self care – Page 2 – Mama Needs Coffee

About Me, motherhood, pregnancy, self care

Pregnancy and body image

July 19, 2017

I jokingly posted on Facebook yesterday about my enviable willpower at the grocery store involving a regular sized Snickers bar. (Spoiler alert: I ate the whole thing.)

Truth be told, pregnancy is a time of life for me that is is fraught with peril over food choices and body image, old issues creeping to the surface like so much first trimester acne, erupting in formerly smooth spots where I’d have sworn only a few months ago there were no lingering scars, that I’d successfully exorcised these particular demons.

And I don’t think I’m alone in this experience. For my thin and not-so-thin friends alike, there is something uniquely vulnerable about child bearing, about your body becoming not-your-own in a way that is so radical and externalized, inviting commentary and observation from the outside world as it does. It doesn’t seem to matter if a mom is 120 or 190 pounds when she starts growing that baby; it can be jarring whether you’re moving from a size four or a size fourteen.

I used to roll my eyes when my really skinny friends complained about topping out at their full term weight that was within spitting distance of my “healthy” (or at least, typical) before weight. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that even my objectively beautiful friends have their own issues, and that few are the women who stand before a full length mirror fully satisfied, for better or for worse. My girlfriend with the enviable self control at the appetizer tray and a 27 inch waist hates her hair and her nose. She thinks her arms are too big and she wishes her c-section scars could be erased.

When I look in the mirror and see a stomach wrecked by life-giving love and arms that my dad once jokingly dubbed as “baby cranes”(you know, for hoisting babies. All my sisters share this gem of a family trait.), I know I’m looking through eyes that some have admired for their shape and color, past a nose I’ve been told is perfect, pursing lips that are just the right fullness and look great with color on them.

Fresh faced and 27 years young at 35 weeks along with Joey. Still enormous. #shorttorsoproblems (he was born at 37 weeks, 1 ounce shy of 9 pounds)

So it doesn’t seem that all the objective beauty in the world can quite make up for the perceived subjective flaws we all see in ourselves. And for me, the unique spiritual/emotional/physical triple punch of pregnancy is prime time for all the self loathing. My belly is cute, but only with help of the right shapeware. After 5 pregnancies “firm” is not a word that can be accurately applied, at least not at 4 months along. My skin doesn’t glow, unless the adolescent eruption of redness counts for at least a nice change of pace. And worst of all, as I see the numbers creeping upward on the scale week after week, my resolve to treat this body well melts away like the dregs of a Dairy Queen blizzard, leaving behind a sticky, high fructose corn syrup mess of regret by 8 pm most nights.

If I’m going to gain weight anyway, I reason, it’s hard to not slip into a YOLO mentality where MSG is concerned. I can’t explain why my pregnancy cravings have more to do with processed chemicals than any real food, except that it’s stuff I’d only rarely “let” myself eat during normal life, and that pregnancy feels like a kind of free for all so what the hell, I shrug, eating the stupid chips.

I struggled with an eating disorder from age 15 until about age 26, more than a decade lost to a vicious cycle of binging and purging. When I was a 2-practices-a-day competitive swimmer and track athlete it was easy enough to mask the damage being done. I think that I even attributed some of my svelte body to the behavior, not realizing that I was wrecking my metabolism in the process.

Now, half a lifetime later, some of those same feelings surface again each time that second little pink line shows up. If I can keep the first trimester gain below 10 pounds I consider it a victory, knowing that I’ll be limping across the finish line at 40 weeks having gained about 40 more pounds. I’ve had pregnancies where I exercised 6 days a week, limited carbs, even maintained a running schedule into the third trimester, and every one of my children has come bearing the gift of a 50 pound weight gain.

This most recent break between Luke and Cinco Bing was our longest lull between babies, and so I didn’t just shed the baby weight from his pregnancy, but also the excess that was still hanging on from his 3 older siblings, for a whopping total of 65 pounds lost.

What I can’t explain is why I don’t feel ecstatic about that. Even if I gain my usual 50 this time, I’ll still be 15 pounds shy of where Luke the giant Duke took me. But the thought of gaining the 50 pounds again is mentally crushing. The memory of rolling over in bed with a huge, distorted abdomen pulling on my lower back, trying in vain to find a comfortable sleeping position. The 16 months of careful dieting and exercise it took to get back to a manageable number. The fact that I’m older than I’ve ever been for this pregnancy, that I’m tired, that the mere thought of having to try to lose that weight again only to have it (very likely) come piling back on if we ever welcome number 6.

The hardest part of being open to life for me is this radical, bodily loss of self. It’s not the sleeplessness, the financial strain, the emotional toil or the creativity required to keep 4 other humans alive. So far, at least, it’s this: that my body is not my own, and that I have no realistic hope that it will be for quite some time. And by the time I get it back, it won’t be something that I’m all that thrilled to have autonomy over again.

Do I feel recklessly selfish admitting this? You betcha. Call me a selfish, self centered millennial who wants to look good in pictures, but I hate the way I’m being called to give myself away, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left but the knowledge of having loved and having been loved. I feel like the Velveteen friggin rabbit, and it should fill me with sacrificial joy and satisfaction but mostly it fills me with resentment and dread.

8 months postpartum after number 2, I remember thinking I was soooooo fat in this picture.

Because I still want to be of this world. I still want to be pretty on Instagram. I love when people raise their eyebrows and tell me I don’t “look like” I’ve had four kids. I want all the accolades that come with being thin and fit and pulled together, and I want to offer a living sacrifice made of something other than my literal, actual body. Pretty much anything but this

And that’s just not how it works.

Most people won’t look awesome after more than 2 kids. Which is perhaps why many women (not all – please don’t mistake this for obtuse ignorance of infertility, I beg you) stop there. And those women who do look like petite tennis players after birthing 6 strapping boys? Would probably have looked that way anyway, babies or no, because genetics.

I have to learn the balance here. Which is perhaps why God has given me yet another amazing little life to nurture, the lesson having been not fully grasped in a haze of Doritos and prodromal labor 4 times over. While my body is a gift that I am invited to freely give, it will be taken from me whether or not I cooperate willingly. And I sometimes think I’m self-sabotaging with the poor eating habits and indulgences spanning 10 long months because “the weight’s gonna pile on anyway,” which is accurate enough, though a pound of roasted sweet potatoes is probably not equivalent to a pound of potato chips, all things being equal.

Leaving for the hospital in early labor with Luke. I can’t even.

How then, to gracefully, willingly, joyfully give myself away this time? Entering into a spirit of real self gift, not resigned fatalism and death by chocolate.

I don’t know the answer. But I know that God has some healing here, in this place that is so deeply wounded, torn open afresh by the gift of another new life.

Yes, I will probably still gain a ton more weight than my doctor would like to see. And no, I’ll probably never have a celebrity pregnancy invisible from the back and erased by 8 weeks postpartum. But I can change my attitude. I can beg Him to change my heart. I can enter into this time of waiting and preparation with open hands, asking the Lord what He wants to show me about the broken ways I see myself and the broken relationship I have with my own body, hoping that even for a grand multipara of advanced maternal age, there is still hope for reconciliation.

I wanted to put this all out there in case I’m not alone, in case there are other women who struggle in this way, who aren’t completely thrilled with their bodies – babies on board or no – and who are still walking along that road of recovery, hoping for an eventual miracle: to not care about food, and to be at peace with their bodies.

I don’t have the answer, but I’m glad to have been given another opportunity to get in the ring and fight.

I don’t want to wake up and be 50 years old, still filled with self loathing over the reflection in the storefront window. I want to be healed. And I want to believe that things can be made new in an area of my life that feels, frankly, unredeemable.

But He makes all things new. Even, I want to believe, tired old moms with teenage insecurities still clinging tightly like spandex on hips.

About Me, mindfulness, reality check, self care, social media

Disconnect: ditching my smartphone in search of a better connection

April 4, 2017

I’ve been feeling a little tug on the old heartstrings these past 4 weeks of Lent. It began as a bit of a wild hair (hare? Rabbit or follicle growth?) the fleeting thought “you should get rid of your phone” which I promptly batted down with a vengeance. Because wuuuuut. Really, what? Who could live in such a way?

I’ve written before about my addictive smartphone habits (be careful the things you swear you’ll “never” do) and my kind of pitiful attempts at self regulation. So this has been no bolt from the blue. But still? To step away entirely? Seems a little dramatic. And why would I be dramatic? Nobody in my family is dramatic.

But the nudges kept coming. At different times, like stuck in traffic and finding myself frantically scrabbling a blind hand in the bottom of my purse, whereisitwhereisitwhereisitdidIleaveitohcrapwhereisit…there it is. And then feeling a subsiding tide of stress tamp down because I had found it, my precious.

And for what? So that I could flip frantically to the last page of my home screen – where I banished all my social apps and alerts – and see if any new dopamine hits had come in since 9 minutes ago when I’d last checked?

I am not painting a flattering self portrait. Intentionally so. I will be honest with you as I have been increasingly honest with myself this past month or so: I am addicted to my smartphone.

I am addicted to the internet in general, as I imagine many (most?) of us are these days, but it’s a whole lot more manageable, at least for me personally, when it isn’t living in my purse or pocket.

Several times during March I experimented with “blackout hours/days,” leaving the phone connected to the charger, going out for a run or a walk or even on an errand (gasp) without my phone, and I don’t think that I can adequately convey to you the level of anxiety that surged up within me walking out of the house without my trusty device in hand. But curiously – or perhaps it is no curiosity at all – after a few minutes adjustment, maybe 15 or 20, I was stilled. Settled. Resigned that I was going to get nothing in particular “done” in this little chunk of time aside from whatever it is that I’d set out to actually do, whether it was the library with the kids, a long walk through the neighborhood, or a trip to the store.

And it changed things. It has changed the way I react to the world. The way I smell things, (did you know things still have smells?) the people with whom I interact, (mostly my own people, because I almost always have tots in tow) and it changes the pace and rhythm of those specific moments in my day.

I reach over and over and over again into a phantom pocket, hand drifting unconsciously to scour beneath the stroller hood, fingers itching to unlock and swipe and capture. (Admittedly, I have missed some cute pictures.) I may have to start carrying a real, live camera again. Or taking notes. So retro.

But in exchange, I think I stand a chance at getting part of my life back.

I don’t think everyone struggles in this way with technology. But I do think the unconscious, blanket adaptation of every new technology to come down the pike en masse is a real problem.

I don’t think every technology is good for every person.

And I will go so far as to say that on the whole, on a cultural level, connective technology is taking more from us than it is giving in return. We are not more connected, but less so. And at a dear price.

So that’s my piece of it, anyway. In search of a little more peace, I’m trading in a piece of hardware and a whole lot of convenience and connectivity for the ability to go … slower. To be in the dark sometimes. To be intentionally unavailable to most everyone so that I can be tightly focused and targeted on five somebodies who depend on me and deserve my undivided presence. (that’s one husband + four kids, not an announcement.)

I’ve spent a lot of time being loosely available and vaguely attentive to a lot of things over the past 6 years or so of smartphone ownership. I haven’t had a lot of good boundaries or hard stops in place, however, which could help me divide and truly be attentive to the various aspects of my vocation that demand not just physical but also emotional and intellectual presence.

I was trying to mentally tally the amount of time I probably spend on this little device throughout the day, whether for looking up a recipe, reading directions, taking photos, scrolling through apps, and leaving voxes and I flinched when I came up with a number. Tried to remember if I could find anything in my own childhood to compare it with, was there anything my mom spent 5 or more hours a day doing, extracurricular to her parenting? Was it possible she spent 5 hours a day watching television, or on the phone, or reading books?

Not likely. Not during the investment years where she was buried in babies and pouring the foundation for her family’s life. I’m sure she wished most days for a lifeline, an outlet, a support network and in so many instances, my phone has facilitated that for me. And I don’t want to dismiss that or cheapen the reality that in moments, the phone has been a life saver. But those real, important benefits do not, in my life, outweigh the steep cost of distraction. Of unease. Of missing moments and becoming more and more deaf to the movements of the Holy Spirit throughout the day, of the little nudges that God has something to say to me but I need to phone a friend and process it with her first.

So that’s a problem.

And this is my solution.

It won’t be everybody’s solution, and it’s no call for an analog revolution. But I hope if there is something that He is trying to say to you, you feel more free to hear him speaking than I have. I hope if it’s this very issue that He has been in your ear about, tugging on your sleeve, tapping on your shoulder…well, I hope this is a little jolt of solidarity from the ether, a confession that, yeah, me too. I’m also having a hard time with this.

In the meantime, I have no plans to abandon the blog. Or my laptop. The technological revolution is here to stay. And I’m going to pick and choose the winnings from the wreckage and say, yeah, this, this works for me. This fits in my life. And this doesn’t. And discard what isn’t helpful, and full steam ahead with what is.

So long little smartphone. We’ve had some good moments together, and you’ve captured some treasured memories. But I’d like to try my hand again at making some on my own. (Also, you make my ear really, really hot sometimes and I’m a little worried that might be a bad thing #samsungproblems.)

Peace out.

About Me, Catholic Spirituality, prayer, self care

2017: a saint, a word, and some idiot proof habits

January 10, 2017

Well, it’s that time of year again where the New Year’s resolution you made 11 days ago is maybe losing it’s shine, and maybe you’re looking ahead to starting up in February instead, right?

No? Just me?

Actually, this year has been a little different so far, 10 whole days in. Maybe it’s because the ball dropped amidst an endless storm of viral illnesses in our household. Maybe it’s because I possessed the strength of character and courage of conviction of a newborn kitten when I made my little list, but at any rate, here’s what I came up with, and what is actually, so far, sticking.

First of all, my “word” for 2017. Trust. I shiver in anticipation at what that might mean. And it’s not a good shiver. (See why I need to work on this one?)

Well see.

And the habits? They’re really complicated. Ready?

1. Pray for 5 minutes a day. Preferably the first 5 minutes (but not necessarily the first. Because that little resolution has killed me dead so many times over.) This sounds ridiculous, right? Because I write for a Catholic organization, my kids go to a beautiful Catholic school, heck, sometimes I even go to daily Mass. Maybe one or two times a week, this season. So surely I was already, you know, praying on a regular daily basis.

Weeeeeeeell. Not necessarily. I mean Holy Mass absolutely “counts,” but Mass with 3 or 4 small companions writhing under my arms is generally not a prayerful experience for me. It must be a personality flaw. I go to Mass to desperately dart up the center aisle to receive Jesus with sometimes a child literally dangling from each armpit, feeling not unlike a savage animal baring my teeth to Father who bemused, places the God of the Universe on my waiting, awkwardly extended and probably not stuck out far enough past my teeth why can’t I get this down after 20+ years of receiving the Eucharist???? tongue. And then I run back down the side aisle, screaming tots dangling, and finish up my prayers of thanksgiving in the vestibule. So, no, not terribly prayerful in the recollected sense.

But 5 minutes with my Bible in my lap and maybe even a coffee? That’s heavenly. And I can do it. I can pray for 5 minutes. My fractured millennial attention span, further aggravated by sleep deprivation and internet browsing, can handle 5 minutes. I can even lock myself in the bathroom to accomplish it. Theoretically.

And that’s my big spiritual resolution for the year. That I pray for 5 minutes a day. With 5 minutes being the minimum threshold. So some days I might pull off 20 minutes, circumstances permitting. But the minimum is all I’m shooting for, which makes it almost impossible to talk myself out of it/forget about it.

Now, onward to ambitious effort number two:

2. Run one lap around the park across the street, every day. This one seems grandiose, but believe me that it is not. I mapped it out after the first time I did it, mentally patting myself on the back for having “a perfect one mile loop literally on my doorstep!” The mapmyrun verdict? .62 miles. Cackle. Guess I’m not quite in the fighting shape I’d imagined.

It has been so good though. Because it takes 10 minutes. I don’t have to get in the car and drive to the gym (but on the days I do that, I just run 1 mile on the treadmill at a laughably slow pace, and sometimes a little further. But 1 mile is all I “have” to do on an indoor run.

When Dave gets home from work, if I haven’t done it yet, I throw on some running shoes and disappear out the door for 12 minutes of stretching and running. Sometimes it turns into 20, if I’ve gotten dinner already going and the mood strikes me. But either way, I get that one lap in. And it feels awesome. About a month ago when I was going through a really rough patch, my best friend left me a Voxer message telling me “RUN! You’re a runner! Put your shoes on and go! It’s your thing, I know you!” And even though I LOL’d and rolled my eyes almost inside of my forehead at that, it resonated pretty deeply, nudging awake a little part of myself that had been buried under stretches of sleepless nights and long months of pregnancy. I was a runner, I told her in my reply message, a little indignant, but if I were to try that again, my body would fall apart. My hips would get out of alignment, my back would hurt, I’d pee my pants, I rattled off a whole list of geriatric complaints for why I couldn’t run run anymore. And then I went and I thought about it for a couple weeks, feeling alternately mad and excited by the prospect, however remote it seemed.

Maybe I couldn’t train for a half marathon right now (or maybe I could and I’m just too busy/too lazy/too tired), but I could probably run like, a mile a day, right? At about a 12 minute pace. So we’re talking extremely gentle here. I could probably do that. But what would be the point? Besides, I’d look stupid. People driving past me would probably honk at me for looking so stupid, or stop to ask me if I was okay. I concocted a million unlikely scenarios that involved strangers rolling down their car windows to laugh at my sad, slow run…and then I laced up my shoes and jogged out the front door on New Year’s Eve.

One lap.

I came back inside flushed and exhilarated and totally hooked again, becuase I forgot how good it can feel, how the endorphins flow just with the littlest bit of effort, and how it isn’t what you wear or even how you look that makes you a runner; it’s if you run.

If you run, then you’re a runner.

I’ve been tracking these little daily habits in the Catholic Women’s Companion which has all but converted me to keeping a non-digital planner, and I can see that I’ve run 9 miles so far in 2017. That’s a hell of a lot of miles. That’s a round trip to school. That’s a one-way jaunt to the Bronco’s stadium, as the crow flies. And over the past 11 days, I ran it on foot. In my not-so-in-shape, 34 year old mom body.

That feels pretty dang good.

Finally, I clicked over to ye olde Saint Name Generator that Jen puts up every year, and got myself a patron for 2017: Pope St. Leo the Great. Doctor of the Church. First Pope to be dubbed “the great,” defender of the hypostatic union of Christ, developer of the Petrine Doctrine, reasoner with Attila the Hun. Pretty rad guy all around. I love me some popes, as anyone reading for more than a little while can attest to, so I was happy to get such a saint for the year.

So that’s the plan. A couple little daily habits so unobtrusive that even a lazy hag can grind them out. And if my calculations are accurate, even if most days I opt for the bare minimum of a single lap (.65 miles) and 5 minutes in prayer, by December 31st, 2017, I’ll have run 237 and a quarter miles, and spent 1,825 minutes, or more than 30 hours, in prayer.

I’ll take it.

How about you guys?

Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, mental health, mindfulness, self care

Mindful Mondays: vol. 2

November 21, 2016

I’ve been falling further and further behind in my online viewing of the mindfulness courses I’m enrolled in, but I’ve been exercising more and more compassion towards myself about the fact that in this season of life, I can’t keep up with everything I’ve set my hand to. And sometimes that includes not being able to honor commitments I’ve made, even if only to myself.

I’m counting that a huge win.

Maybe you know this about me from reading for even a little while, but I’m a leeeetle bit of a perfectionist. Which is not a particularly healthy way to live. And, with 4 young children stacked fairly deep, nor is it a particularly realistic way to live these days. (<-I question the grammatical accuracy of that sentence structure, but not intensely enough to google it.)

So yes, self compassion. A an essential piece of the practical application of mindfulness. Does it ever happen to you that you’re sitting down listening to a homily, trying to pray a rosary, maybe even having a conversation with someone and you catch yourself zoning out and then the negative self talk starts…great, you totally missed the first 15 minutes to that. Why do I even bother. What’s the point of trying to pray. Ugh, if she knew I was thinking about the grocery list when he’s pouring out her heart to me…and so on.

I’m stopping myself now when the spiral starts and gently, with compassion (kind of crucial and not necessarily natural to me!), redirecting my attention back to whatever it is I’m doing in the present moment. I can’t explain how much this has helped with the practice of prayer, and even in going through the mindfulness course itself. I catch myself wandering, see the wandering thoughts as “mental events happening in my brain,” and then bring that attention right back to the present moment. No judgment, no angsting over what I missed or what it says about me as a person. And it’s great.

The other observation I have now that I’m halfway through the 8-part course offered by CatholicPsych Institute is how much more present I am to my children, and how much more possible (note: not easy) it is to stay there. I’m finding myself more attuned to their needs and emotions throughout the day, and I’m a little ashamed (but not a lot, because compassion!) of how often I was tuning them out before, especially when being “tuned in” to them required me to suffer in any way, not least of all, by being bored.

So, in the past, it has not been unusual for me to do a lot of parenting, especially in that delightful 4-6 pm time slot, on autopilot. Kind of numbing myself out to the stress/effort of the task by not really focusing on them, but by robotically doling out after school snacks, assembling dinner, barking orders for peaceful sibling play, and usually succumbing to at least a show or three as they wheedled and whined and honestly, were just trying to get my attention. My authentic attention.

Now that I’m being more mindful of what they’re saying and doing, especially during the witching hour (if ever a name were apt, that’s the one), we’re experiencing a more harmonious home life. I wouldn’t say their behavior has improved in any significant way, but that my behavior (which is the only thing I can actually control, control freak) has improved noticeably. I’m not as productive as I was a month ago, but my kids are getting more of me. And I know I’ve heard some wiser parent say it before, but the more I intentionally lean into those hard moments of motherhood, the stronger those muscles grow. When I zone them out for an hour while I’m pulling a Gayle Waters-Waters on the kitchen and dining room floors and leave them to their own devices, scrapping verbally over the Magic School Bus verses Lego Friends, we both re-engage at the dinner table in decidedly less than pleasant demeanors.

Finally, I’m observing my own limits and capacity for what Dr. Bottoro refers to as “the shallow waters of pain” both mentally (as demonstrated above) and physically, and not running from every experience of discomfort. An oncoming headache doesn’t need to be immediately medicated as something to avoid at all costs, but might be a sign that I’m dehydrated or overly caffeinated. A stubbed toe doesn’t mean that I need to scream obscenities and drop my basket of laundry in a dramatic scene, but that I can lean into the small moment of suffering and observe in myself the feelings of pain, discomfort, surprise, and anger that actually won’t end up killing me.

I haven’t totally unpacked what it means to be mindful in moments of pain and suffering, but from the light dabbing I’ve done, I can see why mindfulness was initially created as a tool for pain management by patients with chronic, unnamable conditions. We’re talking people who morphine couldn’t help. But their own minds, thoughtful and observant and curious about the sensations and circumstances they were experiencing, very often, could.

It’s pretty mysterious and awe-inspiring stuff, what our brains and bodies can accomplish together.

I’m not sure this week of holiday busyness and travel and festivities will bring a lot of time for me to catch up on my missed lessons or travel much further into the course, but I am 100% certain that the skill of “leaning in” will come in handy when Thursday roles around. 🙂

I’ll leave you with the opening lines of what Dr. Bottaro calls “the sacramental pause,” at least as I am understanding it. It begins with a prayer:

“Ever present God, here with me now. Help me to be here now, with You.”

Isn’t that beautiful? May you feel His presence in the present moment today, too.

About Me, budgeting, self care, THM

Trim Healthy Mama hacks: cheap and cheats

November 7, 2016

One of the most frequent questions I’ve gotten about THM since I first mentioned it back in August has been “can you do this on a budget?” And to that I answer a hearty “yes,” yes you can. I did buy a couple of the recommended “specialty” ingredients when I first got started (and I bought the THM brand of them because having it land on my porch 4 days later was easier than hitting up Whole Foods or Natural Grocers, and cheaper too) and I’ve been happy with them. But, aside from the collagen powder, I actually don’t think they’re necessary to do the plan well.

I have fallen in love with the collagen stirred into my black espresso in the morning and it has made my nails fantastically indestructible and long. Like pregnancy long. My hair has yet to be impacted, but I have big dreams. Big dreams, I tell you.

Anyway, in retrospect, were I to do it over (and when I do reorder in a couple months) I will probably only get the collagen again. I also bought their gelatin, the super sweet stevia/xylitol blend, and their whey powder. I do use the whey powder in my smoothies occasionally, but I can’t detect a real difference whether or not I do. The sweet blend is fine for sprinkling into drinks or adding to aforementioned smoothies, but I don’t like it in baked goods and my kids don’t like it in everything. The gelatin I just find to be redundant when I am already using the collagen so much. And since it “sets” when cooled, it makes leftover stew turn (temporarily) into jello when refrigerated, which is kind of entertaining but also kind of gross.

Some of my real staples for doing this plan, however, are just regular grocery store items that haven’t impacted our budget bottom line at all. Here are some of my absolute necessities for making THM work for me:

Frozen okra. This one I was majorly skeptical about, but it actually does have the magical, thickening quality they talk about in the book and it actually does make smoothies taste like milkshakes and gives chilis and soups a restaurant-quality mouthfeel. It is completely tasteless to me, so I use it with reckless abandon in white chicken chili and chocolate peanut butter smoothies alike. My King Soopers (maybe Kroger to you) sells it for $.99/bag in the frozen section, and I go through about a bag every 2 weeks. It’s dirt cheap.

Peanut powder. This was one of those ingredients I rolled my eyes haaaaard over when reading about it in their encyclopedic book. Because come on, live a little. Peanut butter is awesome.

Well, peanut butter is awesome, but in THM world it’s also always a crossover food because it’s loaded with fat and carbs. So it’s not a good weight loss option. (Duh? But what can I say, I have the palate of a 5 year old.) I found this Jif brand pressed peanut powder that has about 80% of the calories and really most of the flavor of peanut butter. Allegedly you can add water to it and reconstitute it to approximate something spreadable, but since I don’t hate myself I’ve kept to stirring it into smoothies and yogurt.

Which brings me to my next favorite: Oikos triple zero greek yogurt. I’m late to the greek yogurt fan club because frankly, what’s the big deal about yogurt? Well, when ice cream is off the table, yogurt suddenly looks pretty dang good. This stuff is on plan and tastes great when mixed with either the peanut powder I mentioned or straight dark cocoa powder (I prefer Trader Joe’s brand). It’s a satisfying “dessert” kind of thing after dinner, or it’s a good standalone snack in it’s own right. I can find these for about $3.50 per 4-pack at the store, so they’re not dirt cheap, but they’re a sight more affordable than Ben and Jerry’s or anything at Starbucks.

Speaking of the green monster. Listen, I try to use my consumer dollars to advocate for truth and justice and the American way as often as I can, but when fall rolls around I am putty in the hands of the PSL. But the PSL (that’s pumpkin spice latte for you non basic b’s out there) is emphatically not THM approved. I actually can’t think of a diet or wellness plan that artificial pumpkin sauce does fit nicely into, come to think of it…but, BUT. Sometimes you need a PSL. And so I give you:

“Poor mom’s PSL” (also works great for peppermint mocha!)

-order a short (that’s child sized but trust me, it’s plenty of caffeine and sugar) dark roast. Right now Thanksgiving blend is my jam

-add one small (definitely emphasize to them the smallness) pump of pumpkin puree

-ask for room for cream and top off with milk of your choice. I like half n half because I’m not significantly motivated to get to a size 8.

You will spend around $2 and you will consume around 1/4 the calories of a traditional handcrafted beverage, depending on what milk you choose. This is not strict THM by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a lot closer to “on plan” than bombing through a grande PSL with 600 calories and 19 grams of sugar in it.

A few more must-haves for getting through the day and feeling full and satisfied:

avocados

nitrate free turkey/ham (Trader Joe’s has this for about $3.99/pack, which I can stretch about 5 lunches)

mustard and mayo (and ranch because I’m a forever cheater)

romaine hearts for making lettuce wraps (as low as $1.99 for a 3 pack and will make endless lettuce wraps)

eggs. Just so many eggs.

your favorite cheese.

old fashioned GF oats (I eat small portions of this when I eat it so it’s still considered on plan)

sweet potatoes

chicken thighs or breasts, baked ahead of time (thighs would be considered S meals most of the time)

a pot of chili or chicken tortilla soup (minus the tortillas. Sob.)

And that’s basically it. I eat pretty similar looking meals from day to day, and I don’t feel hungry. I also cheat a lot. Like, maybe I’m on plan 75% of the time? Some days are more cheat-y than others, but this still seems to work. I think the biggest reason is that when I do eat “off plan,” I just acknowledge that “you know, this Chipotle taco is off plan” and then I go back to eating the fats/carbs separated way at my next meal time. Usually I bomb off of restrictive diets after a bad date night or birthday party or event…you know the shame spiral of doom of which I speak?

I hope this is helpful to someone out there thinking about giving it a go. I would strongly encourage you to try it now and don’t worry about Thanksgiving and Christmas because guess what? I am going to eat a pound of mashed potatoes and gluten free pumpkin pie and not give any cares. And then on black Friday/boxing day? Back to the plan.

I do want to say that I think one reason this has worked so well for me is because nothing is outright “illegal” or “bad,” except for white sugar and white flour (which I can’t eat anyway, and which I acknowledge to be harmful in the first place.) I’ve struggled with weight and body image issues for most of my life, and a big chunk of time was lost to the abusive demands of an eating disorder. For that reason I tend to not do well with super restrictive diets for the sake of diet, like the Whole 30. It puts me back into a mental place of “good food/bad food,” and I almost always end up rebelling by eating something naughty around day 20 and then just blowing it.

For whatever reason, THM has clicked really well in my brain and has actually helped to repair my relationship with food. I have self control and moderation that I’d kind of given up ever feeling, and best of all it’s really easy to derail the shame spiral of “oh no I ate something I wasn’t supposed to” by just shrugging it off and starting fresh at the next meal.

Here’s a little progress snap from trick or treating last weekend, when I want dressed as these fine ladies

and nobody in my family got it, so I untucked my shirt and took off my belt and just looked vaguely middle aged and haggard. But in pearls.

I don’t think it’s magical. I think it’s about blood sugar control. And I think the weird carb/fat separation rule essentially keeps your blood sugar in check more than anything else, because by nature you can’t really overdo it on carbs and eat the foods they recommend you eat. But I’m not too sure that any of us – food sensitivities or not – should be eating white flour or sugar every day, let alone at every meal. I’ve talked about it with a friend who’s also dabbling in the plan and we think what it comes down to is “eating like a grown up.” And grown ups don’t get to eat french fries every day. Or pancakes. Which is admittedly sad, but then again, once a week french fries are still good!

I’m down about 19 pounds since starting this in August (and more than 50(!!) since Luke was born, incidentally), and I think I have about 20 to go. I’m holding out on Old Navy until I can comfortably rock the size 10 jeans and making do with some questionable jeggings from Rome and baggy 12’s for now, but I did buy a handful of size M tops at a thrift store last week, and fitting into a Gap medium feels huge. Yuge, I tell you.

Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, mental health, mindfulness, self care

Mindful Mondays {week 1}

October 31, 2016

I’ve been dabbling in my expansive spare time in the very highly recommended “Catholic Mindfulness” program offered online by Dr. Greg Bottaro of Catholic Psych. And it’s awesome. I’m 2.5 weeks into 8 (and I should be 5 but c’est la vida con bambini <– multiculturalism right thur) and I’m already starting to look forward to revisiting the sessions for a second time. And I’m the least likely person who should be touting this to you, because I live much of my life in a haze of borderline panic which is antithetical to everything I’m learning here. Which is maaaaybe what makes me such an ironically excellent candidate.

Some pertinent information up front:

Mindfulness is not some kind of eastern mysticism or a hippie dippie corporate wellness concept. The term was coined in the late 70’s by a researcher working with chronic pain patients at the UMass medical center. And it didn’t exist before then. You can’t go back into the annuls of time and dig up ancient Zen mindfulness meditations. Jon Kabot-Zinn recognized some undergirding concepts from his own personal practice of Buddhism – namely an attentive, peaceful state of mind – could be separated from the religious worship and applied in a secular setting to assist his patients in their suffering. And so mindfulness was born.

But wait, isn’t that like doing yoga while saying the rosary and pretending there’s nothing inherently spiritual about the various poses? Nope. Kabot-Zinn didn’t co-opt any particularly Buddhist concepts or elements of worship and replicate them for his patients. He simply saw something that was essentially true and good – maintaining an interior peace and mental focus – and realized it could be useful when practiced in a completely secular application to help his suffering clients. And quite contrary to the practice of emptying one’s mind with the hope of achieving nothingness, mind-FULL-nes seeks an awakening to reality, a discipline of becoming fully present to the moment.

I hope that’s clear enough. If anyone has lingering doubts about the concept, recall that the Church has a long and robust history of finding what is true, good and beautiful in any culture and correctly identifying it as such. We Christians don’t have a corner on the market of reality, we’re just fortunate to be able to correctly identify it as “His” when we do encounter it.

Dr. Bottaro has, in this course, successfully wedded the practice of mindfulness to a profound Christian truth which ought to undergird our experience of reality: that we are safe in the Father’s arms. That He created us, that He saved us, and that He is carrying us at every moment of our existence.

And that is what makes this mental discipline so effective and so transformative. Because to be truly aware – moment to moment – of God’s total and sustaining love for us is to be profoundly engaged in reality. And to the extent that we can remain in reality and not fall prey to the one million distractions of work, laundry, kids, stress, pain, frustration, fear of the future, etc…is to find real peace.

That’s what I’ve taken from this course thus far: to remain in the reality of the present moment with God is the secret to real peace.

Because suffering will come. Bad things will happen. Stressors will arise. Life will unfold in an unpredictable way. And yet if we truly believe and choose to live in the experience of the Father’s unwavering care for us, we needn’t lose our interior peace.

So these first 2 weeks have been very mind/body centered, building on an increasing awareness and acknowledgement of the connection between the two. In lesson 2 Dr. Bottaro even jokes that in practicing mindfulness, we are consciously battling the heresy of Dualism. And it’s not a joke! We live in a wildly incongruent era of alienation between body and soul. We too frequently experience the cultural truth of a “separateness” between our minds and our bodies. St. JPII made this reintegration of the person – an adequate anthropology – the work of his lifetime. And so much of what ails us as a society has it’s rotted roots in the false dichotomy between body and soul.

I’m finding it fascinating as I go through my days and parent the kids, pay the bills, visit the gym, scrub the toilets, pray the Mass, how frequently I’m mentally “checking out” to escape the boredom/tedium/pain/discomfort of any sort. And when I do check out, I’m learning to gently return my attention to the present moment. To engage consciously in the practice of living my actual life, not the life I’m looking forward to at 8:45 pm when everyone is finally in bed and Netflix is firing up.

I once heard or read that God dwells only in the present moment, and that therefore the enemy works tirelessly to keep us either ruminating on the past or fixated on the future. Actually, I think CS Lewis says something very like this in his Screwtape Letters:

“…a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.”

That’s essentially how I live my life. Every real gift offered to me now – this season of littleness, these cherubic messy cheeks, this house in constant need of upkeep and repairs, this youngish, healthy body capable of almost perpetual motion – I heap these gifts continuously on the altar of the future, burning them up in anticipation of some nebulously comfortable or satisfying “someday.”

But there is no such place. There is no such time.

St. Mother Teresa said it best:

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”

That second part in particular seems to me to be the essential truth that underpins the whole practice of mindfulness: we have only today. Let us begin.

Next week I’ll start in on more of the practical applications of what I’m learning. But for today, try to stop in a moment of repetitive, ordinary work and allow yourself to be fully present in that moment. Maybe while brushing your teeth or loading the dishwasher or driving to work. Feel the water running over your hands or the tingling minty burn of the toothpaste against your gums. Allow yourself to connect with the solid shape and feel of the steering wheel beneath your fingers. Be present – wholly present – in the present moment.

It’s surprisingly wonderful. And surprisingly difficult. And my kids are acting verifiably psychotic this morning, so it’s deeply ironic that I’ve chosen this moment to write about it.

Or is it? Biiiiig wink.

motherhood, self care, THM, Trim Healthy Mama, Women's Health

Trim Healthy Mama: a {sorta} quick low down

October 6, 2016

So there’s this book that is about the thickness of a local phonebook, at least in it’s first edition. Which I did not read, because the revised second edition is what populated on my Kindle after no library wait at all (mysterious, for a friend tells me she is 50 out of 70-something on her library system’s waitlist. Guess I got lucky). And I read this book, in about a day or five, and it seemed to be sensible advice, if a little magical in thinking.

riiiiight, keep fats and carbs separated by at least 3 hours at mealtimes, and shoot for lots of protein and add a little collagen or gelatin to these smoothies and above all AVOID THE SUGAR.

And the weight will drop off.

But then, imagine my surprise when things indeed did start to move south on the scale. Though if you’re familiar with Dwija’s instagram, perhaps you already knew the punchline. #wow.

I’m not saying this is the simplest eating plan in the world to follow, because there is definitely a learning curve for how to properly combine (or rather, to not combine) fats and carbohydrates, but it does hold a significant advantage over, say, the Whole 30 because it doesn’t cut out entire food groups, nor does it require Draconian adherence to the rules. My favorite line of the sister-authors is “you’re only 3 hours away from your next slimming meal.” because I’d wager I’m not the first one to have ever blown a diet by letting a french fry or two slip through and then WELP, GUESS WE’LL START OVER ON MONDAY (shovels McFlurry into mouth.)

I like the balanced, this-is-how-a-grown-up-eats approach, and above all the lack of a starvation or total depravation angle. And the constant refrain that you are choosing to eat this way, and if you choose to “cheat,” it’s simply that: a choice. And one that doesn’t need to be filed under “shameful failure, do not proceed.”

One of the sisters is more of a natural foodie/purist who delights in fermenting her own sourdough and cultivating her own scobys (scratches head over spelling) for home brewed kombucha. The other one eats movie theater popcorn when she’s on a date with her husband. And then moves on.

That concept is the one I really like. The “make-the-choice-that-works-right-now-because-it’s-a-Christmas-party,” but that doesn’t careen into a spiral of shame and late-night burrito choices just because you “cheated.”

In other words, I think this must be what it’s like to eat like a grown up. And as a woman who was once, for a very prolonged period, a girl and then a young woman with an eating disorder, that has been a tricky balance to achieve. And continues to be. But I love the freedom THM gives, since you can eat pretty much all good food. Just not all at the same time.

Let me explain in a few quick paragraphs the basic parameters of the plan: (and this is as much for my own benefit as anyone else’s, so if your eyes are glazing over, feel free to disappear.)

Don’t eat fats and carbs at the same time. Your meals are either E (energizing) or S (satisfying), and always built around protein. Now, this is an admittedly sad rule, because apples and peanut butter do not play nicely together in this universe. But! It’s for the sake of stable blood sugar, which, in turn, leads to pounds dropping off.
The authors purport that your body runs on a twin engine metabolism, burning either fat or glucose, and if you give it one of the two available fuel sources at a time, it will burn through that one injection of fuel and then look to your stored energy supply (read: fat) and start burning through that next. (This is the part that seemed a little wishful to me. But at 14 pounds lighter, I can’t be too skeptical.)
If you give your body both fats and carbs (glucose) in the same meal, your body will burn through both, never kicking into the reserve drive and burning your own stored fuel. If the meals are well-balanced, they’re known as an C meal, or a crossover. This is what pregnant or nursing women should shoot for to experience even, healthy weight gain (and then loss), and ensure a healthy milk supply. Is also a good template for growing children who are in no need of weight loss, but who can definitely reap the benefits of stable blood sugar. These meals look like more typical “healthy” meals: baked potatoes with butter plus steak or chicken plus grilled vegetables. All of those foods are good and healthy, but if you’re trying to lose weight, you’ll want to skip the butter on the potato (and swap it for a more glycemic-friendly sweet potato) and make sure the steak or chicken is a lean cut. Ooooor, swap the potato out entirely for a pile of broccoli or asparagus brushed with melted butter and loaded up with melted cheese and maybe some bacon. And maybe add a little crumbled blue cheese to the steak.
So, an E-meal might be: a bowl of oatmeal with a few berries on top + low fat cottage cheese + a sprinkle of a blood sugar safe sweetener (stevia or something like it. No fake sweeteners though, and no “natural” sugars like honey or maple syrup, since they’re still sugar once they hit your bloodstream.)
And a S-meal might look like a plate of bacon and eggs and a cup of coffee with cream (and a little collagen power mixed into it. Because it’s tasteless and mixes well into hot things, and adds as super punch of protein.)
And a Crossover meal might look like a Caesar salad with grilled salmon and a side of roasted sweet potatoes drizzled in olive oil and sprinkled with parmesan. Fats and carbs, but evenly balanced. Won’t make you lose or gain weight.
There are also things called Fuel Puels, which as best as I can figure, are super low calorie snacks to tide you over or to help move the needle if you’re really wanting the weight to come off quicker. These would include smoothies made with almond milk, clean whey powder, a little cocoa powder and some of their approved sweetener, and maybe with a little frozen okra (one of their favorite ingredients for gut health, and surprisingly wonderful at providing thickness in soups, stews, and smoothies) and a handful of frozen berries tossed in. Another good fuel pull option might be some celery with low fat cream cheese. Or an apple with a couple almonds. These FP meals/snacks are the part of this whole program that feel the most “diet-y” to me, and the authors emphasize that they are optional upgrades for people looking to move the needle quicker, or are experiencing major blood sugar resistance.
Eat every 3 hours during the day. And don’t eat much, as a rule, after dinner time. It sends a mixed signal to your body when it should be switching into a different metabolic mode for sleep, and it keeps your blood sugar elevated when it should be tapering off in a healthy way as your metabolism winds down.
If you’re having an E breakfast and are hungry again in an hour or less, you can have a snack, but it needs to also be an “E.” Same with S’s. Match your closely-spaced (closer than 3 hours) snacks to your meals, if you must have them, or else you’ll trigger that cross-over mode where you’re burning both fuels and therefore not losing weight.
Don’t get stuck in a rut. As a dyed-in-the-wool early adapter of Paleo/Whole 30/Atkins/Southbeach/whaterver high protein thing is currently popular, it’s a little scary for me to eat oatmeal for breakfast without accompanying fats. Or to eat a dinner that includes brown rice or sweet potatoes but not butter and olive oil. But my body (so I guess bodies in general, if I can make a wild inference) likes the variety. So even though it’s tempting to eat nothing but S meals (because cheese), it seems to work best if I mix in at least 5 or 6 E meals a week.
Don’t take it too seriously. Obviously I veered wildly off the rails in Italy and drank all the wines and slurped all the cappuccinos. But because I don’t eat gluten, I couldn’t go too wild, so no pastries at breakfast and no cones with my gelato. And GF pasta tastes like sadness the world over, so even dinner was a somewhat subdued affair. But, I still managed to return to America with an irritated sweet tooth that is having trouble setting down. La dolce vita not for nothing.
You can do this no matter what your eating/cooking style is. Like to eat Paleo? This works for that. Like buying a lot of pre made ingredients and hitting up the drive though? Works for that, too. Don’t want to cook separate meals for your people? Definitely works for that. I’ve been making lots of sweet potatoes and rice and quinoa on the side and I either eat it or I don’t, but the kids hardly notice I’ve been cooking differently. We already don’t eat buns with burgers or brats, and if it’s Mexican night I just offer them corn tortillas or taco shells and wrap mine in lettuce. Which is the hardest part of this whole affair for me, so 60% of the time, I eat the dang tortilla. It’s a long game.

My hope is that this kind of lengthy synopsis is helpful to someone getting started with THM, and to anyone (hi, Christy!) who doesn’t feel like slogging through the entire book. But this is by no means exhaustive. I’ve found a couple great blogs for THM recipes, and there’s a ton on Pinterest. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes very second nature, and it’s easy enough to reset after, say, 11 straight days of “cheating” in a foreign country. Or trick or treating, I’d imagine.

This is not a great before and after shot, it’s more of a progress shot. But you can tell in the (sorry, blurry) left picture from August that I still look vaguely pregnant and my face and arms are bigger. Everything has slimmed out a little bit in the picture on the right, taken earlier this week, and while I don’t look pregnant anymore (yay!), I probably have another 20-25 pounds to go. Which is fine. Piano, piano. (Oh, and Dave has also lost about 7 pounds just from eating what I’m serving. Which is a pretty awesome bystander effect.)

motherhood, Parenting, PPD, pregnancy, self care

The motherly art of rest

August 4, 2016

Dear mothers of the world, lend me your ears: Motherhood, including-but-not-limited-to childbirth and recovery: we might be doing it wrong.

Actually, I’m almost positive we are. And my suspicions were confirmed a hundredfold a little less than a year ago after the birth of Luke, when I actually took my mom’s – and the rest of the developed/ing world’s – advice, and, wait for it, rested. Like I had just done something really hard.

I pretended that giving birth was a big deal, and then I acted like someone who’d just been through a big deal and took to my bed for a solid 10 days.

I mean, I got up and took showers and tried to load the dishwasher once or six times before talking myself down (and crawling back under the covers while silently chanting DO NOT CARE.)

Sounds revolutionary, no?

But it was. And remembering back to the long, hot summer where I was anxiously nesting and rearranging and logging 2 or 3 mile walks every afternoon trying to coax the little guy out, but was instead actually dooming myself to 3 weeks of nightly prodromal labor sessions to the tune of 3 or 4 hours, I cringe. Because my poor body was tired.

Imagine that. 4 babies in 5 years and I was tired.

And as it turned out, no amount of physical exertion was going to help me recover from being physically and emotionally and mentally overtaxed.

So not only did I not convince baby to come early, but I was actually so exhausted that once labor did start for good it was not a smooth ride. Contractions were disorganized and there were long stretches of inactivity that drove me and my nurses crazy because after you’ve been in the hospital for a day, all parties involved hope to have someone to show for it.

Finally, thanks to a mix of peanut ball positioning/Pitocin/prayers, Luke did come, and he was a happy little man with high Apgar scores and a winning newborn smile. But when I think back on last summer and how tired I was, how hard I pushed myself, and how exhausted my state of mind when I went into labor, I feel a little sorry for that poor mom.

Next time (presuming there may one day be a next time) I want to do things differently. I don’t want to fight my body. I don’t want to fling myself angrily at the last month of pregnancy like a raging mid-level manager with a sloppy staff and a year-end quota to meet. I don’t want to try to punish and cajole and trick and coax.

There is something to be said for resting, especially in a high-powered job like motherhood. There is a paradoxical and almost magical quality to the idea that you can advance your performance by dialing it down a notch. That taking a time out to regroup and to simply power down can actually make you more effective in your work.

I am still learning this lesson. I learn it anew every day when we reach 1pm, the little kids sleeping or resting and a pile of dishes lurking in the sink, toys scattered around the family room, food scraps under the table and melted popsicles littering the deck. The clutter competes for my attention, and I know that if I put my head down and get to work, I can bang it all out in 30 minutes or so.

But lately? I’m choosing more often not to. Even though I’m teetering on no-longer-technically-postpartum here at 11 months out, I’m easing myself back into a period of intentional rest. So I look at the filthy kitchen, I grit my teeth, and I surrender the mess, for the moment at least, heading to the couch with a rosary and my Kindle.

I need rest in order to be a good mom. I need rest in order to be a decent human being, period.

So much of the anger, the frustration, the short-temperedness and the exhaustion that have marked my greatest struggles in motherhood can be traced back to a basic lack of self care. And for me, sometimes I neglect self care to the tune of getting one more load of laundry done, or scrubbing the kitchen floor. Sad but true.

Sure, the baby does not sleep. The 4 year old wakes up at 3 am and stands 4 inches from my unconscious head, rasping for for ice water. There are last-minute deadlines to hit, there are documents the mortgage company needs, there are events I RSVP’d to that I forgot all about until my calendar dings a 30 minute alert.

But I can protect my rest.

And I must. Because nobody else – not my well-meaning husband who is gone all day, not my long-distance best friends, not my sisters – is going to protect it for me. They can’t. It’s my job. And it is critical that I perform it, because I am a wretched human being and a really disappointing mom when I don’t.

When I’m yelling at the kids about something that isn’t serious enough to merit a raised voice, when I’m weeping over something that normally wouldn’t raise my blood pressure, when I’m driving somewhere 5 minutes late, panic rising in my chest like a mounting thunder storm, 90% of the time it is because I am insufficiently rested.

And if the rest isn’t available in a solid, uninterrupted 8 hour chunk overnight, then I have to make it elsewhere.

I owe it to myself, to my family, and to the God who created me in His image, to work and to rest in proportion.

If God Himself needed an entire day off in the course of Creation, how can I expect to get by without quality down time?

Rest is built into our vocations, intrinsic to the work we are called to, and necessary to the daily rhythm of a successful and fruitful life.

How could I have gone so many years without realizing this?

Because we live in a culture that worships busyness. Because I’m “just” a stay at home mom with something to prove to herself and to the rest of the world, having internalized the message of “not enough” from a career-focused culture. Because I don’t use my rest well, and end up frittering away hours of time on the internet or folding laundry or Accomplishing Something Important, realizing in a belated panic that it’s closing in on midnight and the baby will be up in 6 hours and it’s going to be another coffee-fueled Tuesday.

That’s not good enough.

It’s not good enough for a mama who is easing back into life with her newest little one and trying to figure out life with 3 or 4 or 6 kids at home, and it’s not good enough for a mother with a brood of 4 little not-newborn kittens who have lots of energy and need lots of attention.

A wise woman once pointed out that coffee and wine will only get you so far. (And despite the hastily concocted and now permanently-stuck title of this blog, I do not wish to live in a manner that is only sustained by balancing caffeine and alcohol in an endless 12 hour cycle.) Coffee and wine are great, but not as life-sustaining medicine. As celebratory indulgences. Italian style, not suburban-american-housewife-style.

Things are starting to ramble here, but the point I’m coming back around to is that there have been so many moments in my short journey down motherhood lane that have been excruciating in direct proportion to how little I’ve been resting. Yelling at my kids? I’m exhausted. Can’t lose weight? It’s because I’m using sugar and easy carbs to mimic energy to keep up with my life. Stressed as hell and no time for prayer? It’s because I watched 2 episodes of something on Netflix and went to bed at 11:40 because I deserved some “me time.” Which I will now pay for the in the form of longest afternoon of your entire life plus a side of flopping preschool banshee.

Rest is important. Take it from a recovered shingles sufferer with a perfectionist streak and a persistent need to Please and Impress All the People.

I’m still learning to rest. And to be okay with rest, and all it’s apparent lack of productivity. I have to remind myself that after all, some of the most important work God has done in me isn’t evident to the outside observer.

But I do hope the peace will become more evident as I learn to be a mom who rests, and who believes herself to be worthy of rest.

Aaaaaaaand I think I’ll just bookmark this to read back to myself about a week from now when we close on the house and commence a month-long period of squalor and chaos. (Future Jenny, it will not kill you to sleep in a yet-unpacked house. But it may come close if you burn all the midnight oil in order to get things to 110% by day 3.)

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