And it’s about time! Jim-Jams is 3 months old as of yesterday. I only spent 20 mins on the treadmill and ran off to the restroom scale to weigh myself to get a base number — then I had to dash home and nurse the baby.
I’m 20 lbs overweight.
I’m also getting really fractured sleep. A typical night: Kids (4 and almost 2) go to bed at 8:00 p.m. but chat, fight and make up in their shared room for about 2 and a half hours. I clean up the kitchen, pick up the house, and nurse the baby while Husband pays bills. Then he rocks baby while I eat these muffins (seriously, this is WHY I am overweight) and we watch a little TV. Baby nurses again. I try to put him down and he wakes right up for round 3 of nursing. I put him down at 11 and crawl into bed. He wakes up at 4 to nurse. Then the 2-year-old wakes up and throws up in her bed — she gets so snotty at night that she gags almost every night. Husband cleans that up (bless him), unless I awake from the dead to help. Baby wakes up again to nurse. Toddler goes back down. By this time it’s usually 6:30 a.m. and we have an hour or so to drink coffee and get ready for the day. Usually at least one of the three kidlets wakes up if we try to go back to bed. In a word, our sleep is still pretty grim.
Most days I can push through the morning until the kids nap around 2 p.m., but if they don’t nap, all the wheels fall off the cart by 4pm, and I’m literally swaying with fatigue. …So I fuel myself with muffins, and have I mentioned that I’m 20 lbs overweight?
Still: I made it to the gym. I put on a too-small t-shirt and yoga pants, found my keys, drove through pouring rain, and got on the treadmill next to a girl who was running. (Me: not running.)
I made it.
What works for me? Giving myself half an hour and permission to be a lame walker on the treadmill. Permission to not feel guilty if the baby is a little late getting fed. Permission to be okay with moving the scale (ka-chunk) to 150 before twiddling the little weight marker from side to side. (Okay, I’m lying — I hate that part.)
What counts: I made it!