30 wake-up calls have, for the most part, ended.  He continues to be high-energy and challenging at times, but the tide is turning.

While our sweet little girl brings much joy to our lives, she has also made her presence known in our family.  She's always close by and loves to be held.  Knowing she was probably our last child, I've obliged.  Two years later, though, we're starting to see the light again.  She has followed in her sibling's footsteps and not been a great sleeper, but I'm hopeful one of these days she'll start to consistently sleep through the night again.  This too shall pass and soon the baby and toddler phase will be over.

I'm not going to lie, there were times I was convinced I was not cut out for this and I would not make it through the day.  Many times I felt like a failure.  While never clinically diagnosed, I experienced bouts of depression and had a hard time getting through the day because I was so exhausted.  All of the idyllic dreams I had created in my mind did not come to fruition.  Motherhood is messy and no matter how much we'd like to feel like we're in control, the fact of the matter is simple:  we're not.

When I reflect on these challenging years, I see beauty and joy mixed with sadness and despair.  I have been home with my kids for their entire lives and while I haven't been perfect, I have done my best.  I have been challenged more than I ever thought possible, but I have overcome countless obstacles and persevered.  Motherhood is a tough job and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.  Quitting isn't an option, so embrace the messy beautiful and push through those hard seasons.  There is light at the end of the tunnel and all of the joy and struggles are worth it.

Though it makes me sad, I believe I have begun to accept this season of life will be ending soon.  A new season is upon us and it is time to look forward to the next phase of life.  I pray that sleep will come more easily for all of us and we can enjoy the new adventures that lie ahead.  I look forward to our newfound freedom.  My husband and I have begun to schedule monthly date nights and I do my best to spend some time with my girlfriends each month.  Last month I even spent a night away with them to attend the Hearts at Home conference.  It was amazing.  We have some awesome vacations planned and I look forward to traveling as a family and making memories that will last a lifetime.

I know we have a life full of joy and challenges ahead of us, but I am sure we will persevere and overcome whatever arises.  In my heart, I know He only gives us what we can handle.  I guess He had a lot of faith in me during these early years.  It hasn't always been easy, but I wouldn't change it for the world.