And with autumn comes blessedly cooler temps - I can run at 10am on a Sunday, instead of having to get up at the crack of dawn on a weekend to beat the heat. I can run at 5:30pm without endangering myself. It's bliss.
This past year has been so hard for me to keep up my running. I look back at some of my blog entries, and I'm amazed that I've kept going at all. There's been so much illness, so much snow, so much record-breaking cold weather, record-smashing hot weather, that it's a wonder I have kept up training (even though it's not for more than a 10K) and set a PR in the 4 miler.
Autumn does this every year to me - the crisp, cool air rushes through, clears out the gnats and the stale air, and makes me feel like there is hope. Oh, the spring races I am planning!
And as my youngest leaves her babyhood behind, I'm getting little glimpses here and there of what it is like to have just a little more ease in my day. Not that parenting gets easier, but that so many of those tiny yet incessant demands on my time are easing up. I don't have to carry her everywhere, which means I don't have to make two trips from the car into the house at the end of the day. I don't have to completely mince every bite of food, which means that mealtime goes just an eensy bit faster. She can participate in dressing and undressing herself, which means getting her ready in the morning or in her jammies at night goes just that much more quickly.
And her brother - he can actually help with so many chores. He's not quite five but I can give him a dinner knife and soft things to cut up to help prepare dinner. I can give him pre-measured ingredients and he'll mix them together. He can buckle himself into his carseat. They'll both take their dishes to the sink or dishwasher.
When I think of every little thing that I do as a mom for my kids, things that people without kids just don't even consider, I wonder how it is that I get anything else done at all, let alone have a full time job! It's death by a thousand cuts - sure, it's only 30 seconds to pour another cup of milk, but I do that 3 times a day (at least) for each child. That's three minutes a day I spend just pouring milk. And I haven't changed a diaper (I do that 4-5 or more times a day, at about 2 minutes per), run a bath (2x/day, 10 minutes per), made a meal, reminded a busy boy to go to the potty, put a bandaid on a scrape, read a bedtime story, or soothed a toddler back to sleep in the middle of the night. How is it that there are even enough hours in the day to do all those things?
Yes, in case you were wondering, I am Superwoman.
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