I will pay for motivation

After I ran the Baltimore Ten Miler, my motivation took a major dive. I never used to be the type of runner that needed a race on the horizon to force me to exercise, but, now I am, apparently.

My ottoman is not really that dirty, he was playing with cloud dough. 

So, I signed up for a race. To motivate myself, and because actually running seemed easier than updating my blog header and description, which I really need to do. Thank goodness I never put "run" in the title or anything. 

I kept going back and forth on this, because this race is expensive as all hell, even though it's really fun. It's local, all the runners in the city come out for it, and I love throwing all my money away. I mean, being active will save on health care later in life, or something.

I never really believed that people started over from scratch after having a baby, I thought people who said that were just being humble. And while I'm sure not everyone does, it's certainly been my experience. So even though I've run several 50 milers (Stone Mill, JFK, and Stone Mill again) in the past, right now the prospect of running 13.1 is pretty daunting.

My assumption was that training with a baby would mainly be tough due to lack of sleep, but you know what happens when you assume. I think I got fairly accustomed to just sleeping in like, 3 hour stretches, and coffee exists for a reason, so that was fine. The real problem is my issue of being addicted to my kid.

I mean...

I was doing good with getting up and running before he woke up. But as the school year went on, he started waking up earlier and I started hitting that snooze button harder and harder. So then I'd be in my running clothes, and he'd be acting all cute, and I'd be like...nah.

Also he steals my Garmin.

It's just more fun using my legs to play catch.

I seriously have issues doing anything other than spending time with him. Eric texted me from IKEA last weekend telling me Dalton had woken up from his nap, and I got really anxious and yelled at my mom WE NEED TO GO HOME when she innocently suggested browsing the throw pillows. Only a tad over 12 years until he's a surly teenager and then I hope I'll be cured. 

I'm going to have to try hard to get back to waking up at my intended time so I don't die on October 17 (that's when the half is). I've also tried to switch things up and I've gone to two Pilates classes after Dalton goes to bed. I really hate working out at night, but, when in Rome. That wasn't exactly "training" but strong abs help people run faster, so I hear, and it's better than sitting and drinking wine  and playing on the internet, my usual evening activity.

Judging you

There's still long runs to contend with. I'm counting on some good friends to keep me company, and I'm sure I can bring the stroller on some of them. I'll probably start training next month. Clearly I've thought all this out carefully.

Because everyone loves a good daddy/baby picture.

In answer to popular questions, he very rarely stops smiling. But try to wipe his face, change his diaper/clothes/do anything where he needs to be still, or take him away from his parents, and all hell breaks lose.

I will break through this barrier.

So that's what's happening. Yikes.

Any other moms (or dads?) that felt like exercise after having a baby truly put them back at square one?

My head is famous now

People say you have less free time once you have kids, but that's not always true. I used to start searching for the perfect cake recipe weeks before my birthday, and spend time planning exactly what would make for an absolute perfect day. This year, I didn't have to waste time with any of that, because I have the secret ingredient for a perfect day right under my nose.

This smile.

To make things even more perfect, my mom and stepfather came down to visit Thursday night.

My birthday was the first day of summer vacation, so I got to spend the whole day with my boys in air conditioning. Life does not get better.

We did a lot of eating and drinking. Well, I did.

Birthday pizookie (sp?). Good, but we left most of it and went home for better things.

Strawberry lemonade poke cake

I set the bar pretty high during my 31st year. I got my master's degree, which wasn't very exciting, but it does mean I am sort of done with homework and got an extremely nominal pay raise. As a result, I began purchasing the mid level boxed wine, which was an upgrade for me. #treatyoself

I finished up ten years of teaching, and made it to the end of the school year still breastfeeding (sounds easy, isn't easy)! 9 months tomorrow and so far haven't had to buy any formula. I'm putting away the money we're saving to stock the fridge for when he's 15, because if his appetite now is any indication, we are screwed.

 He definitely inherited my hanger.

We bought a house. It's been about 5% pain in the ass and 95% freaking awesome.

And, obviously, nothing in life even comes close to how much happiness this little man brings me. 

I think my 32nd year has the potential to be even better, since this guy will be around for the whole thing.

The excitement didn't stop with my birthday. We've lived in our house for two full months and just made the first IKEA trip. My parents got me this awesome chair as a birthday gift. 

Because I love sitting.

Saturday night there was a tornado warning. I used to kind of glance out the window for those and be like "eh, I'm sure it's fine". Well, things have changed, and now I couldn't get everyone to the basement fast enough. Dalton seriously thought it was the BEST THING EVER. I've never seen anyone so happy.

Until it was time to go back to bed. Then he was not so happy.

Luckily everything was fine.

We celebrated Eric's first Father's Day.

He was bartending, and we attempted to surprise him at work. Too bad we went to the wrong bar. We eventually found him though.

Last but not least, my big TV debut. My school, and a student I taught for four years, were in a documentary on the Discovery channel! I was interviewed and everything, but they cut it (I'm really not joking about how awkward I am in person). Still pretty cool though. It's called "Rise, the promise of my brother's keeper" and it's on all week. Our school is Halstead, featured at the end. My class is in it and if you look closely you can see my head several times. 

We watched it at Eric's bar. Except Dalton. He just watched me.

He likes to make sure I don't escape.

And now I'm back to working full time. Yay.

What's your claim to fame?

One decade down

IT'S THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!

Ten years done, just twenty to go until I can retire, but who's counting?

No, sadly I'm not excited to get to spend the whole summer doing nothing but snuggling my gorgeous little man, because I'm working all summer, and totally not bitter about it. 

Ignore my weird expression

Sometimes I get tempted to whine but then I remember I'm an adult and we just bought a house and bills don't pay themselves, so I stop myself from being a whiny little bitch. I'm really lucky to have gotten a summer school position and I'm doing the Maryland Writing Project and is there any better way for a blogger to get paid? I guess posting about yogurt would be better. But this is an actual job and looks good on a resume. 

There will still be plenty of time for stuff like this!

The end of this school year was actually bittersweet for me. I started out with my class in third grade, and (by my request) moved up with them to fourth and then this year, fifth. Here in Baltimore that means they are moving on to middle school next year, and I've shed a lot of tears the past few weeks about them leaving me. 

We had their "graduation" this past Friday and I was a wreck. I cried all week every time I so much as thought about it and then I cried on stage while saying my little goodbye message and made all the parents cry. Imagine an elementary school gym with about 400 people while it's nearly 100 degrees with nearly 100% humidity and no AC and me on stage crying. It was awesome. 

To cheer myself up, I snuck a date in.

My friends were kind enough to let him join their (air conditioned) pre-K class while I was busy. 

I followed up all that excitement with a wild weekend. One of my favorite running buddies was in town from St. Louis!

It was hot as balls but we went for a run anyway. It was too hot for me to bring Dalton  in the stroller so I couldn't even take breaks pretending I needed to check on him. Somehow we survived 5.3 miles. And RIGHT at the 5k point in our run we ran by the finish line of a 5k. I can't even make this stuff up.

Yup, stopped for a photo op

Eric brought Dalton down for a lunch date afterwards.

Saturday night, I left after bedtime for the second time ever. I went out, downtown and everything, for my BFF Casi's birthday! 

We took an awkward selfie at a secret karaoke club.

I texted a friend who lives downtown to see if he wanted to meet up while I was actually out. He texted back around 11 saying he was leaving his house and I was like well I'm already home and in bed. Wild. 

We signed Dalton up for swimming lessons this summer! I'm so excited, I hope he loves it. It was like $30 more to just join the YMCA myself for the summer rather than sign up as a non-member, so I did. 

I tried out the child care for 20 minutes on Sunday and it was horrible. I could see Dalton crying and fussing the entire time and Kara and Kari had to talk me down from rushing in there to give him a real chance to try it.

Watching from the elliptical like a creeper

The people in there looked about 16 but they stayed strong and tried really hard to comfort him with moderate success. When I came back he grabbed me and held on so hard and I felt horrible and I haven't gotten over the guilt yet. 

My mom and stepfather arrive to visit tonight! My 32nd birthday is tomorrow. Tomorrow was supposed to be the last day of school (it got moved up). I can't think of a better way to spend a birthday than with my family, snuggling my little sweetie pie all day, in AIR CONDITIONING. 

There will be more chasing than snuggling.

Trying to contain his reign of destruction

YUP

How to rock a bikini after a C-section

Step 1: Already own one, back from those pre-breeding days.

Here I am on our beach trip in 2011. 

Step 2: Laziness

Every moment I spend at the mall searching for a mom-bod bathing suit is one less moment I could spend on the couch (ok, floor) eating chocolate covered pretzels and drinking wine, or coffee, depending on the time of day.

Do not judge me for using Snapchat even though I will be 32 on Friday.

Step 3: Rationalize

I probably won't be the fattest or ugliest, and even if I am, I'm not putting a gun to anyone's head to look at me.

Mind your own business.

Step 4: Focus on positives

My badass scar is covered up by any bikini I've ever owned, but even if it wasn't, I would probably go full speed ahead just for some street cred. 

But, truly, I don't understand how it was a big enough exit location for his head and whole body.

Step 5: If it's ill fitting now, or you still feel uncomfortable, don a cover up.

My flab is all a secret under here.

Step 6: Take selfies, to prove to the internet how brave you are.

You can always crop yourself out.

Step 7: Remember, you are beautiful.

*No babies were harmed in the creating of this post.

Baltimore Ten Miler recap

Alternate title: I wish I had tried harder to find the body glide.

This was my first real race that I trained for as a #motherrunner, 8.5 months postpartum. I think I've run this race 4 or 5 times now. My runner friend was all like, shoot for "1 hour 20 minutes!" That's my ten mile PR from way back when. Then he became a new dad and was all like "shoot for 1:40!". And I was all like, hey, try having a human cut out of your abdomen and get back to me.

In reality, it's hard to train with a kid, and two jobs - teaching, and I've recently been informed that blogging counts as a job. If screwing around on Facebook counts as a job, mark me down as triple employed.

One of my main problems is that my kid eats all my food, and drinks all my water.

I love it when races fall the day after National Doughnut Day. #carbloading #cleanliving #goodparenting

Right, because I don't need to hydrate or anything. #greedy

I think my friends thought I was exaggerating, but we just went to dinner and they witnessed this hungry hippo's appetite first hand. He ate an entire cooler full of food I brought him, crab dip, and then was screaming for more of my chicken sandwich. Crawling takes a lot of fuel!

As much of a pain in the ass this child is, requiring sustenance and care and all, he did help me out a bit. He knew I would be busy coordinating and instagramming the perfect race outfit, so he read himself a bedtime story.



And helped out with some household chores.

Nobody loves doing laundry. Suck it up, kid.

The night before the race, my friend Ashley (we met through blogging, the best way) came up from Virginia to spend the night. We fired up the grill, and is there anything more adorable than a tiny burger for a baby?

No, there is not.

To prepare for the race, we took creepy selfies from odd angles and sent them to Kara.

Ashley clearly read that internet list of what to do when visiting the almighty MOTHER. She watched my kid, did our dishes during bathtime, and brought these. 

She is officially welcome in my home any time.

I hadn't run double digits since the Frozen Heart Trail race in February 2014 (and really a lot of that was walking through frozen wasteland), so while Ashley was all like "it's only ten miles", I was more like "I HAVE TO RUN TEN MILES". 

Kara showed up around 6 on race morning, to drive us to the race in style. It was her birthday and she lives two hours away. That girl knows how to party. Team "I used to be faster" was now assembled (minus Ashley, she's still fast).

TMI #motherrunner warning. In addition to the problem of running a ten mile race being crazy, I had the worst clogged duct ever. I get them all the time but early last week I got the largest, most painful one yet. It was BAD. I tried to get it out all week and was kind of freaking out about running like that. 

But, a miracle happened, and it turns out pumping in a goldfish filled minivan on the way to the race was the key. 

Race bib, nursing bib, pump, Garmin, CHECK. 

I've written a lot of words and now I don't even know what to say about the actual race. It started at 7:30, we parked at 7:26, hopped in line, and ran. Baltimore in June. Hot, humid, and hilly. Everything you would expect. I wanted to keel over the majority of the time. It felt like a sprint, but our pace didn't back that up.

If you are able to take a picture, you're not trying hard enough. Photo credit: me.

Somehow, we made it to the finish line in 1:36, and Instagrammed it, as proof, of course.

Making sure to highlight the skinniest angles.

The best part of the day, other than the cold, fresh watermelon at the finish, was seeing my boys waiting for me.

Is there anything sexier a man can wear than a baby?

Love of my life.

I don't know if it was the humidity or what, but things took a turn after that. Thankfully Dalton took a two hour nap, which allowed me to lay in the fetal position moaning (Eric was at our kickball playoff game, I obviously had to drop out). I enjoyed a delicious post race meal many hours later.

Nope, not pregnant, trust me on that one. 

Dalton is Mr. Independent these days and isn't interested in me at all. I'm always up in his grill trying to get some attention, and he just wants to crawl and cruise from toy to toy with no parental interaction. That did work out for me while I didn't feel well, and I just laid back and watched him play, with intermittent sprints when he tried to ingest something lethal.

Between the clogged duct disaster and being out of commission the whole rest of the day, I'm not sure I'll be signing up for any more races this summer. I definitely had fun though, and the jacket is sweet.

Porch blogging selfie #suckitin

What's the weirdest problem you've ever dealt with at a race?