To continue with Ann’s sleep book blog tour I really wanted to post a photo of J sleeping. The one I wanted cannot be found (searching many, many discs, I can’t seem to pinpoint the original one I wanted. With my luck I will find it tomorrow) but, this one will do just the same. Every time I look at J sleeping, I just want to cuddle and cozy up with him. I also want to kiss him and fall asleep myself.

Although J did not technically sleep through the night until he was a year and a half old and we had moved to a new house (hence, no taxi driving neighbours to wake him up all night long), he was all in all not a bad sleeper. Or maybe I should be more specific, he slept and I accepted my fate that I was not going to have a lot of sleep for a while. This acceptance of mine made all the difference in the world. I don’t know if I will ever get to have another baby and go through this all again, so I wanted to cherish and relish every moment possible. Whether it was a sleepless night or a no napping day. In the grand scheme of things it was really such a short amount of time that now that I do get eight hours of sleep a night it seems like such a long time ago really.

I didn’t let it bother me when he woke up every two hours, I tried hard to accept my fate of waking up at 5am every day, even when I did have to go into work. Our nap schedule was such that he slept when he was tired and woke when he wasn’t. Some days were hard when I was trying to get work done, but all in all, I loved it. I still love that J will fall asleep when he has just plain had enough, and I love that when he gets up at 5am, he crawls in between Hubby and I and goes back to sleep for another hour. I love that he snuggles his head under my chin and puts his cold feet on my legs to warm up. I love every little thing about him sleep or not.

One day, in the not so distant future, he will be kicking me out of his room when I come in to wake him up. I accepted the baby I was given and loved every minute of being a new Mom (ok, almost every minute, if Ann could write a book on how to get back into pre-preggo shape, now that is what I needed). And if I never get the chance again to be a new Mom, I have the best memories of nights spent nursing him, cuddling with him on his bed, watching him sleep in his crib, all those memories are priceless and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

Oh yes, and if I had had Ann’s Sleep book when I was a new Mom, I wouldn’t have felt so terrible that my child woke up every two hours. I started telling people who asked that he did indeed sleep through the night, cause they all had an opinion of what I was doing wrong. Little did they know that I was doing nothing wrong at all. That is just the way he slept.

For my four short years at Confederation High School, formerly of Nepean. You pushed me to run. Running, you said, is good for you, you will love it. Every year you made us run six laps around the football field. We had to do this run to pass our class. Every year I strotted along, not really caring all that much about the 15 or 20 minutes it took me to run.

In my last year, you gave me a challenge. You told me I should be able to run my six laps in 9 minutes or less. HA! You encouraged me with an “A” if I could do it. So, with that in mind, I started training. The first training I had ever done, running laps around my neighbourhood. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a total sloth, I spent years in dance classes, was a cheerleader, played soccer, touch football, volleyball (occaisionally) and basketball, if I felt like it. I was just never a runner. So, I set out to prove Mrs. Armstrong right. And right she was. With a bit of extra training I was able to run it in just under 9 minutes. It was a hot June day, scorching acctually, and I nearly passed out from heat exhaustion. But, I did it.

Fast forward a couple of years. I stopped all form of true excercise, minus riding my motorcycle, so I set out to jog again. I kept that up for about a year and that was it. I took up walking, working and dancing at clubs. I then became a waitress and worked on my feet and therefore did not need to excercise for a good 7 or 8 years. It. Was. Great.

Now that we have a treadmill, and I am addicted to using it every single day, I have started running a bit. First it was run for a minute, then two, three, four… now, I can run the entire 30 minutes or 3.5kms. Hubby ran his half marathon and is going for the full in the spring. How can I not run with him? We actually went for a run together on Sunday. A perfect fall day for running, J in the stroller.

So, Mrs. Armstrong, if you are out there, thank you and sorry for being such a pain in the butt all those 20 years ago. If only I had appreciated the joy of running that you tried to show me oh so long ago.

Sincerely,
BeachMama

p.s. Mr. Lamb from grades 5 and 6. If you are out there, sorry. You tried so hard to keep us all in shape making us run after first recess every day, even when the snow was knee deep. You wondered why I didn’t run as fast as my Sister. The only reason was, I wasn’t her. If only there were more teachers today like you and Mrs. Armstrong, I wouldn’t be so worried about J starting school next year and not gettting excercise.