A Letter to my Sweet Samuel

Hello, my sweet little Darling.

As I write this letter to you, you are lying in my arms, fast asleep.   This is how you take most of your naps at this point. You fall asleep while I am feeding you. If I try to move you to your crib or swing once you have fallen asleep, you wake up and protest, even if your position was hardly disturbed in the process. It is as if you can immediately sense the change in temperature, the sudden absence of my heartbeat against you.

People keep telling me that I should not let you nap in my arms anymore, and that I should insist that you start sleeping in your crib during the day.  I know that at some point soon, I will have to listen to them.  You need to learn to nap independently of me at some point, as I will be returning to work in January and will therefore no longer be able to hold you as you fall asleep every afternoon.  I should also really be using the time that you are asleep during the day to get things done around the house. Your Daddy has been very patient with the current state of affairs, but really, I do need to keep this place a little cleaner.  

 I know that they are right, and yet, I can’t bring myself to push the issue too much just yet.  Holding you in my arms, feeling your chest rise and fall against me, staring at your sweet face while you dream – there are no words to describe how content and at peace I am in these moments.  I wish that I could capture them somehow, and bottle them up, so that I could relive them over and over again.

You often smile while you are sleeping.  My heart melts every single time.  Last week, you actually had a laughing fit in your sleep.  You suddenly starting cracking up – big, loud belly laughs – but you did not open your eyes. You kept sleeping, and smiling.   I hope that your dreams always bring you that much joy.  

To be sure, you are not always quite that happy when you are awake.  Like both of your parents, you have a very strong personality, and you insist on making your opinions and feelings known. The problem, of course, is that you cannot yet speak, and therefore, we do not always understand what you are trying to tell us.  This leads to certain frustration for you. I am actually starting to teach you sign language, so that you can hopefully begin to communicate effectively with us about some things before you develop the ability to speak.  You already smile when I make the sign for milk. I’m not sure if you understand the association yet, or if you just like watching me move my hands around and smile at you. It really makes no difference to me at this point. Anything that brings a smile to your face makes me happy.

Your Daddy and I spent the day with you today.  We make a point of spending at least one full day together as a family every single week.  Because it is summer right now, we generally spend it outside.  We take you to the zoo, for walks down on the boardwalk, and to the park in the valley by our home.  Today we took you to a different park, where you got to play in a swing for the first time. You weren’t quite big enough for it yet, so I kept my hand on your back while we swung you carefully, and your daddy took photos. Daddy is as persistent in attempting to capture as many of our moments together as I am. 

You loved the swing! You smiled and laughed the entire time.

You are still a little small to play with much of the other playground equipment. Daddy did take you over to sit on the slides though. 

                                               (I couldn't get you to look at me or the camera for the life of me!)

 We also took you swimming for the first time today! We had a feeling that you would like it, as you love your baths, and always have.  We were not wrong.  You were adorable, as always.  The look on your face when your toes touched the water for the first time was priceless. Thankfully, Daddy was there with his video camera to capture the entire thing!

I hope that we have many, many more days like today my darling.  Your Daddy and I both love you more than you will ever know.  We are both so very, very grateful for every day, night, hour and moment that we have with you. Even when you are a total fussbutt. J  You are the light of our lives – our sunshine.  The moment that you were born, you became our reason for waking up in the morning, for eating, and for breathing.  You are our world.

And with that my love, I will leave you for now. You are beginning to stir.  It is time to play with you, to talk to you, and to listen to you as you “talk” to me. To return your smiles, and try to elicit your laughter. It is time for more of those moments that I will forever wish that I could relive.

I love you my sweet darling, my little Bug.  More than anything. I always will, no matter what.

 Mummy

I'm Back!

I'm back!

To running, that is. :).

I reached a personal milestone a couple of weeks ago, running just under 6k for the first time in more than a year. I've been running similar distances consistently several times a week since then.

I know that 6k is not much for many runners, but it is still a major milestone for me, after not having run at all for well over a year.  It feels so great to finally be getting back into it!

Running is one of my favorite things to do. There are the obvious physical and health benefits that come along with it. More important for me though is the way that running makes me feel. After I finish a good run, I feel like I am on top of the world. It is such a great, natural high. Running also clears my mind, and allows me to work out any stress or anxiety (which I am prone to).  It feels almost as if I have taken a shower on the inside, if that makes any sense.  I feel refreshed, energized, and at peace.

Given how I feel about running, you can imagine how disappointed I was to have to stop running when I started fertility treatments last spring.  It probably would have been fine to keep up with it through that process, but a then-recent loss had made me very paranoid. I just couldn't go through that again. So, I stopped running.  I might have picked it up again once I became pregnant, but as you know from reading this blog, my pregnancy ended up being very complicated and high risk. I wasn't able to walk around much, let alone run.

The fact that my pregnancy was complicated and stressful made me miss the release and calming effect of running that much more.  You know how some women miss coffee, wine, sushi, etc., while pregnant? I missed running. (And beer. Lol)

I was so, so happy to be able to get back into it postpartum.  Because I hadn't run at all for so long though, I had to start slowly, roughly following a popular couch to 5k training program.

And now, finally, I'm back. :)

My distances will obviously increase from here on in, as will my pace.  But it just feels so damned good to get in good runs again on a regular basis, even if I'm still a ways away from my personal bests.

That's it. That was the only point of this post.

So much of what I think, do and write about now is about my sweet Samuel. This post was all about me. And I'm okay with that. :)