If anyone is still out there (hello? … ello… ello… ello…) who has been around for any period of time, you may know that in the beginning of 2013 DanO, his parents, and I took on an investment property we called a ‘flip house’. We actually timed ODear’s pregnancy around it, thinking that the house would be on the market the summer of 2013 and that we would be footloose and fancy free by that fall/winter to bring a baby into the world. Ha. Hahahaha.

So the ‘flip’ house became more of a ‘hobby’ house because somewhere around the time that we ripped off the entire roof, we realized there was nothing flip about it. It’s fitting, though, because if there is one thing I have learned about this amazing family I married into, it’s that we don’t do anything part-way. We’re going to take a crappy house and fix it up to sell it? Well, then we’re going to freaking fix it up and sell it. We’re not going to paint over that questionable sheetrock and call it a day. We’re going to rip that crap out and start over. We’re not going to leave an awkward wall where it lay. No, we’re going to rough draft the daylights out of that floor plan until it makes sense for families from 2-8 people and uses every square inch of the footprint to it’s highest efficiency.

And that’s what happened. Only, another angle on the story is that when ODear joined our ranks in October of 2013, we were sort of treading water here at O My Family and as much as we hated to do it, we really dialed back the amount of work we were doing at the hobby house. My tireless in-laws labored on and with only spotty assistance from DanO and I, finished the house over the last year. You hear that? It’s done.

If you want a better idea of the before condition of the house, you can see all of the posts I have done about the house here, but here’s a quick refresher

And… wait for it…

As of today the house is officially on the market in Maplewood, Minnesota. 4 bedroom, 3 bath and y’all. The kitchen.

And the entryway.

And the… the everything.

My in-laws did an absolutely incredible job finishing the house with such attention to detail and quality. Anyone in the market? Here’s the full listing.

I am a better mother when I am exercising.

I kind of wish that weren’t true, you know? It’d be nice to plug my ears ::lalalalala:: and deny it – and some weeks I try to – but there is no escaping reality. On days when I haul all three kids to the YMCA childcare by 9am and lift weights or pound out some miles on the treadmill I parent from a better place for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, it is really friggin hard to haul all three children anywhere by 9am and if I get there after 10am then it feels like our whole morning is gone. (Mama takes a shower in the locker room and uses all 120 minutes of her free childcare. Amen.) To be honest I haven’t found a good routine for the when of my exercise, but routine is not really my jam (ENFP says what?) so it looks different for me every week.

Some weeks I hit it early, the 9am thing, and we can be found traipsing through the lobby of the Y on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  One of the things I have had to make peace with is running on the treadmill. See: free childcare. Some weeks we either have more play dates or we need more time to chill at home in the mornings, so the moment DanO walks in from work I mumble some dinner instructions and run out the door to the gym by 4:30pm. With summer sunlight hours I sometimes wait until after the kids are in bed and do a road run around 7 or 8pm.

I have my exercise calendar on the fridge at our house. This started when I was in the height of training for back to back half marathons and needed to get my miles in. I modified Hal Higdon training schedule based on the dates of my races, popped it into an excel spreadsheet and printed it off.

I use it both to tell me what I need to do on a given day and to record how or what I did. Looking back at the calendar I made for January through May, I did about 80% of the workouts I scheduled for myself to do. The schedule had 5 runs or workouts a week and on average I did 4 of the 5. In my world that is doing well. There has to be a balance of grace and challenge. If I were to beat myself up for those missed workouts I would have lost all motivation to continue (the judgmental lady in my head can be a real downer) so instead I effectively give myself one homework pass a week. On the other hand, my tendency is to phone it in when at all possible so I force myself to record those missed workouts. All of them. I put a big ol’ circle (or zero, I suppose) next to the workout on that date. I give myself some flex room, but the moment I start pretending that I’m doing better than I am, all is lost. Does that make sense? I think so much of this is what works for my personality – I crumple under excessive expectations but I will also take a mile of leniency if given an inch – and it has taken me about 3 years of exercising regularly to figure out a balance and system.

On the days when I exercise I record my pace or weights or just simply check off (for a spin class for example) that I completed it. I am highly motivated by seeing what I have accomplished. As the weeks pass and I look at that calendar covered with check marks and paces that I’m proud of and tally marks for how many miles I’ve logged, it makes me want to keep working. At 28 years old I still love myself a gold star.

{{my calendar from 6 weeks postpartum to May of this year, very running heavy}}

As I move out of my half marathon season (I ran two 13.1s 3 weeks apart from each other in April and May and it was awesome) I am realizing my body and fitness would benefit greatly from lifting weights. This is something I have always known, but I have also known that I am motivated by races and that ultimately I enjoy running so I went the path of least resistance and mostly ran for the first 6 months coming back to exercising postpartum. I feel like I’m ready for a new challenge so I have made a calendar similar to the one above for the next 4 months that includes a lot more lifting and still keeping my miles up (next race is a 10k in late August, then a 10mi in September and a half marathon in late October). I put my lifting schedule together based on poking around google results for ‘beginner weight lifting’ and ‘weight lifting for runners’ for a while. It wasn’t a science – I just needed a starting point.

Imma be real honest: I am sucking. Like, maybe 2x a week I am putting a nice little check mark next to the workout, the other 3 days it’s a big ‘ol circle. Usually those circles are on lifting days.

After 3 years of running and looking to my pace or my distance for a sense of accomplishment, I am having a really hard time with the paradigm shift to lifting. It feels weird to only be on the gym floor for 20 minutes, and I don’t have much of a history to look back to and see how far I have come (since June?) which was really encouraging to me with running. But that’s just where I am right now.

The benefit of having been in this for a few years is that I am able to take the big picture view, even when I am in a stage of sucking it up. It took me a couple of years to find a good strategy to motivate myself and make running a habit. Early on there were weeks, back to back weeks, where I was less than diligent. But I found my flow and the intrinsic motivation to step it up. I am in that stage again, but I am able to say that this does not make me a failure or even mean that I have somehow lost my status as ‘someone who works out’. Cuz that’s a thing. In my head. Just because I am not where I want to be right now doesn’t not mean I will never get there.

For now I round back on the fact that I am a better mother when I am exercising. Something’s gotta give. Either my kids need to be more ok with me snapping at them (ha!) or I need to get my butt in gear, literally, and do my squats.

Ultimately, I am a mama who works out because I have to be.

>>What should I know before I dive in and invest in a wardrobe for this year?

>>Should I look for higher priced items that wear well (thinking Lands End) or just assume that they are going to get worn into the ground regardless so save the bucks up front (AKA Old Navy)?

>>What did you find was needed as far as number of items and outfits? We will only be attending 3x a week so I’m wondering how few items I can get away with purchasing.

>>The parameters are pretty standard- polos, oxfords, and sweaters are the shirt options. Were there tops you found that your kid(s) (specifically your high-energy young boys) preferred over others?

>>How did you store/organize uniform clothes vs. everyday clothes?

>>Did you have any rules on wearing uniform items on non-school days or changing into ‘street clothes’ after school?

>>Did you use clothing labels to mark your kids clothes and which did you find worked well?

>>Are there any tips you have about how to pitch uniforms to OBoy? I don’t anticipate a struggle getting him to wear them per se, but  the idea of wardrobe regulation will be a new concept to him (with the exception of seasonally appropriate choices). How do you talk about uniforms with your young students?

As always, I am ridiculously thankful for you, friends and readers (who are friends I just haven’t met yet). Whenever I think about the wisdom I have gained from some of y’all I get all verklempt. Thanks in advance for your help – I feel so much less clueless with y’all in my pocket.

It is not our ideal arrangement, but right now all three of the kiddos share one bedroom. Because our house has two bedrooms upstairs and two bedrooms on the ground floor, and because we aren’t yet comfortable doing two-story sleeping arrangements with our babies still relatively young, this is what works for us. I wrote about the boys sharing a room a while back, but this third kid thing has been a game changer and I’ve been asked a few times to write about how we make it work. The good news is: it does work. Here’s what it looks like for us.

{As I talk about all of this, I want to mention that OBoy will be five years old this week (HOW????), OBrother is three years old, and ODear is eight months.}

Furniture, storage and decor:

The only furniture in the room are the bunk beds for the boys on one side, a crib for ODear on the other, and a big ‘ol dresser between that holds everything for all of them including the changing station. Each kid has one large Clothes They Wear Everyday drawer, one small Pajamas and Underthings drawer, and then the boys share one more large Swimsuits and Other Infrequently Used Apparel drawer. Out of season and outgrown clothes are in labeled plastic bins in their closet along with miscellaneous winter coats etc.

The bunk beds were unbunked until last spring when we were expecting ODear and began playing furniture tetris. It was a hoot, lemme tell you. With OBoy at almost four years old and OBrother freshly two we stacked those beds, made very firm rules, and crossed our crossables that it would work. The rules include: they don’t play in their bedroom, especially with friends over (because it is amazing how quickly bunk beds morph into jungle gyms in the eyes of a child, and also because we have a playroom), and OBrother was not allowed on the top bunk or even on the ladder until very recently and even now it is only when a grown up is in there. (Remind me to tell you about the morning that we were in the hospital, 8 hours after giving birth to ODear, and we got a call that OBrother might need stitches on his head because of playing up on the top bunk. This stuff is real life.)

More generally, we treat the room as a sleeping room and there are other places in our house for playing etc.There are no bedside tables or bookshelves (or toys for that matter) because 95% of the time we play in the playroom and living room (and kitchen and dining room…). We utilize other spaces, the mudroom for example, if someone is napping and another child needs some alone time (whether consequence or personal choice).

O, and blackout curtains. Always blackout curtains.

Our rocking chair and ottoman were in the room when it was just the boys, but when ODear joined the ranks it was exiled to the hallway. At the time I though this was a negative thing – the kids furniture expanding into the hallway – but it has turned into a positive for several reasons. First off, I can nurse her down to nap in the hall which is at the top of the stairs and open the the level below where the boys are playing, meaning I can keep an ear on them but still be far enough away to allow sleep atmosphere for the baby. Secondly, it is common that the boys’ bedtime and the baby’s bedtime are staggered, so it is nice to be able to put the boys in bed and do their routine, then close the door to their room and be in a different but near-by space while rocking ODear to sleep.

The room was originally a boy room complete with navy walls, an americana theme, and airplanes hanging over each bed. One of the airplanes has been taken down, but  the other one still hangs proudly over our daughter’s crib. To be honest I haven’t gotten around to decorating the room to include baby girl. (Poor ODear. Don’t tell her that her corner of the world consisted only of a third-time-around crib and a new-to-her mobile when she was a baby, m’kay?) I have made this mood board of a nautical themed room in greys and yellows and navys to neutral things up in there, and a mood board is half the battle, right?

Age of transition:

Age-wise, ODear has been in with the boys since she was about three months old which is how old OBrother was when we put the boys together as well. We stumbled upon this age when we went on a family vacation when the boys were little (OBrother was eight weeks old) and all four of us shared a bedroom. We were pleasantly surprised at what OBoy slept through on that trip and decided to try putting them together at home after that. When we do switch, we ease into the transition with a night time combo of baby in the crib/baby in our room depending on how soon we think different parties will wake up. For example, when she was four months old ODear would sometimes nurse around 4:00am and then want to keep sleeping, in which case we kept her in our room because more than likely she would sleep in later than the boys. This helps for a while but once everyone has their feet under them (usually by 6mo) then baby is in the kid room full time.

Bedtime and mornings:

We have a light called The Good Nite Lite and we love it with our whole heart. It looks like a moon and lights up blue at night, then it changes to a yellow sun in the morning at the time of your choosing (7:30am for us right now, although it changes at different times of year). We have had it since OBoy was a toddler and we never leave town without it; that thing has seen both coasts of our great nation and several fly-over states in between.  In the morning the boys are expected to stay in their own beds and not make more noise than quiet talking or singing before the light changes to a sun. They can come out to go to the bathroom (obviously) but other than that if they are out of their beds before 7:30 we ask ‘Is the sun on?’ and if the answer is no, back in bed they go. The Good Nite Lite schedule obviously doesn’t apply to ODear; if she is awake and hungry at 6:00am I nurse her and she is up for the day. With the boys, it gives us a clear boundary for what otherwise can be a hairy situation.

I should also talk a bit about sleep preferences here.  My cousin recently put words to something DanO and I have believed for a long time about parenting that is played out in room sharing: We should teach our children that they are not their own. For us that is because of the sacrificial life of Christ which is our example. Even at this young age, our boys need to do things they don’t want to or not do things they do want to because they are serving others. The kids sleep with their door closed and we keep the white noise machine on at a dull roar. If this ever comes into question, we remind them that this is what needs to happen because of the others in our family, similar to cleaning up after ourselves or being gentle when playing near ODear. Each boy (and eventually ODear) has dominion over their own bed – which stuffed animals, which covers, pillow or no pillow, etc., but the room itself – airspace and door and lighting – is shared. Obviously when compromise is possible it can be a very good thing, but there are times when it is not possible and so we remember that we are not our own.

Because of our age spacing, we handle the kids’ bedtimes as ‘the boys’ and ‘the baby’. Sometimes the boys are tucked in bed and ODear is still going strong due to a long afternoon nap. This is where that outside-the-room rocking chair is pretty clutch. We have a place to ease her into sleep after the boys are asleep or while they are having their own wind-down time in their beds. Other times ODear just needs to be sleeping in her crib before the boys head to bed. In this instance we will do all of our in-room bedtime routine stuff with the boys (reading, singing, praying) on the couch in the living room under dim lights and then remind the boys that we are about to walk into a room where a baby is sleeping and that we are going to be ‘all the way quiet’.

We have found that the motivation of staying quiet in bed ‘because baby is sleeping’ is a powerful one both in the morning and before falling asleep. These boys love their sister and when we make it clear that she needs their help (in the form of quiet) they are valiant for the cause. We have also been known to threaten the removal of her from their room if they can’t be respectful of her needs.  I will say that some of the most precious times between our three kids have happened when they are all awake and happy in their room before the sun is on. Giggles and songs and long distance games of peekaboo – it is so heart warming to hear them in there doing their thing.

Midnight wake-ups:

ODear is still nursing at least once a night. I have no illusions of ‘sleeping through the night’ anytime soon, nor do I try to rush that with my nurslings (<— separate post ;) ). When she wakes to nurse usually DanO goes to get her and brings her into our bed where I breastfeed her laying on my side (half-asleep) and when she is done either DanO or I will bring her back to her crib and lay her down. DanO and I sleep with our door open and are pretty responsive to her cries at night because 1) we don’t do the cry it out thing 2) we don’t want the boys to wake up if we can help it. To be honest, this way – the baby waking the boys – has never happened. I don’t know if this is because the boys are hard sleepers or because they do wake but just roll over and know that Daddy will come get her soon, OR because we have the sound machine cranked.

I think of room sharing with nurslings like the tooth fairy thing: it’s impressive what kids can sleep through.

We would enjoy a little more freedom here if they weren’t in the same room, to see if when she makes noise at night she is just working through bowels stuff and her fussing is short-lived or if she actually needs to nurse and is awake with hunger. I would say that this is the area where the three-to-a-room is hardest on us right now but it is nowhere near insufferable, more just inconvenient.

As far as the other way around – one of the boys waking the baby – yes. OBrother waking up crying from a bad dream has awoken ODear before. In fact, it happened last week. If it is close to when she normally wakes to eat I will just nurse her back to sleep, and if not she gets a little extra attention – back patted, rocked in the chair – and is quickly sound asleep again. Really though, this is maybe a once or twice a month occurrence and has yet to be a crisis.

Random important tip:

This might sound micro-managerial, but we have taught the boys to turn the door handle as they close the door so that the latch doesn’t click loudly and we have a small dot of rubber on the door frame to keep it from banging. The boys are known to use the bathroom at any time of night, and as you’ll see below they may also leave a room while someone else is napping. Practicing quiet door closing is a requisite to our room sharing model.

Nap:

Ah, nap time: you are simultaneously my best friend and my worst enemy. During some of my lower times, nap time snafus were a serious anxiety trigger for me. I still think I feel a higher-than-average amount of mental pressure for nap to go well, but even with that we are able to make room-sharing work with a routine that I’m comfortable with. My basic premise is that two kids can nap at the same time in that room and if three kids need to nap we sub in the master bedroom for the baby.

Believe it or not, my experience is that little ones can sleep through someone waking up, walking out, and closing the door to room they are sleeping (see: teaching children to close doors quietly and rubber bumpers). Sure, about once a week they wake up at the same time and I wonder who was the catalyst for whom, but overall I have been impressed by this aspect of nap room sharing. That said, I think two kids leaving the room gets to be a little risky, which is why I max it at two in a room at nap.

For a longtime, OBoy was still napping almost daily and even now when the morning holds something exhausting like swimming he will sleep. In this case I put the boys down together in their beds while holding ODear and then if she needs to start her nap while the boys are sleeping she takes that nap in our master bedroom. [NOTE: We do not have a pack’n’play set up in our master. Our bed is a mattress on the ground and if she is napping in there I strip the blankets and pillows and lay her in the middle.] More often, though, our oldest can be found in the playroom during nap time, sitting on a cushion reading books for an hour of ‘rest’. When this is the case, I put OBrother (3 years old) and ODear down together in their room after lunch. Most days ODear out-sleeps OBrother by a good hour.

Some things we haven’t figured out yet:

We have a remote-controlled video monitor in the room. We can scan over and see if the boys are being rowdy in their beds or aim it at the crib and see if ODear is pulled up on the railings waiting for us. I realize that it is not normal for a 5 year old to have a camera in his bedroom, but for now it is a necessity. Also on our radar is the shared gender aspect. I have no idea when that becomes an issue or if there are sufficient work-arounds so that the room can continue to be shared, but we know that that is a bridge down the road that we will cross eventually.

If three kids in one room is the situation you find yourself in (or want to put yourself into) I guess I’m just here to say that it can work and it is not nearly as anxiety inducing as I thought it would be. It works, y’all. It really does.

We have always wanted a family. Our senior year of college (for which we were married) I used to joke with DanO about dropping out and just making babies. Mostly joking. Sorta not joking. Not really joking. We were quite pregnant on our second anniversary and we haven’t looked back.

When I was not-really-joking about dropping out of my ridiculously overpriced college and starting our family, the number we threw around was four. Four kids. This likely had a lot to do with my husband’s family of origin. There wasn’t much friendship to be had with my one brother growing up – we were neither playmates nor companions – and although things like this are impossible to orchestrate for our children, it seems to me that having more than one sibling increases the odds of my kiddos having a well-suited childhood playmate.

And O, the babies themselves.

I friggin’ love babies. They are my anti-drug*. The moment one starts to wean themselves from nursing my brain switches to ‘must. have. another.’ mode. When people say they ‘knew they were done’ I just can’t fathom what that felt like; I will never not want another baby.

What I will want is to not be pregnant again. The hardest part of motherhood and growing our family hasn’t been birth or breastfeeding (both of which I love) or the lack of sleep or barrage of constant NEED from all these short people around here. It has been the sacrifice of my body during pregnancy. My poor, poor body. This is not to say that pregnancy is purely damaging to a woman’s body. I’ve said before that there is much more to it than that. But there is sacrifice that comes with growing another life on your insides. Choices that are different, body parts that are changed permanently, temporary changes that take work to improve. And in a lot of cases, very real and hard emotional work.

This is weird to explain to people, even friends. It is a dichotomy of dread and desire, a battle between my mind and heart. My heart knows that we aren’t done yet, that we want more of this drooly, crawly, get into everything but then snuggle-nurse to sleep baby stage. But my head knows that it will come at a price, it knows how much it cost last time. How hard the third trimester of my pregnancy with ODear was on my spirit. Have I told you, friends and readers (who are friends I just haven’t met yet), that 10 weeks from my due date with her I went back onto the anti-depression medication that I had weaned off of for the sake of getting pregnant? This pregnancy defeated me in a lot of ways. Gloriously, I did not experience the postpartum anxiety that I have experienced with my other two, but I still get a little clammy-handed when I think about what my brain and heart went through while ODear was being knit together.

When someone asks if we are done, the answer is no, but I say it through a clenched jaw with glazed over eyes envisioning myself pregnant again. Yes, we want at least one more baby in this not-little-anymore family but no, this time I am not chomping at the bit to start that process.

So, there you have it, stranger at the YMCA who sees me hauling around my gym bag and all my babies every week like a sherpa, that is the long version of the answer to your question.

*Although, given my postpartum depression journey, well, they’re kinda the opposite of my anti-drug too.

Unfortunately, I was not able to tame the 2 year old’s cowlick.

Please forgive the third-of-a-year delay on the sharing of these photos here on the blog. Frankly if it’s not crying, hitting its sibling, or pulling on my pant leg, it’s not getting my attention any time soon.

Not that anyone ever hits their sibling around here.

Just kisses.

And hugs. And maybe the occasional tickle-fight-turned-wrestling-match.

But I digress. Ms. Leah our photographer was so great with the boys. So great with gently reminding me to keep my chin(s) at a good angle. So great at handling and capturing our crazy in a beautiful way.

For the weeks leading up to family photos I am a worrier. I spend my time thinking about all of the reasons the pictures will not turn out. My postpartum body, the boys’ chaos, my uncooperative toddler, baby schedules or lack thereof, on and on.

But look! Look at the magic she worked with said uncooperative toddler!

And while my boys were pulling down her wall decor in the background, she was unfazed and captured this treasure:

I am just so impressed by what Leah was able to capture despite the hand we dealt her.

As we were wrapping up, she was daring enough to try a costume change for ODear to snap a few newborn-esque photos of her and I eternally grateful she did.

It was four and a half months ago already, and while it seems like that time has flown by, I’m sure that years from now I will look at these precious photos and feel that way all the more.

:: :: :: :: :: ::

Leah Fontaine is a wedding and portrait photographer based in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. She handled our crazy because she has thee (soon to be four!) hooligans of her own and I cannot recommend her highly enough to anyone looking to capture this moment in their family’s timeline. For fun, inspiring, and beautiful glimpses of her day to day life, follow her on instagram, @leahfontaine.

Before the arrival of each baby I have gone into a season of mourning. Great upheaval justifies such. From newlyweds to never-alones. From party-of-three to a de-throned first-born. From ‘the boys’ to a practical herd of babies. Each time we lost what we had. Each time I cried a lot about that loss. Each time I knew that yes, it will be good and lovely and better even, somehow, but what we had was still being laid to rest.

As we prepared for ODear’s arrival I was grieving the comparable simplicity we were about to lose to the apparent logistical nightmare that would be three children. I treasured nap time, for example, and I knew that would change. I do not mean those beloved moments of quiet in the early afternoon when everyone under 4ft tall was asleep, although those moments were at times my very hope and stay. Yes, those would be harder to come by, too, but I mean the moments right before those quiet ones. The ones where I would lay down next to my second-born tucked chin-high in blankets with his chosen ‘stuffy’ of the month and stroke his little head into dreamland. And the moments just after that when I would climb their bunk-bed ladder (which was increasingly difficult given my ‘condition’) and lay next to my first-born and he would inevitably whisper a question about something four hours ago and we would chat until it was time for him to close his eyes and rest. The season of being fully physically available to my boys at nap time was fading to a close because babies have unpredictable needs and well, we don’t have much longer that both boys will nap. Rightly, I assumed that laying with them as they fell asleep would be infrequent at best after the baby arrived.

It happened. There were poorly-timed nap times where I sat against the wall in their room nursing a newborn in the dark (hashtag talented?) or rushed through and exited before my job was ‘done’ because ODear was squawking in the other room. Rarely did I see them both off to sleep anymore. That stage was over and I was so, so sad to lose it.

Then God turned my mourning into joy.

About three months into our new nap time shuffle, I began singing to the boys. I would stand in their dark room bouncing a baby and singing hymns. I started with the one I knew best, Be Thou My Vision. We sang that at our wedding and I will never not get teary-eyed when I hear it. Then we sang Come Thou Fount at church on a Sunday shortly after and I added it to my repertoire. I could be found sitting in that same spot against the wall nursing a baby, but now I was looking up hymn lyrics on my phone and singing them to the boys as they fell asleep. Great is Thy Faithfulness. I Surrender All. Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus. It is Well with My Soul.

It was awesome. I knew this much, and sometimes I would get glimpses of what a great thing this new singing nap time tradition was when OBoy would ask me a question about the lyrics and we would talk about Our Jesus. But this morning I was blown flat over by the awesome. As he was assembling legos on the ground in the living room, OBoy began humming How Deep the Father’s Love for Us and singing about half of the words. DanO, who has picked up his fair share of hymn-sing nap shifts over the last few months, began singing with him. Together they sang the first two verses with some call-and-response.

Flat. Flat on the floor from the glory.

I need you to know this, friends. I need to show you my ebenezer. Look how faithful! Look! He has done a good thing! The old is gone, but look at what a joy and blessing I have been given in its place. His love is vast beyond all measure.

{^^ I made that. It’s not fancy, but you are welcome to print it/use it however.}

If that doesn’t short-change the empowering experience of pregnancy and birth, I don’t know what does. It wasn’t until I gave birth to my oldest that I truly realized just how much my body is capable of doing. My birth experience was what made me ask the question: If it can do THAT, what else can my body do that I don’t think it can?

So I began running. Not to recover my body from damage, but to discover my body’s potential. That girl up there? She just finished running 8 miles on a treadmill and is kinda giddy about that accomplishment. I began to see that having a healthy, strong, and fit body was not only within my ability, it was such a gift to myself and my family. This wasn’t at all like going to the auto body shop, wincing at the estimate and begrudgingly forking over a couple grand in order to take care of the damage. After each workout I felt good. After starting Medifast and watching the pounds fall off I felt good. After finishing each half marathon I felt amazing (and sore). It was all good, not just the result. Learning portion control. Breaking through the proverbial running wall. Having mental space to think. This isn’t to say that there weren’t times that I wanted to eat my way to the bottom of a brownie pan, or times that I would have rather stayed home in my jammies than go to weight lifting class. I was careful not to say “It was all easy”, but I did say that it was all good.

I am eager to keep those benefits coming, to keep discovering (and being surprised by) my own abilities, but I am not going to treat any fitness journey I am on as ‘fixing my damaged body’.

Thanks for listening to my preamble. Now I can get to the real thing I wanted to share:

I have started following the Medifast Nursing Mothers Plan and have lost 20lbs since New Years. 

To be honest, I’m feeling a little sheepish about the actual numbers, but well, I guess I’ll just out with it. Last time I started my weight loss with Medifast at 187lbs. This time I started at 202lbs. To be fair to myself, I was much more recently postpartum than I was last time; OBrother was 7 months old when I began the Nursing Mother’s Plan and ODear was 2 months old. Also, strangely, I feel like I look better than I did at the start of my journey last time. This could be because I have more muscle mass under all that extra padding, I’m not sure. I did continue to run a few miles a week until I was 36 weeks pregnant, so maybe?

On the Medifast Nursing Mother’s Plan I can eat unlimited fruits and veggies and am never ever hungry. Here is a pdf of the plan.  I also  know that my milk supply is doing well; I was happily surprised by the amount I got in an evening pumping session last week. I am so excited to be back on this journey with Medifast not to ‘repair’ my body but to challenge it further, and I’m glad to have you along for the ride!

My Journey to Health:

March 3, 2014: 182lbs

February 28, 2014: 183bs

January 30, 2014: 192lbs

December 30, 2013: 202 lbs

20 lbs lost!

The boys are currently sliding blocks under the couch, giggling hysterically, and coming up with ways to get them out {“Use this book, Ikey!” “No, my use DIS book, My-kah.”}. The baby is upstairs sleeping, but she will be woken up in 20 minutes because we are headed to the YMCA. I’m sneaking in a few minutes to wave ::hi!!!:: and to share that life is the fullest, busiest, and awesomest it has ever been for O My Family.

My quietness here is partially a product of having so very many small people to take care of, but it is also, beautifully, the product of taking care of myself. I am running an average of 15 miles a week, have been voraciously reading young adult fiction novels, and am intentionally getting out of the house for playdates or coffee dates nearly every single day. In all of this time and thought put toward my own self-care, writing and blogging has not come to mind as a desire of mine. I cannot put a finger on it. Part of me wonders if it is an unidentified fear – of what people think, of not being [good, knowledgable, funny] enough, of (vulnerable honesty coming up:) not having as “big” of a blog as I once had.

O, sorry, did your eyes just roll all the way back in your head? Because mine sure did.

So many things are going well for us here. The boys are head-over-chubby-toddler-heels in love with their baby sister. ODear is far and away the easiest baby we have had. DanO’s company is taking off and I get to watch him turn his passion into success. There is room in my life to take care of my own body and mind. And yet when I sit down to write and share here, there is a sudden deafening silence between my ears.

If we were sitting at a coffee shop, like I did with my friend Leah this week, I could talk your ear off. We would get into the realities of mothering, the difficulties of living in community, the shining glory of adoption. We would hash it all out, and that’s how this ‘lil blog used to be for me. Just a few readers who are friends I just haven’t met yet and myself, chatting it up about life.

I’m not ready to give up on that yet. I have gained so much from you, friends, and I don’t want this little space to float away into the ether of the interwebs. Not yet. I still need this community to tell me that it’s ok that I’m now shopping in the kid’s section for clothes for my first baby ::sob sob sob:: and to giggle with about the time yesterday when I bent over to wipe the tuckus of one child while holding another child in my other arm. I’m going to exercise this muscle a bit, see if I can work out the knots and maybe we can get back to having good chats around these parts more often.

I’m still here. I’m quiet, yes, but I’m good. It’s good.

And you? Are you still here? Are y’all good? I sure do miss you friends.

This is my year to finish.

I want to only start things that I have room in my life to finish.

It is time for me to flail less and actually complete things more. I am a chronic starter (ENFP FOREVAH) and it can be rough on my family. No, I cannot join that leadership team because I would probably have to step down 4 months in (been there, done that). No, I have no intention of taking on the task of catching up on baby books and no I do not feel guilty about it. Yes, we will finally paint the trim in our kitchen this year and finally declare that house project finished.

I want to finish a race every month of the year.

January through December, I made a chart of races from 5ks to half marathons in which I will participate. I have realized that I love running and I am especially motivated to do it when I have a race to look forward to. (The race environment is an extrovert’s dream.) I have also realized that having pace expectations for myself makes races stressful and removes a lot of the joy for me. For each of these races (a total of 3 5ks, 5 half marathons, 2 10ks, a 7k and a 10mi) my expectation of myself is to finish.

January: check.

We want to finish our basement this year.

Because what is a year for O My Family if it doesn’t include a massive house project? Three small children in an urban house is interesting. We have enough bedrooms, but DanO and I both feel that utilizing the currently unfinished space in the basement would help our family’s lifestyle tremendously. Our vision is a simple finished space that will house our over-stuffed couch and TV – both currently in the living room – as well open space and toy storage for the kids to play. Perhaps I’m overly optimistic, but I imagine a day where the boys would play by themselves in the basement without being under foot while I’m cooking or loud while the baby is sleeping. It’s time for that space to be finished.

I want to finish the weight loss journey that I started in January of 2012.

You know, the one that was interrupted by the carrying and birthing of one sweet ODear? Right now I weigh more than I did when I started Medifast two years ago. This was my healthiest and fittest pregnancy by far (even running a half marathon at 11 weeks along) and yet the amount of weight I gained was nearly identical to my other two pregnancies during which I was not particularly active. Also, my body has held on to much more of the excess weight this time. In summary, getting older is no joke. Last time I was on medifast I lost nearly 40lbs in 7 months, then waffled for a couple months, then got pregnant. This time I want to reach my goal weight and finish strong by maintaining (the REAL hard work of weight loss). This is a whole post in and of itself. Forthcoming.