Motherhood: Lessons, Celebrating SIX and a First More Challenging Mountain Bike Experience

In light of staying with my writing flow, I'm forcing strongly encouraging myself to sit down and write.  I have no preplanned post or pressing idea to write about.  However, it IS my youngest son's birthday today,  June 25th.  The house is quiet with sleeping kids, my coffee hot, and I'm waking up with such a heart full of gratitude and love.  So happy to celebrate SIX with my little guy and to see him walk down the stairs and see his presents and enjoy this day he's been buzzing about and counting down to for almost a month now.

Such a gift it is to watch our children grow...  

What a journey motherhood has been.  A gift beyond any measure.  Each of my children, unique...beautiful...wise.  I've learned from them.  I've been challenged, stretched, and gained lessons I never imagined.  I've learned about
love
patience
heartache
frustration
hurt...

I've learned that when you see your children succeed and find true happiness, it fills your heart with such contentment and joy.
I've learned that when your child struggles and is hurting, our hearts can feel pain like we never imagined.
I've learned what it means to love unconditionally...that you can be angry and disappointed and hurt but yet still love so fiercely.
I've learned more than ever that each day is a new page to start over and be the best we can... hard work, forgiveness, acceptance...
I've learned that when I love myself and show my kids my imperfection as well as my strengths, I'm giving them a gift that is priceless.

I've always thought this picture sums this little guy up quite well!  SPUNK! 

My sweet boy is six today. How did SIX Happen?!  Oh, what a journey it's been.  Woo wee, he has rocked my world in ways I never expected!! It's been a wild and beautiful ride and I'm so grateful to have years to come.  He's been the source of so much of my writing on here...I've vented, celebrated, poured my heart out, and done an incredible amount of parenting processing with him in mind.  Some of my favorites with him in mind:

• The Kissing Rocks
• Using the Tools in Our Tool Belt
• Legos, Like Life and Motherhood
• Period, Prick and Pissing on the Playground (An oldie but goodie...oh, there were days back when he was 2 and 3 that I thought I'd never get to an easier place!!)

And an excerpt from this post when he was two and I was neck deep in BOY energy:  Two Year Old Boy.  No Wonder I Run.  

One wild,
full of life,
ready to take on the world,
LOUD,
Always-HUNGRY

Demanding,
binky-loving,
purse-wearing,

penis grabbing,
mischief-making,
potty mouth,
spark-in-his-eye,
gum swiping (and swallowing),
lipstick borrowing,

too smart for his own good,
flash of

TWO YEAR OLD BOY!!

Gosh, I love this little guy.
But
I
AM
TIRED!


So Tired.


And Humbled Daily by this child that seems to push every last button and tap into every last bit of energy that I have.  This two-year old boy train is a way different ride than the two-year old girl train was.  And combining it with the four-year old emotional girl train...well, woooo weeee!  I need my marathon training just to keep me SANE.  But it really isn't working because on any given day, I'm pretty CRAZY.
Nuts
Pulling my hair out.
THAT MOM with crap all over her face and shirt,
You know, the one that can't control her kid in the store.
The mom that is basically wearing a sign that says "Do as I say not as I Do" since she is yelling at her kid to stop yelling and use an inside voice.

The mom that has obviously run out of tricks about a week ago or just too tired to use them and now just tries desperately to convince her toddler and everyone else that she really is the one in control even if she doesn't believe it.

Yep, that's me.


But life is still good.  Just busy.  My bundle of boy blesses me greatly and, as all my children do, teaches me about myself and all the riches that life has to offer.  I wouldn't trade my days with him for all the money in the world.


I love you my sweet boy.   Thank you for adding color to my life.  You are a blessing.  

So much more I'd want to express in this post if I had time.  How can you wrap up motherhood and what your child means to you when you only have 15-20 minutes to type?  I can't.  This morning before writing here, I wrote to my son in the journal I've kept for him since before he was born (I've done this with all my kids).  As I was flipping through the pages and remembering snippets of his life over the years, I found letters, first words, funny memories, birthday pictures from each year of his life, hand prints... so glad for these treasures!  What a treasure.  And someday... this journal and the posts about him (even the ones about him being ornery) will be a gift to him when/if he becomes a father.  

---------------------------------------------

Her fearlessness and strength inspires me!  

And now for a quick 10 minute afternoon minutes to wrap this up.  Since I wrote the above, we've celebrated with a birthday breakfast and presents, and done a birthday celebration at my son's school (also his last day at this Montessori school).  In between camp drop-offs and pick-ups, I made my way to some of my favorite trails where I can run for miles and my dog can run leash-free most of the year.  This spot also offers some of the best mountain biking around so my ten-year-old daughter took her bike along and tried her first more difficult mountain biking experience.  She ROCKED it!  She amazes  me.  Even on some of the more technical portions of these trails, she radiated fearlessness and strength. Down steep hills, around boulders, powering up climbs, navigating the curves through trees and then hitting up the jumps at the end! I saw a side to her I've never quite seen before and qualities I admire greatly!  She almost has me wanting to try mountain biking but I'll leave the more extreme sports to her and her Dad and I'll stick to running trails...I feel much more in CONTROL this way!  So special to share these trails with her in this way and hear her marvel at the beauty in much the same way as I do.  

So neat when we get to a place with raising our kids where we realize they are grown up in ways we haven't seen yet.  Capable.  Strong.  Independent.  When we see them taking on the world fearlessly!  When we can actually take them along on our adventures and have them not only keep up but WOW and inspire us!  Maybe someday she will go Mountain Biking with me and teach me a thing or two!  Until then, I'm excited to have her along while I run. 

I'll end this post with a comment on my last post (about my triathlon and wetsuit lessons I've learned so far) that made me laugh!  Heather says: 

 "It took me a good ten minutes of struggle to get my wetsuit on for the first time. Then an athlete who had been watching me the whole time approached me to tell me the zipper goes in back. Argh!!!!!!

I love swimming though! I'm that weird one!!"

Happy Thursday!  Those of you in Oregon:  Stay cool this weekend!  Holy HOT temps!! 

Amanda

Mostly on Instagram with my blog these days with pictures and long captions.  :) 

WordPress Learning Curve! And Goal Setting with Kids at Run with Me Kids

Please join me today on Run with Me Kids for a post on Goal Setting with Kids!  And bear with me as I try to get used to WordPress!  Yikes, hello learning curve!!  Our website is surely a work. in. progress!!  Not only am I trying to find my writing voice, but I still haven't figured out how to change font size, type, or color.  We also need to change the format, header, add some features to fancy it up and so much more.  Tips welcome!  I think I might just need to ask some WordPress saavy friend to help a girl out.

I'll be back to Runninghood soon (ah, just typing here right now feels so comfortable and familiar after posting on another blog) to share some of my personal goals with running (15 weeks to Boston!), life, and parenting!  I'm itching to write and catch up on a few of my favorite blogs now that the winter break is over and we have routine again!

Amanda 

What's Up? Running, Parenting, Life: Goals and Happenings

Running
Training for my May 50k and Boston started this week.  I'm excited to be more focused about my running, goals, and fitness.  With this comes more intention with my diet, strength work, and stretching/rolling/maintenance.  These are things I should have in mind year round but they become all the more important when I'm asking more from my body physically.  My training this time around will be different in many ways. Just a few differences from the past:

1. Most my runs will be on trails
2. Less focus on specific times and more focus on effort
3. At least 2/3 of my runs will be without my Garmin.  I'd like to run based off effort and feel.  
4. Less focus on a goal time and more focus on my experience and what I'm getting from running overall.  I want to run strong in my races but not make it all about a PR on the clock this time.  
5. The plan so far is for Boston to be a training run, not a race where I race all out.  
6. Race without a Garmin!  I want Boston to be about feel and the overall experience without letting my Garmin tell me what I should and shouldn't be running for each mile.  I'm sick of looking down at my wrist every mile.  For Christmas, I asked for a good old Ironman Timex watch just like I used to have.  
7. Less mileage and speed work and more back to back endurance runs. 

As of now, my plan is to use a basic plan from Relentless Forward Progress where my mileage will be up to 50 miles a week.  In the past I've run between 55 to 65 miles as my general average (my highest weekly mileage at 85...this was too much for me).  I think a lower mileage will be just fine for my goals. I will also pull one faster paced workout per week from Advanced Marathoning.  This will alternate between tempo and vo2max work.  If I'm feeling strong, I might do two a week or incorporate some of the threshold work into a longer run.  It's hard to judge pace on the trails (one reason for no Garmin on most runs) but I'd still like 8 min pace to come easy and natural for me when running on flat.  The other day I did take the Garmin out to see where I was with this and high 7s/low 8s felt just right like they should at this point after building a base. I'll still be keeping a training journal but this time I'm trying out the Believe Journal.  I love so much about this book...the feel, format, font...all of it is inspiring!  I can tell a lot of passion went into putting this journal together.  

I've always kept a training journal in just an ordinarynotebook. This has worked great for me and led to growth and opportunities to reflect, dream, be my best self...my journals are treasures!  Now that training mode is starting again, I'm excited to start digging into this beauty!  Just from my first flip, I love what I see.  It makes me itch to put pen to paper and start writing my goals and plans!  From font to format to feel, it is well composed/compiled!  

Parenting

We are definitely in a different stage with our kids now that they are well within 9, 7, 5.  One of our main things we are wanting to be intentional with is helping our kids continue to take responsibility and ownership over their learning, family contributions, and daily tasks.  We also want them to learn about the value and management of money.  We want to incorporate an allowance into family life but we don't want it to just be about paying them to do things they should already be doing as contributing members of this family.  So, last night we had our family meeting and came up with a list of family contributions and things we want them to do weekly.  We also discussed the difference between getting paid out of reward vs. an opportunity to learn about money while still meeting their family expectations and contributions. We set a dollar amount that we will give them monthly and as long as they are keeping up with their end of the deal, they get their full amount.  It isn't much at all but we are hopeful that this will teach them about saving, giving, and spending!  This is new to us so we are still finding our way and will see how it all unfolds.  Some of their family contributions and expectations (nothing really new):

• Keeping their rooms clean.  Not perfect (goodness knows mine isn't perfect!) but picked up at least once a week where they make it look clean and tidy.  
• Picking their stuff up from the downstairs and keeping their things where they belong.  
• Doing chores willingly as asked.
• RESPECT to each other! With tone of voice and actions.
• Read daily.  This should be a fun habit for them.  They can read whatever they want but we do expect this habit to be in place. 
• Writing.  We recently started asking our older kids to keep a journal.  The older kids are expected to write two pages a week.  One page is just whatever they want to write.  Again, this can be fun.  A story, rant, letter, poem, list, writing about their day or week or something they are excited about.  Their second page is a list of gratitude.  The goal here is to help them practice some habits that we feel can be beneficial to their lives.  The gratitude lists is self explanatory and we hope they will learn to recognize more things in their ordinary life to be grateful for as they begin this routine.  We've done this before but in the past we have had a family gratitude journal. As for the free write entry, we want this to be a way that they can get more fluid with their writing as well as be more reflective.  Maybe this habit/routine won't last and maybe it will.  For now, the girls have actually had fun with it the last month and they are picking it up on their own without having to be reminded.  

Life

I continue to work on adjusting to life in Bend, OR.  We've only been here since August so I can't expect it to feel completely normal just yet.  Slowly but surely.  The best thing (hands down!) about our home here are the miles and miles of trails outside my door.  I'm beyond grateful for this.  My biggest struggle in life at this time is COMPARISON and letting go.  Not comparison to others but comparison to what I had (and LOVED) in Asheville.  I've been quite stuck some days.  Missing and longing instead of moving on and giving my full energy to making THIS chapter a beautiful one.  So, I'm really working hard on this:  Moving forward with CONTENTMENT and gratitude.  I'm quite positive that when I open my heart and mind and truly give of myself here, I will find community, home, and connection.  So, the walls are coming down and I'm making it a priority to practice gratitude and positive thinking.  

Some personal goals:  

• Let go of the expectations of how it's supposed to be and embrace what it is.
• Instead of seeing all the things I'm not doing/accomplishing, feel good about what IS being done and what I can still do.  One thing at a time!
• Break things into smaller chunks.
• Do what I'm doing because I find meaning in it.  NOT because others are doing it or because I think it's what I'm supposed to do.  
• Get rid of comparison. Comparison to others or to my past self/life.  Comparison kills joy.
• Use my love language: Give and love in the ways that come naturally.  For me, this is through words of affirmation: letters, texts, conversation...full attention.  
• Slow down and make the time count.  
• Give my kids and husband my FULL attention at least once a day.  It doesn't have to be long to count. 
• Uplift, support, and love.  

Amanda

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Using the Tools in Our Tool Belt

It was especially quiet in the car on the way to school today.  Then I heard my five-year-old son say,

"Mom, I used a tool from my tool belt this morning."  

At first I didn't know what he was talking about. When I asked him what he meant, he said

  "When you said I couldn't wear those black shoes, I was really mad.  So, I came to the car where it was quiet so I could calm down and be in control of my choices. I used a tool."  

Huge smiles this morning!  Times like this are so affirming as mothers...reminders that we really ARE making a difference. The words and lessons we share with our kids ARE sinking in.  The past few weeks I've used the analogy of tools in a tool belt to fix things when it comes to helping my son make better choices and take control of his actions/words that stem from strong emotions.

Some of his tools:  

1. Go to a quiet place to calm down. 
2. Take a deep breath and count to 10 when he gets angry.
3. Ask friends and family for space.  
4. Use his words in a way where others can hear him (sharing his words with respect instead of throwing his words at others.  It's not always what we say but HOW we say it.) 
5. Express emotions and fears.  
6. Focus on the many things that make him happy rather than the one or two things making him unhappy.  
7. Try to let things go when you aren't getting what you want by focusing on something else you like to do.  The "Oh well, maybe later." tool.

Tools fix things. They help us accomplish a task and work towards something constructive rather than destructive.  This analogy isn't just helpful for my kids...it's helpful for me.  We all have tools. We have the tools to respond and act in the ways that compliment how we want our life to be.

If I think of all the tools I have in my tool belt that are unique to me, I'd say many of them are similar to the tools I've been helping my son use.  I truly understand this little guy with his box full of strong emotions and quirks (fear, anger, worry, frustration, getting overwhelmed easily, wanting to be in control, a little obsessive...) and I hope we can keep working together to make our days what we want them to be.  Parenting him has most definitely helped me grow into a stronger person.  Helping him work through his fears and emotions has meant having to do the same for myself.


 So, yes, kids, use your tools in life!  Mom will her hers too!

Amanda

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