I’d been feeling on top of my game for weeks, and then a few things happened. Two late-night sleepovers over the weekend, daylight savings, a boatload of snow, and catching up on a few doctors appointments which is crowding out exercise. I feel logey. Is that actually a word? I had several meet-ups over the weekend and I was at least somewhat late to all of them. I’m laying in bed for twenty minutes after the alarm goes off. And, instead of nimbly leaping from one task to the next, I feel like I’m doing the breaststroke in jello.
I also found out that I gained at least five pounds at a recent doc appointment. This is unusual for me- I tend to stay right at my stasis point. But I think it was the weaning. I stopped nursing and didn’t change my food intake, so maybe it caught up with me. Metabolism shift. That’s what it seems like- my body is in a transition period.
Plus, you know, aging. As much as I believe that I am grateful and lucky to have the chance to age, I, ahem, don’t like these changes. I know that nobody does. I wish that being intellectually at peace with it was the same as actually being at peace with it. Formerly perky parts of my body are responding to the call of gravity and my skin is looser everywhere. I caught a glimpse of my face in the locker room mirror after swim class the other day and my face looked a thousand years old, like a tired elephant. It was not the most flattering of light.
I’m writing this out in the hope that I’ll get back on track. When I did The Desire Map last year, I settled on one word to describe how I want to feel: “juiced.” I want to feel that sensation you have after a tough workout, with sore muscles and the tiredness of having expended energy. I want to feel physically and creatively stimulated. I want to produce.
I’m working on my book. I mind-mapped it, organized the mind-map, and created an outline. Next step is to start the actual writing. Tomorrow. Lately, E is getting up super early during my precious morning time. Yesterday, he woke up at 5:30 and called out in a scratchy morning voice that he was “very hungry.” So I gave him an apple and got him back to sleep. Today it was 5:45 and he needed the potty. Again, I managed to get him back to sleep (hooray!). Many days, though, he runs out here at 6:00 and wants a video. And we’re getting to bed too late- I blame daylight savings right now. My writing schedule may need to change but I hope not- I love the getting enough sleep part. As much as I do miss having anything like reading or watching TV time. It will come back someday.
As I chatted with my new doctor on Monday, I remembered a key market for my book: people who don’t know anything about SMCs. My doc was a lovely woman, perhaps late fifties early sixties, perhaps Haitian although I could be wrong as she had a very light accent. She was fascinated by my story and kept asking questions. She just about fell over when I told her about donor sibling families. And at the end, she said, “You seem like such a sweet person. Did you really try to date?” O lady. You’ll have to read the book.
POTTY UPDATE: He’s doing awesome. There was that one week of resistance and then he found his way back to the joys of using the potty again, both at home and at school. He’s had no accidents at home recently. He can really hold it- can go for an hour after waking up before he’s ready to go pee. But at school something happens where he gets his pants wet while sitting on the big toilet. I feel like the teachers should be paying more attention to helping him point is penis in the right direction but I also realize that there are lots of kids in there at once. So, we (or they) will keep working on that part, but I’m feeling confident that we have a lot of the work behind us. He is proud and I am proud too.
And he has a new love of the snow- the trip from the house to the car takes half an hour. The only limit on his snow time is that he insists on wearing knit gloves instead of snow gloves so, you know, there is a point where it becomes painfully cold. I’ll try to reason with him today. 🙂
Sun is coming up and the birds are chirping. Happy new day xo
the solo mama project 