Identity Theft

In the past 10 1/2 months I have had the opportunity to partake in a the wonderful chapter of life titled "Mommy." It is not glamorous; in fact, I'm sure Adam walks in from work and at times feels he has entered some sort of freak show in which his wife has been replaced by a woman who has clearly forgotten how to perform the basics of personal hygiene. Furthermore, his once calm house has been replaced by a crawling boy who is doing everything at this point but moving the furniture - and he's close! There is dog hair piling up in the corners of our rooms, the bathroom was cleaned last month (and I'm not kidding), and the laundry either needs to be done or we will be contemplating moving to a nudist colony next week. The days are long and contemplative. By the time Leyton goes down for a nap, I don't know whether I want to clean, read, or collapse in a heap on the couch and join him in an afternoon slumber. This much I know: my life as I once knew it is gone. In fact, I have had a lot of time to think of how if I am not careful, my identity could completely be enveloped by my son. I may not know much at this point, but I do know one thing - I do not want to be a mom who's identity is found in her kids. We all know this woman....she's the one that when you ask her how SHE is doing, her long answer is all about her kids and what they are involved in, how she's so proud of them, how well they do in school, blah blah blah. By the time she's done she really hasn't answered the question. It is my opinion that her life is going to be very lonely when Johnny is no longer captain of the football team. In fact, will she know herself? So, in my quest to keep my identity (and sanity?) I joined a wellness coaching program to reclaim my life from my kid.

For the next 12 weeks (well, 9 now as I've already had 3 sessions) I will meet with a wellness coach at my gym. It's not counseling, nor is he there to solve my problems. It is a coach to help equip me with the tools that I need to be the person that I want to be now that I'm a mom. Our first session was three weeks ago; the intention of the first meeting was to look at my life 3 months from now and list the things I would like to tweak in order to reach my ultimate goals. He also wanted me to focus on things that I did before I had a child that helped keep me balanced and well in order to incorporate these into life now. I came up with a few things:

1. I've never been someone who has had too much structure in my life. However, having a child warrants structuring my life a bit more during the day in order to accomplish the daily tasks of cleaning, playing with Leyton, eating, showering, etc. Ultimately, my old "fly by the seat of my pants" mentality doesn't need to be shelved in a closet never to be seen again, but it does need to be balanced with structure and planning.

2. I used to read and it brought me great joy.

3. I used to exercise and now I can't seem to find time to go to the gym. Are the barriers to me going to the gym real or just perceived? Are they excuses or am I really too dog tired?

4. I used to nap. Daily. I. Loved. It.

5. I used to be able to have days in which I didn't have to have any responsibility at all. As a nurse who works five 12 hour shifts every two weeks (essentially 10  shifts per month) I didn't really have to have responsibility on many of my days off. Let's face it, 20 days off and only my house and hubby to care for (and he is pretty self sufficient) meant a lot of time to drink coffee and be selfish.

6. I eat like utter shit. Really - it's pathetic.

As I sat listing the above (and many more) I was saddened at how I USED to do all of these things and now to my dismay, I didn't do any of them. I don't read for pleasure, nap, exercise or have days off from life. Instead, I read baby books, I chase a child around my house, I collapse on the couch at 8:15 pm and fall asleep by 9, I barely keep a clean house and I certainly don't see my friends as often as I want to. If I do try to incorporate some of those in I feel this guilt (oh the guilt of being a mother!!) and I quickly feel bad for say, sitting down when there is a pile of laundry to be folded. Would I give up being a mom to have all of those things back? Hell no! I love that my reason for giving them up is for Leyton. Would I like to incorporate small pieces of those back into life so I feel more balanced? You betcha. So I started with small goals these past three weeks and one of these goals is to blog about my wellness coaching experience. Yup, you're going to read about it whether you want to or not. My hope is that for you mothers out there who have gone through this stuff you can either laugh and cry with me, or utilize some of my tips and tricks. See, the wellness coaching is already helping me out! I used to love writing and journaling/blogging. Now I have inspiration to do it!!! 

I'll bring you quickly up to speed. My first two weeks had small goals like *read for 10 minutes 3 days out of the next week* or *eat at least 1 fruit OR veggie 3 days this week* OR *track how much TV I'm watching in a week*......simple stuff. My goals this week are:

1. Read for at least 10 minutes each day
2. Eat at least 1 fruit or vegetable serving each day. Drink at least 1 big Nalgene bottle of water each day.
3. Create a deck of cards for what my days look like each month (more to come on this one in future blogs)
4. Find swimming workouts.

What are your goals? What habits do you want to form or tweak in life to help you feel you have some sort of control? Just a couple of questions I thought I'd leave you with. More to come....I have a deck of cards to create.