i celebrate my 39th birthday today. i’ve always found it funny that we celebrate the # of the year that we just completed vs. the year ahead. but alas, i’ve finished 39 years and today begins my march into 40. (mindblowing, honestly.)

as i think about how i want to spend these last months of my 30s (techincally), i’m landing on a commitment to prioritize taking better care of myself (said every millennial woman, ever.) i know in the years ahead, my body will change with perimenopause & my free time will change with kiddo after school + weekend activities and this feels like the right moment to really commit to making ‘taking care of myself’ a non-negotiable part of my existence. i want to set a sustainable foundation to look and feel my best in this entryway to my next decade.

since i’ve become a parent, i’ve struggled to strike the right balance and, as is true for many people, when kids/work project/visitors/feeling run down happens, i dial down my ‘self care’ and dial up ‘care for others’, irrespective of the return ‘care for others’ yields for me. (caring for sick kids? high return on investment! working long weeknight hours for many weeks in a row? maybe not so high return!).

what i’ve learned in the fits and starts of the past couple of years is that i can’t take this ‘all or nothing’, ‘just muscle through it’ approach. that might work for some people but it sure as hell does not work for me.

for example: 2 years ago, i ran the colfax half marathon as a forcing function to create time in my life to exercise. it worked in that, i trained and ran the race! but it didn’t work in the fact that i trained in a way that left me completely depleted and i stopped running/exercising immediately afterward.

then last year, i joined a friend’s strength training program for a new year’s challenge – 8 weeks of a focused strength training routine, paired with nutrition support (tldr: prioritize protein and overall calories!!). i did this mostly in our basement with some adjustable dumbbells and a bench and found it was something i could more easily fit in since i only had to walk downstairs and follow paige’s programming. then, i continued on with her programming and tried going to an actual gym to use equipment and heavier weights and that felt even better! but going to a gym adds just enough of a barrier – and this gym is always busy – that when push came to shove in moments where i had other constraints (kids, work, friends/family), i shoved my needs out of the way to make room for the *gestures in a big, wild circle* other stuff.

so what’s gonna be different about this year? i’m focusing on smaller things that make it easier for me to reclaim my time and energy and prioritize feeling good:

• i’m using nuuly to wear clothes that make me feel more put together (already a game changer for me, 2 months into this service)
• i’m adding walks into my work day when i work at the house; there’s nothing so important that i can’t take a 10-15 min walk during the day to get fresh air and move my body
• i’m going to use the gym at my office more; thanks to expanded daycare hours, i can get myself to the office early and exercise before work
• i’m re-prioritizing protein in each meal and shooting for ~130g+ daily
• i’m leaning back into meal planning and having our few easy go-tos dinners on rotation
• i ordered ear plugs and an eye mask to improve the quality of my sleep and i have given myself a ‘bed time’ of 11p (be in bed, phone down, done reading)

my goal is that these smaller things quickly become lasting habits that i can then build upon. if i’m able to just be* a person who gets enough sleep, moves her body more and eats food that makes her feel good, i’ll be setting myself a pretty good foundation to add to this in the years ahead.

with all this in mind, last night, i went to bed with frownies on my forehead to reduce forehead wrinkles and a heatless curler thing in my hair with a goal of waking up in this new year feeling a little more put together. be the change you want to see in the world, but make it small scale. …and then my kids told me the heatless curler thing made me ‘look like an old woman’ and ‘mom, maybe you should sleep in because your eyes are gray underneath’ so, just give us a call if you need someone to bring you right back down to reality.

regardless, cheers to the privilege that is another trip around the sun, small changes laddering into sustainable change and kiddo honesty.

(just be* = through consistency and commitment, there’s no automagically here!)

i’ve made it nearly 39 years of my life without really having periods of extended feelings of anxiety. an anomaly, i’m aware. but this year, it seems my number came up and i, too, have experienced ongoing feelings of general, non-specific anxiety. so new! so novel! so… unwelcome!

i’ve been having a hard time catching my breath or breathing deeply, i can’t stop my brain from racing about everything and nothing and i cant turn it off at night; and when i wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep because of the aforementioned brain racing. i lack patience, cry… kind of a lot, am running on fumes and am generally a lot of fun to live with right now.

as i’ve been trying to rationalize, where the hell did this come from?? is this just a hard moment that will pass or is this bigger than that or is this perimenopause or am i having a late-30s-life-crisis or ?? i starting making a note of the things that were taking up outsized space in my brain, aka The List. in no particular order,

• realizing that, even with a successful chemo treatment for my dad, i find it hard to exhale, knowing theres a high recurrence rate with less successful outcomes next time
• learning that my brother has a heart condition that will likely require open heart surgery before the end of the year, just like my youngest sister did for a similar-but-different heart condition. and my grandpa had the same condition as my brother and also had heart surgery so, clearly, genetics
• seeing photos and videos of hurricane damage and confronting my growing existential dread thanks to human-caused climate change that’s coming for us all, now – not years from now – and how it will displace millions of people and fundamentally change our global existence
• parenting in america in general – 2 different school schedules, baseline fear of gun violence in public places, baseline dread at what above climate change means for my kids’ and the next generation’s future, and an overall lack of societal support for families and parents
• too many years working at a breakneck speed with very little actual rest; acutely, the past 3 months have been particularly tough (i know, it’s *just* work but unfortunately, i’ve never been a ‘it’s *just* work’ person)
• friends going through their Own Hard Shit and being unable to physically be closer to support
• unimaginable death and destruction in gaza and an impending escalation in the middle east; an ongoing war in ukraine; neither with signs of a slow down and the very-not-good-outcomes that could be ahead
• a consequential election that is a truly unfathomable situation (how is the polling/race still this close????) and am i doing enough to help get out the vote

any ONE of those things would be reason enough to live with the panicked, shallow breathing as the norm. to see ALL of these things weighing on my conscious and subconscious brain – and consequently my physical body – listed out, to be examined one by one, was a helpful exercise for me. should this probs live in a journal somewhere and not the internet? yeah, probably; no one likes a self important debbie downer (like i said, a lot of fun to live with rn!)

but maybe you (whomever, wherever) reading this might also benefit from a reminder that, we each have our own version of The List in our brains and bodies and getting it down and out on paper helps immediately (knowledge is power) – and also, we’re all going through some shit so if you lack patience and are prone to grumpiness like me, maybe we keep that kernel in the back of our brain and try to pause and choose kindness and empathy when we react.

and also, maybe try to get some sleep, movement and drink enough water in your day to give yourself a fighting chance of physically feeling a little okay. and also, most importantly, talk to someone to share how you’re feeling and also find someone who’s a paid professional to help. you matter, your List matters and like Snoop Dogg says, every problem has an answer and i deserve to feel good!

to all of us working on our box breathing techniques to get through it, sending you a big hug. <3

both are true. and we ask ourselves this question often.

but when we think about:

• an infant who had torticollis and required weekly, then bi-weekly, then monthly PT to help stretch and strengthen his neck
• that same infant who also was fitted for and wore a helmet for 22 weeks which required at least monthly check ins with a provider who was always 25 mins late and always took 45-60 mins, no matter that we were the only patient in the waiting room
• that same infant then somehow presented a peanut + tree nut allergy the same weekend I was sick with covid, requiring a trip to the ER for him and now a very expensive EpiPen prescription
• a toddler doing normal toddler emotive things more frequently that bring with it lots of yelling, screaming and tears
• that same toddler who really struggled with the transition to a twin bed and refusing to stay in bed or go to sleep, requiring one parent to man his bedroom door for 30-60 mins for a 4-5 month period
• that same toddler who wasn’t going to sleep on time also believing that the moment there’s light in the sky, it’s time to get up for the day – a habit we can’t seem to break before daylight savings so… pray for us when the Denver sun soon rises at 525a
• a new daycare that closes for federal holidays, just like my company, which means my work holidays aren’t actually downtime
• a busy babysitter who we’ve had sporadic success aligning calendars to grant us some much needed non-parenting time off together

these aren’t covid things. these are normal parenting things. working parent things.

does the stress of the pandemic – and daycare closures and high anxiety about every runny nose and wondering if that little cough will mean a call from school to come pick up our kid and a dearth of family friendly things to do in the city on weekends and using extreme caution around seeing friends/family to keep ourselves and our community safe and continually wondering WHEN THE HELL WILL THERE BE A VACCINE FOR MY CHILDREN – help the situation? hell no. but this exercise helped me/us realize, even without the pandemic, we’d probs would have felt stretched thin these last 12 months.

and make no mistake, this is not a complaint. this is not a cry for empathy or compassion. in the grand scheme of the parenting-in-a-pandemic crisis, we are on the easier side of this shitshow with access to (mostly open) daycare, sick time/paid leave at our jobs, health insurance, flexible and supportive employers, a house we own.

not all days are hard. some days and moments are truly delightful. and we can see longer moments of reprieve on the horizon – graduation from a helmet, slightly less ongoing anxiety around anaphylaxis, a slightly older toddler who has grown out of the ‘goofing off at bedtime’ stage (for now), little boys who make each other laugh at the dinner table – and we savor these when they come our way.

because even when the pandemic ‘ends’ or at least fades into a blip of a bullet point update on NPR news roundup, we know parenting will still be prone to (long?) periods of intensity. and shifting my mindset from ‘this will all be fixed when the pandemic is over!’ to ‘sure, this will feel better but it will probably still be hard!’ is v helpful as we inch closer to the light at the end of this pandemic tunnel.

things will be better. things may still be hard. regardless, there will still be moments of delight even when it’s hard. and we’ll get through it, one foot in front of the other.

…i’m choosing to remember the small, beautiful things.

a bed and quiet room to myself to rest, sleep and recover
my husband, unfazed, stepping into full time parent/household manager/errand runner while i was sick and isolating
text exchanges with friends who are also In It, offering support and virtual hugs
joking, playfully, after the kids went to sleep
drinking hot coffee in my car via drive thru while my kids were safely buckled in behind me, me out of arms reach
a tiny-voiced toddler who renamed himself ‘baby bear’ and me ‘mama bear’
the sound of that three year old squealing with delight at a birthday gift from his dad
the weight of a sleepy, heavy infant on my chest
these crossed feet, mirroring his dad’s signature style

*thank u for nothing: covid infections + inconvenient/unavailable testing + isolation, peanut butter toast that caused a ‘drop-everything-and-get-to-the-ER-now’ reaction and subsequent confirmation of peanut and tree nut allergies, part-time hours to get full-time work to get done, very late nights and very little sleep.

Coming into this pregnancy, I was pretty clueless about what to expect over the course of these last 8.5 months. I did no pre-reading, no research and had very few close friends who had walked the pregnant walk before me so I was really flying blind.

And when I started to realize all the *stuff* that goes along with pregnancy and babies, I became somewhat indignant about needing to (seemingly) spend gobs of money on specific maternity clothes/things and refused to give into (what I perceived to be) the ‘traditional’ maternity mentality for as long as possible.

However, now, at 38 weeks pregnant, there are some things that I’ve bought recently out of necessity that I wish I would have invested in much earlier on for my own comfort. There are also some things I wish I would have done much sooner in my pregnancy. So this post is a note to Future Me, should we try for another kiddo, to have a more enjoyable experience – and, maybe it can help Future You, too, if you’re newly expecting or hoping to be expecting.

1. Invest in maternity jeans that fit well and make you feel great. I did not do this and really wish I would have. I squeezed into my non-pregnancy jeans for as long as possible, using a Bellaband and the rubber band extender trick and when my belly (and booty) got too big for those pants, I hunted for maternity jeans at Goodwill. The thought of spending $60-100+ on a pair of jeans that would only be used for a few months seemed outrageous! But now… I know better. The maternity jeans I found at Goodwill fit, but don’t look or make me feel great (but, hey, they cost less than $10 total). Since I’m able to wear jeans to work, I should have invested in 1-2 pairs of maternity jeans that I really felt great in – I would have been physically more comfortable (vs. squeezing into pants that don’t really fit) and would have felt much better about myself.
2. Same goes for exercise clothes. And PSA: Old Navy has some really affordable activewear options that look cute and fit great.
3. Exercise – but specifically, keep up with strength training as long as possible! The first half of this pregnancy was constant nausea and puking so exercising regularly (or at all) was really difficult; I often opted out of my 1x a week Orangetheory class in favor of a nap on the couch. While I’m glad I listened to my body, I also wish I would have mustered up some energy early on to keep up with a semi-regular routine that included strength because after the nausea faded, my back and hips started to hurt in ways that I think could have been alleviated if my quads, hamstrings, IT band and back were stronger as my belly grew. I’ve kept as active as possible but once that belly starts to get bigger, it’s harder to stay limber and strong in the same ways.
4. If possible, swim for exercise. I am not a swimmer. I know how to swim but I am terrible at it. But I tell you what, getting into a lap pool to swim laps is 1) a full body workout and 2) weightless and amazing. I didn’t start swimming until about 30 weeks and will definitely do so much sooner next time (though, I’m not sure I’ll stop, post-pregnancy!). In the same vein as #1, I recommend investing in a larger swimsuit as you feel the old one getting too small. I waited as long as possible which was uncomfortable (<– understatement) for everyone involved.
5. Prenatal massage (or a prenatal chiropractor) is WORTH IT. My friend, Nancy, gifted me a certificate for a prenatal massage early in my pregnancy and I held off cashing in until just a few weeks ago. HOLY. COW. It changed my world. My hips and back have been sore/tight/painful since about week 25ish and no amount of at-home stretching or prenatal yoga had seemed to help. When I asked my midwife what to do about it, she suggested seeing a chiro who specializes in prenatal techniques, specifically the Webster Method. Of course, I changed jobs soon after and did not prioritize this. But during my prenatal massage, some of the chiro techniques were used and I walked out of the massage feeling like a new woman. I was pain free for multiple days! So next time, I’m either going to the chiro regularly or booking regular prenatal massages, starting on/around 20 weeks. (Also, being able to lay on my stomach…HEAVEN).