If you’re wondering when this blog will return to its regular programming, trust me, so am I. I am longing to speak in terms of workouts, intervals and miles. I want to talk about digging deep within myself to find that next breakthrough. I want to write about PRs. But alas I have another 3 weeks of waiting and walking. So until then, I am going to continue to interrupt the broadcasting to talk about…
BABY!
But I promise one day I will blahblahblah again about triathlon and write race reports in 10 installments all the way from my pre-race poo to the number of salt tabs I took on the run.
Anyhow.
Give me 60 minutes out of the house, away from the baby and I’ll show you how to go through over 100 dollars and wash it all down with a latte.
Max has been a little pill lately. Apparently when you cross breed a half-Asian powerhouse and a small feisty Italian you get a child who does not sleep. I read somewhere that newborns could be up for 2 hours maximum at a time. I’m calling bullshit. Actually I’m calling a diaper load of bullshit every 15 minutes for an hour straight. Just when you think he’s cleaned out – here it comes, a giant load of gas, gurgles and poo. Thanks, kid.
So, Max has been up since 7 am. It’s now 2 pm. He slept for approximately 1 hour during this time. That would be the one hour I left Chris at home to watch him (use caution when asking the husband to watch the child: the other day when I sent Chris to the basement to watch Max, I found him napping with Max and Boss – napping is NOT watching!).
When Chris gave me the green light to leave the house (I’ve driven a car to leave the house 2 times in the past 3 weeks), I took off like crazybathshit out of hell. Of course within reason given that just a few weeks ago I made an appearance at the courthouse pleading my guilt for speeding and donating $375 to the state of Illinois, and though you didn’t say thank you Springfield, YOU ARE VERY WELCOME.
I headed out to the dress store to buy more let’s pretend I look FABULOUS dresses. I found one. Turns out that being small with giant boobs is not a good fit for most clothing. And speaking of the boobs – it was time. Finally time to rein these puppies in and get them into a bra that actually fits.
Good thing Victoria’s Secret was a few doors down.
I walk in and don’t even know where to begin. Honestly because I never walk into this store. 32A isn’t welcome here. 32A feels more at home in the girls department at Kohl’s looking at training bras amidst the rack of High School Musical t-shirts. 32A walking into Victoria’s Secret doesn’t get any attention.
However.
Me and my new rack walk into the store and immediately two clerks descend upon me. One asks if I need help. A dangerous question at this point. I need help. LOTS of help. I need someone to put away laundry, I need to lose another 14 pounds, I need to sleep more…should I go on, or is that enough to stop right there? Oh, and I need to contain THESE.
I’m nursing right now and I need new bras.
Do you know what size you are?
Big.
Let’s measure you.
I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ve been walking around mostly in jog bras because they stretch and nursing its messy. I so much as look at my kid some days and my boobs cry tears of milk all over the place. The other night I woke up at 2:21 am in a pool of my own breast milk. I missed a feeding when Chris bottle-fed Max at 1 am so I could sleep. Perfect plan except for one thing – ENGORGED! Which is apparently a precursor to…EXPLODE! And that is how I found myself double pumping for relief on the bedroom floor until 2:45 am. So much for sleeping.
The clerk pulls the tape measure around me.
You’re a 34D
I’m sorry, can you say that again.
34D
I feel the need to call my husband.
Who, coincidentally, can thank the recent 5K run off the bike PR to all the extra miles he’s putting in chasing the 34Ds around the house. The other day he looked at me quite seriously and said…
I’ve given it some thought, and decided that you would look ok with fake boobs.
In other words, he just gave me permission to stay this way forever.
Gee…THANKS.
34D – are you kidding me? HOLY CRAP! I didn’t have to pay money for these but I did have to lose a lot of sleep, suffer through some bad scabs, purchase a $70 homemade compound to apply to prevent future scabs and have a small human plucked out of me but all in all very little price compared to the fact that I just scored a set of legitimate jugs!
To celebrate, I didn’t just buy one bra, I bought two. Which is how I blew through nearly all of that money I spent in the hour. But it was worth it! I’ve waited since my teenage years to make a purchase like this!
The high wore off quickly when I got home. And after being going exactly one hour, I found my husband bottle feeding the child. He’s been sleeping for ONE hour. And he’s up again looking for food? Why doesn’t this child need sleep?
There’s a lot of reasons. Maybe he’s hot, he’s cold, he’s wet, he’s poopy, he’s hungry, he’s gassy, he’s growing, he’s distracted, he’s overstimulated, he’s overtired, he’s too alert or maybe just because he’s only 3 weeks old and what the hell do they know about sleeping anyways!?
The only time he sleeps is when we go for a walk. THIS is what I get for exercising so much through pregnancy. A kid that won’t sleep until we move. I remember the only time I didn’t feel him squiggling around was when I was swimming or running or walking. So now, the stroller is like his lullaby. My mom went for a walk with us the other night and I had to laugh as she pussyfooted the stroller over every bump in the sidewalk.
Mom, I rode my mountain bike with this kid. He can handle a few bumps.
I swam fly until the end of pregnancy. I hiked hills. I flip turned half the pregnancy away. He can handle it – all of it – and probably feels like bumpy and moving is his normal. Know what? I’m so screwed when winter comes. I’m going to be wheeling the stroller in circles through the kitchen.
Which makes me realize – we need a bigger house.
Of course when Max was done with the bottle after I got home from my 60 minutes of blissful freedom (20 of which were spent driving), he was hungry – again. I gave in, surrendered my chest. I might as well just walk around the house naked like some tribal woman for all the time I spend with my shirt off. As I fed him, I laid on the couch watching the Cooking Channel. I need a distraction because he has been spending the first 10 minutes of ever feeding hitting the boob, pulling on and off, crying. It takes him a good 10 minutes to commit. Commit to the boob already. COMMIIT! In the meantime, it is painful. Someone tugging at you on and off does not feel good! And if I read one more thing about how breastfeeding shouldn’t hurt I’m going to knock on the author’s door at 2:21 am and hose them down with milk. From my engorged left boob.
Enough about the chest (34D!), let’s talk about…walking! I’m like the Forrest Gump of walking. Last night I set a new PR – for number of mosquito bites accumulated while walking along the river. This afternoon when Max finally napped, I went for a solo walk around the neighborhood. I was hauling ass! And as I covered the hills with ease and moved along at a pace that felt fast, I started thinking about running, and swimming, and biking and competing. I got really fired up. I might have even started walking faster. I might have thought of races I wanted to do or how it feels to bridge a gap in a group ride or hitting intervals in the pool. I might have felt my heart rate rise.
I’m ready to turn the channel back to the tri station, can you tell?
In the meantime, it’s diaper changing time! And, EMERGENCY! I just pulled the last wipe from the package. This is like being in the portapotty before the race and all that’s left is…the paper roll.
Like you’ve never had to use it.
Liar.
Now, you didn’t think I’d leave you without a baby picture, did you?
Ironically, most pictures I have of him are while he is sleeping. Here he is sleeping with his new favorite giraffe (thanks, Molly!).
