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Snowball!

Anyone ever heard of the snowball effect? Anyone ever lived the snowball effect? Anyone just occasionally feel like a giant snowball, both growing out of control and dizzy as you hurtle downhill? Of course we’ve all been there, for one reason or another. Everything is going just fine, thank you, and then — wham — suddenly it’s not.

Yesterday, if you’d asked me how this healthy life journey was going, I’d have said, It’s great! I feel well; I feel confident. I’m in control of where I’m going; I chart my own course. That’s a lot of semi-colons, but stick with me. Today, I got up early on a Sunday because I had a training class from 8-5. It’s a pre-requisite for taking my newly-minted Brownies overnight camping later this month, and while I wasn’t altogether looking forward to spending a full day of my weekend at a training, I wasn’t dreading it or anything either. And it was fine. We cooked over a Dutch oven and a propane grill and set up a tent and I totally failed the knots lesson. After the square knot, I was pretty much a washout. But — and this was in no way a fault of the training but all on me — I came home realizing that I have a lot to do in the next couple weeks. My daughter’s birthday party is next weekend and I have multiple lists I haven’t ticked through for that. And then the following weekend is Girl Scout camping. We’ve never done an overnight troop event before, plus camping requires planning for a lot of hypotheticals. It requires organization, which has never been my strong suit, and, as presented by today’s training, a good deal of liability before you get to the heart and the fun and the memories of it. More lists. My thoughts echoed: Undone, undone, undone.

Happily, the training, which was supposed to be from 8-5, ended a little early. Whew. I stopped by the grocery store because I wanted chef salads for dinner. Whether it was the Fritos from the Frito pie I’d had at the training, or the fact that I hadn’t had a bite of the delicious smelling but gluten-filled Dutch-oven gingerbread applesauce cake, when I hit the grocery store, everything bad for me looked good. Not just good, amazing. Amazing in the way that the desert feels about water. Chocolate covered cashews? Cinnamon sugar rice Chex? My personal crack — sour cream and cheddar chips? Yes, yes, YES! my stomach screamed. But cooler heads prevailed. After much debate, I got a package of frozen pure-fruit bars. They looked delicious, and topped out at 60 calories. It’s summer-hot today, and I could imagine bringing them home, the excited exclamations of the children, and the three of us sharing in a moment of camaraderie on the back porch. Those fruit bars were like a beacon to me, and also a symbol of a good choice, and a choice where I wasn’t doing without, but just doing one better.

So… guess what wasn’t in any bag when I got home? Probably a couple things — I find that you rarely end up missing just one item; it’s usually a bag — but I did not come home with those frozen testaments to my iron will and conquered cravings. I came home with … worthless grape tomatoes, and inconsequential ham and practically inedible eggs. Crummy, meaningless, hollow husks of foods that WEREN’T MY FRUIT BARS. Now, if my daughters had this reaction to coming home without a favored treat, they’d be in some hot water. There would be a lesson about using words (oh, I used words, all right … about not using THOSE words), about dealing with disappointment and being lucky to have so many other available choices. I chose none of those paths. And when I was out of canned goods to shelve as noisily as possible, I ate probably a full cup of blueberries, straight out of the container. And then some of those worthless grape tomatoes. And then some cashews. So, so far, maybe this is anger-eating, but it’s still basically on the up and up. But, really, not only did I not get my fruit bars, I didn’t get my sour cream and cheddar potato chips! And I haven’t had a damn cupcake in months! Not even a Cheez-It! But I do have a small hoard of candy. I haven’t had refined sugar in 6 weeks. But today? I had Almond Roca and I had sugared gummy assorted “fruit” slices and some chocolate covered raisins. All right after the other. Not savoring and seeing how my system felt, which had been my eventual sugar re-introduction plan, but mainlined. And then, in an effort to curb it back a notch, I had more cashews, which everyone knows are meant to be eaten as quickly as you can get them into your face.

Snowball. Coming out of the red-hazed food coma, I realized, well basically: Frick. Frick. Frick.

Yesterday, I took more than 15,000 steps (per Fitbit). Nearly 6000 of them at a jog. I finally think I perfected the grainless pancake, and until today, I hadn’t had refined sugar since mid-April. I’ve remained gluten free, which isn’t for everyone but has been huge for me, for six months. Today… I fell off the wagon a little. Not even as broadly as “today.” Today, Sunday, during the 5pm hour, I was a bit of a disaster. But 6pm is minutes away. And I have 6 months behind me to counterbalance the 5pm fiasco. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell I’m going to turn back now.

Happiness in the Balance

A friend and I met for drinks last night, and one of the things we talked about — because we’re très cerebral, especially with sangria — was the universal and sometimes elusive search for happiness. Everyone claims to want it, but far too often it feels like catching lightning in a bottle. And maybe we’re a little afraid of it, too. Because what if we find it, and lose it? Or find it and realize we have to change ourselves to keep it? What if we realize that the reason we keep giving ourselves new goals, changing the finish line, is that we’re programmed for the chase and not the win.

Tonight, I’m ending the day feeling like it was a pretty good one. I feel content. And thinking about yesterday’s happy hour conversation, it occurred to me to wonder why. Why are some days better than others? Barring something truly negative happening, why are some compilations of routine hours rosy and others gray?

My happiness list for today:

1) I got up at 6 am and went outside. I took 30 minutes to do my shuffling, wheezing jog. By the time I showered, I felt like I’d already accomplished something.

2) My kids and I got out of the house on time with no threats or raised voices. Everyone found their own hairbrush, two shoes from the same pair and had no opinions about the color of their water bottles.

3) Work went quickly, and included a ten minute afternoon break to walk to our neighborhood Starbucks. I didn’t even get anything. The ten minutes away was a boost in itself.

4) I talked to one of my best friends, who has recently moved away. When we live in the same city, we tend to neglect phone calls in favor of convenient texts and meeting up a couple times a month. It turns out that my phone can be used to talk to people and the connection feels a lot more substantive than a textversation, even when it’s about nothing in particular.

5) I stopped at the store, bought fresh ingredients and made dinner. It involved peeling potatoes and watching my daughter mash them. And it involved butter, which shouldn’t be discounted.

6) Chai. Decaf chai with coconut milk. It tastes like warm zen, especially if I can grab five minutes on the back porch to drink it.

Here’s to ordinary days with rosy hues.

Just Run With It

I saw a post on Instagram today that said, Remember that the reason you’re doing this is to make your life better.

It’s a good reminder. Throughout the last six months or so that I’ve started taking this whole wellness thing a little more seriously, I’ve been often surprised at what I’ve accomplished, which makes me think that perhaps a big part of my wellness struggle is that I’ve been selling myself short. I just never considered that I could be, or would be, the type of person to do without. Hey, life’s hard. We need fresh baked Italian bread and filled, frosted cupcakes! Until I realized it’s not so much doing without, but making a choice. Choices are interconnected by nature, winding roads that put us on a path that’s familiar but not always comforting. Previously, I’ve never really given interconnected choices a chance to play out in a positive way, at least from a health perspective. I’m not about to tell anyone it’s the universal answer to give up gluten — I didn’t make it through very much of the anti-grain tome Grain Brain before I put it down and took a big step away from that vat of kool aid — but since ditching wheat, I feel better than I have in years. And for years I felt pretty awful a lot of the time, so again, it’s good to remember why I’m choosing to crunch cucumbers instead of pretzels. The fact that I’ve been able to do so is surprising to no one more than me.

And so, in the vein of not selling myself short, I’ve realized for quite some time that exercise is very much lacking in my life. We try to hike as a family once a week or so as the Sunday weather permits, but in my Monday through Friday life, hours can go by before I realize my jaw is tensed, my feet are asleep and I haven’t moved since I got to my desk. It’s beyond unhealthy; it’s destructive. I think sometimes I can hear my muscles atrophying. They’re miserable in their fate, and yet so weakly anemic that their pleas for movement can be easily shushed as one more email comes in.

Tonight, I went for a run. A short run. Let’s call it a jog. I’ve been a sporadic jogger for most of my life, starting with 7th and 8th grade cross-country. I was abhorrently awful and gave it up for tennis in high school, at which I was moderately inept — definitely a step up. In college, my roommate and I ran together separately. By that, I mean we had a very strict Even Stephen rule about having to match the other for time or distance, but we weren’t the two girls in bouncy ponytails and cute outfits regaling each other with stories of the previous night out while we ran. We were grimly determined and usually rewarded ourselves with no-bake cookies or sometimes Kailua and ice cream (delicious). We continued our Even Stephen philosophy after college, checking in once a week to report our progress, or lack thereof. There were times in my checkered running career that I would get to a place where I’d nearly look forward to a run. I ran a 10k at one point; I could run for more than an hour straight. Take that, 7th grade me. And then I’d take a break from running — to cross-train, I’d tell myself — and that would be that, until the next cycle.

Tonight, I chose my long neglected playlist from the Bolder Boulder 10k… I put it on shuffle, but the running gods were smiling. My old playlist greeted me like a friend. It started with Franz Ferdinand The Fallen. Good beat, set the pace. I quickly realized that I haven’t been running in a long time. A few minutes in and barely around the corner of my block came Cake’s remake of I Will Survive. I smiled a little, grimly, yes, but smiled, and pressed on. I found that short groove where you think, I could totally do this. This isn’t so bad. Maybe I’m in better shape than I thought. And as I realized I was lying to myself, Sing by My Chemical Romance — a heavy hitter for me in the motivation department rotated in. 16 minutes later, Misery by Maroon 5 began and I decided that it was only fitting to end my inaugural run with such an appropriate anthem. Not quite 20 minutes, and I figured it was better to walk a few hills to finish up than to embarrass myself in a public open space where real, actual runners would have to stop and assist me. I wouldn’t say that my run was somehow new and shiny. Or that I was new and shiny because of making the effort. But I remembered that my husband has told me, ‘You’re a happier person when you’re running consistently’. I always laughed and said, ‘That’s funny because I’m miserable while I’m doing it.’ But even small wins can feel empowering, and that’s what tonight’s run felt like. I get to define myself, after all, and out there on the Wildcat Trail (that’s literally the name of the trail, not some weird metaphor I’m going for), no one knows for sure that I’m not a runner just like them. (I mean, they may be concerned that I’m just getting over bronchitis or something, but suburban runners are generally too polite to do more than throw a closed-mouth smile and head nod your way as they pass).

I don’t know if tonight is the beginning of a cycle or if, interconnected with other more positive choices, it can become more. I do know that I’m capable of surprising myself. So who knows?

Living in the Present on Mondays

Ever have one of those days when you wake up and you’re covered in red rashiness because you spent time in the sun over the weekend and you’re allergic to sun, and then you remember on the way to work that you have to drop off your car at the dealership because your brakes suddenly sounded awful over the weekend, and then you realize that the dealership is going to have to call reception at work because you don’t have your cell phone, and when you get to work and check email you remember that you’ve been gone for two days and while you were gone everyone else was still working and sending email?

This is where I have the hardest time aligning my goal to be alert, healthy and present with, well, real life. Over my four-day weekend? I felt like I was really knocking those goals out of the park. We went hiking, we enjoyed the beautiful weather, spent time as a family, we went to the pool, had some hang time with my brother… I made smoothies!and if my house never really got clean and I never got around to sorting through my children’s winter clothes because it was too nice to stay inside, I thought, Good! The fact that we’ve haven’t been inside enough to meet a gold star standard of housekeeping proves that we’re living right! (It’s always nice to be claim your messy house is a product of intention… oh, sorry about the dust, I was too busy *living* to worry about the mundane!) Even as a little red rashiness began to creep in last night, I felt the contented tiredness of a (long) summer weekend, muscles just used and fatigued enough, eyes just heavy enough to feel a happy twilight sort of drifting.

And then… Monday morning. I’ve read countless times that if Monday morning is a rude awakening, you’re not at the right job. You’re not following your passion. Well… true enough. I feel ambivalent about my 9-5 for a number of reasons. But, like everyone who sometimes struggles with Monday mornings, there are reasons I’m there. The work hours are sometimes long, but they’re extremely flexible. I like my coworkers; I like my boss. If I don’t love what I *do* all the time, well, that seems like it’s just a pro/con list sort of item. Like everyone except the Waltons and the Hiltons, we have bills to pay, and so … up and at ’em. But on days when you’re itchy and the dealership thinks you have money to burn and when you get home and your husband, who gets up at 5am, is asleep on the couch and even though it’s late, your dinner isn’t going to make itself and your child had a less than fabulous time at the daycare that you put her in because you’re at your job that you feel ambivalent about… how do you make alert and healthy and present happen in that scenario?

If you thought I had an answer… not so much. I know I need to find a balance between working for the weekend and enjoying each day in between, and maybe part of the balance is just being more aware of when days get out of balance. But I think for today, I’m going to take a walk after dinner, probably before the dishes are done. At this rate, I think the answer to being present in the moment may just be to hire a cleaning service.

The Start of Summer

Memorial Day has long been the unofficial start of summer. Denver, however, has been cool and rainy, and sometimes downright cold and rainy, for almost all of May. It’s been a psychological battle for a city that boasts 300 days of sun a year. The first few days of rain you think, well this is rejuvenating. And then it’s a little inconvenient, and then finally a little depressing. The Memorial Day forecast looked fairly grim, as well.

But! When I woke up this morning, the sun was already shining. It was the kind of morning that asked you to join it, and so I did. With coconut flour pancakes, and a little coconut milk to perk up my daily morning tea, I could have been on the Islands. Well, no… But I did take my breakfast outside to sit in the sun. The patio table was dappled with sunlight through the trees, birds were singing and several lawn mowers hummed in the background while the house was quiet with late sleepers still snuggled in beds.

The unofficial start of summer is off to a good start. Wishing everyone a season of sunny days, tempered with just enough rain to be rejuvenating.

My Month Without Sugar, Grains or Dairy

Today I was supposed to have my one-month appointment with my nutritionist after she started me on the no-grain, no-dairy, no-sugar train 4 weeks ago. In the beginning of the month, I was counting down to today with the glee of a child (or teacher) coming to the end of the school year. As today got closer, my countdown became less about just muscling through the days, and more about the accomplishment (for me, major) of going so long without sugar. And grains and dairy, sure… But I was definitely anticipating the no sugar as being the most difficult.

Today, it’s been a month. And has it been difficult? It has. The first week especially was really rough. I was nauseous and headachey and tired. Throughout the month, if I didn’t plan ahead, I ran into trouble — and hunger. Dinner leftovers were a necessity, and so were the small bag of raw almonds that I started keeping both in my purse and in my desk. Almond butter, on the eat moderately list, became my new best friend. It was the creamy indulgence that I needed to push through some days. And avocados… high five, little guys. It’s funny because in the past month I haven’t thought about fat content at all. In fact, almonds, almond butter and avocados all have high fat content (healthy fats, of course), and despite eating them liberally, I’ve lost weight. But I was looking forward to adding some variety into my diet. I miss fruit especially… a peach, banana and mango salad sounds amazing. And watermelon… I’ve been seeing so many summer cocktail recipes lately, and watermelon has been on my mind.

Yesterday, my doctor’s office called to say that my nutritionist was out sick and that they would touch base to reschedule my appointment “sometime next week.” My initial reaction was dismay. I’d worked so hard to get to THIS DATE. And rescheduling next week meant an appointment even further out.

“But Matt,” I said to the receptionist, “Lauren has me on a no grain, no sugar, no dairy diet.” I paused, but he didn’t gasp in horror, so I went on, “I was really hoping to re-introduce some things with the holiday weekend!” Matt laughed, as though we had a mutual joke, “Well, no one here is ever going to tell you to reintroduce grains.”

I hung up the phone feeling cheated and discouraged. But it also made me question the entire journey in a different way. The quest for wellness is certainly a first world luxury, and it’s a booming industry. Depending on who you talk to, you’ll get different advice. This doctor or nutrition expert (or non-expert) will swear by going gluten-free, while the next person recommends macrobiotics, or flexitarian or paleo diets. Detox diets, Atkins diets, juice cleanses and never eat anything except free-range, grass-fed meat and organic produce. Some of that makes sense to me, some of it does not. How is a regular person supposed to figure it out when the experts, and I use the term loosely, offer such different solutions?

“No one here is ever going to suggest you reintroduce grains.” Hm. Then maybe this isn’t the right place for me, because while I don’t pretend to have answers, cutting out entire parts of the food pyramid (that ancient artifact) just doesn’t ring true for me long term. I may be wrong, but that’s where my gut is coming from, and since it’s my gut I’m healing, it seems wise to listen to it.

And yet now I’m not sure where to go from here. I feel a lot better these days, and my clothes fit better and my complexion is better. Better is good. I don’t want to lose that, but I seem to do best when I have hard and fast rules for myself. No gluten has worked for me, but I’ve often wondered if it’s the lack of gluten that makes me feel better, or is it the natural substitutions from pretzels to veggies and humus, the ability to say no to cake for a currently-societally-acceptable reason? No sugar is non-negotiable and honestly if I can do it, it’s totally doable (at least for a month). But what if I want to just occasionally have a piece of chocolate? How do I make sure that that occasional piece doesn’t sneak back in with the Easter-basket-raiding ferocity of my life-long sugar habit? It’s been a long and stressful month at work, and I did it without grains or sugar (or dairy, but that’s almost an afterthought). That should feel empowering, but I also know that part of the reason I didn’t stress eat my worries was because I had a zero tolerance policy. But that’s the old ship in harbor metaphor. That’s not what ships are for.

Up next: trusting myself enough to loosen the reins without giving up control of my direction.

View from the Top

I was much braver when I was younger. Or perhaps I was just younger. I studied abroad without knowing a soul; I moved across the country without a job and with very little money. And those risks paid off. While in England, I met lifelong friends, traveled to places with history measured in tens of centuries rather than centennials and came home with my viewpoint forever broadened. Becoming a Coloradan a dozen years ago (though a dozen years puts me no closer to being one of those rare breeds, a native), clearly changed my life. Roads diverged, and here we are.

Somehow, though, in the last decade, I’ve taken fewer risks. You don’t like change, my husband would say with a shrug, and somehow that had become true, and hearing it said made it more true. It became a reason and an excuse all in one. I went into a period of anxiety, which I still fight in thankfully lesser ways, where routine seemed even more important. Sit down you’re rocking the boat. When getting through the day in one piece is a battle, there isn’t a lot of wiggle room for risk. My career path had always lacked ambition – I didn’t know how to marry my wish to never be management with career advancement – and anyway it seemed like my husband had enough ambition for both of us. But eventually it seemed like it wasn’t just my career path that lacked ambition, but my life. The most terrifying quote on Earth, I think, is Annie Dillard’s, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I didn’t feel like I was leaving much of a legacy, in big ways or small ways. For a while, I just dwelled lethargically in that place until finally, the risks of stagnancy were bigger than the risks of moving forward. It was out of this place that I began making small changes and my Frozen Grapes goal to be alert, healthy and present was born.

Today, we went for a hike as a family as we try to do on a Sunday. Our hike is generally fairly local and not too arduous, but with deep-sigh-contentment scenery. Today’s hike was no exception. One town to the south of us is Castle Rock, and Castle Rock boasts a “castle rock,” a big square rock on the top of a high plateau. We’ve been meaning to hike to the top of that rock, from Rock Park, for a while. The actual path of the hike was pretty similar to most of our other family hikes. Dirt inclines with some rough steps built into the trail here and there, some rocks creating natural steps other places. When we got to the top of the trail, though, we realized that the top of the rock, our destination, was simply up the rock itself. We’d been scrambling over other rocks to explore small caves and crevices, but this was the first scale of significance. But, we’d come to see the view from the top of the castle rock.

The way up is about 80 feet high, and though not particularly perilous, it involves several places where there isn’t a clear path forward. Find three points of balance, my husband told the girls (and me), and you’ll be fine. Midway up, Eva started to cry. “I’m scared,” she said. “I don’t want to do this anymore.” This is one of those parenting moments when there are valid points on each side. If your child is scared to tears (although with Eva tears are usually pretty temporary), where’s the lesson? Trust your gut? Push through your fear? We’re right here beside you? Hopefully the right answer is a little of all three. We pushed on, heaping praise on our young scramblers, and taking photos from the top.

On the way down, momentum is different, and where you could pull yourself up on the ascent, it’s dropping yourself down on the descent. At one point, Patrick, carefully balanced, lifted Eva down, but as Samantha’s spotter, I didn’t have the strength for that, and her legs weren’t quite long enough to feel the ledge below. I braced my foot on the ledge to give her another couple of inches, but going backwards, it was still a game of trust. “There’s a ledge right there, I promise. You’ll step on my foot, and then be down.” And she did, and she was.

Sometimes courage comes in smaller doses, but it’s no less valiant for that. Knowing that you can navigate in a daily way gives confidence for the bigger challenges. I think I realized today that I’ve been equating courage with the willingness to step into a new frontier without a safety net. But really, it’s not so much that I haven’t changed my life in major ways lately, but that I feel like I’m finally moving forward again, and that I like the view from here.

80/20 for the Win

Today I fell victim to a classic blunder. I got caught in the details and forgot to look at the big picture. Specifically, this was for a work thing… a project that I’ve been working on, and working on, and working on. Each time I think it’s about to move off my plate, it stays. It would be enough to drive a person to drink, except that I’ve still got 9 days left without alcohol. Ditto the chocolate, ice cream and potato chips. I tried to make coconut flour (non-grain) pancakes, but apparently pancakes really rely on high glycemic ingredients to make them happen. I knew this, instinctively, and yet it seemed like it was worth a try.

But, I digress. I know, based on experience that at work I’m going to be evaluated on the details. And, based on experience, I have a roadmap of what details to focus on, so that’s what I did. But for every needle that I found and smugly congratulated myself on removing, I made one critical mistake. I forgot to step ten feet back and look at the whole haystack. While the issue with my haystack wasn’t foundational, it was fairly glaring, if only I’d looked. It altered the impression I’d worked for. It was taking the time to put on make-up and actually blow dry your hair, and then meeting your nemesis with spinach in your teeth. In that moment, I felt like that spinach was going to overshadow all the hard work and long hours I’d put in.

You can exercise every day for six months. And I swear, if just one day you decide you’d rather watch a Good Wife marathon? Square one. It’s like your body gets amnesia. It takes weeks to lose 5 pounds, but in a 4-day all-inclusive vacation you can somehow gain twice that. And they say that if you give in to your child’s whining one in ten times, you’ve lost the war. If one out of ten times, you’re just dead tired, or just can’t form the words of the bedtime argument one more time, it’s back to the beginning. How is this fair? If I’m getting it right 80% of the time, isn’t that pretty good? Doesn’t that deserve a little recognition? Why does the 20% weigh so heavily? Or even just 10%? I’m honor roll here, people! If I’m not going to get a plaque, can we at least agree on a ribbon?

Part of the weighted impact of the 10% flop rate is evolution, of course, reminding us that our ancestors couldn’t have an 80/20, or even a 90/10 policy when dealing with saber tooth tigers. It was a good policy, then. Get it right the first time, or, literally, die trying. Luckily life isn’t, in general, as catastrophic day-to-day in the 21^st century. Yet we’re still programmed to hold onto those negatives while discounting the positives. It’s unlikely that the negatives will kill us anymore, but they still feel heavy. And so it’s easier to just hang up our running shoes and tell ourselves that our “happy” weight is our current weight, and who really wants to be counting calories, anyway? Did any child really enter therapy as an adult because bedtime slipped to 9pm now and then? Keep your ribbon. We’re doing okay.

As Mel Brooks said, ‘Life is a play. We’re unrehearsed.’ It’s never going to go smoothly, because we’re winging this life thing. And if you’re not winging it, please pretend you are. It’ll make me feel better. Maybe, when I miss either the big picture or the details, because let me assure you, both happen in pretty much equal measure for me, maybe instead of thinking of it as blowing my lines, I can think of it as improv. And with improv, a really great scene can build out of seeming chaos.

Our ancestors had to sweat the details, because their big picture was now. Our big picture is a little more forgiving, and our details less dire. We can lace up those running shoes again, even though our lungs protest and our feet drag, because we can see the big picture, but we can take a day (or a season) off because we know details tend to work themselves out when we have a solid perspective. We need both, but we also need to cut ourselves a break. And guess what? My big issue today? Totally resolved itself by close of business. For the most part. Which is good. Because now I can get a good night’s sleep before finding out tomorrow what I messed up today.

The Open Nest

I don’t remember playing with dolls much as a child. I probably did to some extent, but it doesn’t inform any major memories. I did have a red metal truck that I remember vividly. I accidentally left it in Vermont one year on an annual vacation, and it was, amazingly, still there the next year when we went back. I have no such memories of dolls. I do remember, as a pre-teen, having the perfect baby name ready: Cassidy Danielle. And yet somehow my 26-year-old self, and later my 28-year-old self, opted not to use it. I feel like in many ways, and not in ways that recommend me, I was pretty thoughtless about my slide into motherhood. I have friends who have wrestled with fertility issues and with hereditary genetic issues, who have had to lay bare their souls in front of doctors and social workers and other strangers. They were intentional about their decision to parent in ways that I never was, and ways that I realize I should have been. Of course, I didn’t intend to be a thoughtless jerk, to think that I was somehow just entitled to the next stage of my life, though looking back that’s exactly what I was. But regardless of how well prepared you are, think you are, or aren’t, there’s a point where shit gets real. Where all of a sudden, a baby appears. You’re a mother.

We all have our own story. Mine began 7 weeks earlier than expected when my oldest decided she wanted to be a July baby, not an August baby. A couple weeks later, the NICU staff unhooked her from all the beeps and wires that assured us she was breathing, and gave us 4 pounds of baby like we knew what to do. Before that hospital stay, I’d never changed a diaper, never fed a baby. It remains crazy to me that you have to get a license to own a dog, to fish in a stocked trout pond, and to have an (already) licensed contractor roof your house… but a baby? Nah, you’ve got that covered.

And, for the most part, you do have it covered. Mostly. Babies are equipped with their own communication system, a very loud communication system, to remind you that your life has changed and that there is another stomach in the house, or that they don’t feel well, or that they’re lonely, or… well, sometimes you have no idea, but they let you know something’s up. They are amazing, and you are their world. There are periods of crippling doubt, and tiredness so deep and dark that you think you may have put one foot toward the crib and fallen into a black hole. I remember cutting Samantha’s tiny, tiny fingernails and accidentally drawing a dot of blood. I was devastated. When she started crawling and pulling to stand, I found an open box of thumb tacks in an open desk drawer. I took her to the emergency room immediately. Did you see her eat a tack?, they asked. No. Did you hear her cry, or choke? Well, no. So… you just found a box of thumb tacks… out… in your house? Yes. They x-rayed her tiny stomach and sent the baby home with her crazy person. We do the best we can.

Now that my children are older – 7 and 8 – parenting is evolving. I realize that this is still the minor leagues, before dating and driving and things I don’t even want to contemplate. But it does mean being present in a different way. Pinterest makes us feel like motherhood should be about creating not just life, but elaborate and themed rainy day projects, rainbow colored waffles using 6 separately colored batter bags, and let’s not even get into birthdays. It’s a long way from when Caroline Ingalls proved her motherhood-chops by helping Pa hoist logs for a rough log cabin in the wilderness. I’m not sure I’m adept at either model. But this week when I looked around at all the parents standing in the rain at my youngest’s soccer game, I thought … This. This is parenting. It’s being there in the rain, even though you’d obviously rather be dry. And listening to The Three Billy Goats, again, because it’s the book of the week. It’s about the Instagram-worthy moments of cookie baking and soccer goals and summer sprinklers, but it’s also about that time you sat down at the kitchen table and just cried, because you couldn’t imagine going toe to toe with your toddler one more time. It’s about homemade cards made out of construction paper and paint handprints, but it’s also about enforcing time out. It’s amazing and wonderful and fulfilling, and tedious and scary and exhausting.

Sometimes motherhood isn’t about being present at all. It’s about absence. It’s about going out with friends so that your children can see your social world doesn’t begin and end at “mom.” It’s about being away the week of PARCC testing because sometimes responsibilities compete, and we can’t be everywhere at once. These moments teach our children not to define themselves too narrowly. I’m your mother, but I’m also me. I’m a wife and friend and coworker and mother all at once, and sometimes, sweet child, if you’re not bleeding, you’re going to have to wait. As their mother, I wish for my children a life rich and diverse and happy, which makes it my job to model the same.

The bonus of motherhood is that mothers are often the nest from which their chicks can take off, test their wings and return. Recently, our family was on a hike that involved descending a fairly steep hill, walking sideways for balance, when my youngest turned around and said, “Mommy, I’m scared!” There’s nothing quite as sweet as a much smaller hand reaching, in complete faith and trust, toward yours. My husband said to me, “She’s so much tougher when you’re not around.” And you know what? I think that’s okay. She can be tough when she needs to be, but she knows that sometimes she doesn’t have to be. Because Mom’s here, and you can come back to the nest for a breather before setting out again. Because in the end it’s not so much actually returning to the nest as it is knowing you always can.

To the two passionate, creative, loving people who made me a mother, I love you. And to my own mother, thank you for leading the way.

Feeding the Habit

So, here’s an interesting thing that has happened as I tackle no grain, no dairy, no sugar. Every time I eat? It turns out it’s because I’m hungry. It’s hunger that is my cue to go in search of food, and this — I’m going to be honest — is pretty new to me. Of all the reasons I eat: I’m bored, I’m tired, I’m sad, I’m bored, I’m feeling angrily passive aggressive with no one close enough to take it out on… (because those people have decided they’d rather hang out with someone nice like Gordon Ramsey, instead…) Of all those reasons, hunger is usually farther down the list (a lot farther). I don’t want to say that the foods that are left after removing grains, dairy and sugar aren’t still good, solid, quality foods. A crisp red pepper? Grilled shrimp? Delicious stuff. My typical breakfast lately is over-easy eggs on a bed of Applegate deli turkey with a side of avocado. It’s great! But it’s also a little repetitive. Sometimes I switch it up with a lettuce wrap… with Applegate deli turkey and avocado. And if I’ve done a good job of planning, snacks of grilled chicken or a grab bag of cut celery and grape tomatoes? They certainly don’t sit tantalizingly in the work fridge, taunting me at my desk. If I haven’t done a good job of planning, my fall back spoonful of almond butter (moderate list!) also isn’t the stuff of food fantasies. InstagramCapture_708ed770-8261-4d37-8e41-c0d0ffdefce6

Habit is a great thing. It’s the foundation of civility, I think. It keeps us breaking at stop signs, even as we’re also running down the “did you do/grab/get/ask?” list during morning carpool. It means we say thank you as part of our routines and smile acknowledgment at strangers. But the other side of habit is rut. And I’ve definitely fallen into a rut of boredom and emotional eating. It’s been such a long day, I deserve this cookie, chocolate, wine, sundae… And you know what, sometimes I absolutely do. But as a treat, not as a dangling-carrot reward for staying ambulatory past 6pm and not just because it’s the first thing I blindly grab for in the dim, forgiving light of the rut. While I have 12 days in and 16 days left of this rather stringent diet (yes, I’m counting), they say that it takes 21 days to form a habit. I’ll have that and more under my belt, and I hope I take the lesson to heart and climb out of the rut.

I’m on my way. I’ve come to know what hunger feels like. And actually, it probably feels like my body regulating itself. I’m assuming. I’m new at this.