Sometimes you just have to...

Scream - Sometimes it seems to be the only way to get anyone to listen to me.

Cry - When they don't or won't listen, when I'm so tired I can't see straight, when I get up for a night time feeding and the baby pees or poops on me, when I can't find something and I know I'm the one who misplaced it, when things start feeling out of control. Sometimes I just have to cry. Then I usually feel really tired after a good cry and I need a nap!

Do something for yourself -This is where I currently am with things. I need something for me. I need Me Time, where I'm not just Mommy. I need time away from the kids, away from chores, away from the chaos. When I was pregnant with 5, I went to my room for Me Time. I would go lay in my bed for a little while before or after dinner, just to not hear "Mommy!" for a short amount of time.

Now that I'm not pregnant, and I'm feeling good, I've decided to do something for myself, physically. I started walking in the evenings. I get out of the house, and I get exercise - win, win. Some nights I take Donkey with me for a walk. I don't mind taking him. He doesn't talk too much yet, can't scream "Mommy!" and will sit still in the stroller. I think he likes it too because he's getting out of the house and getting some one on one attention.

I signed up to do a 5k at the end of June. This is not like me at all. In the past I never would have thought of running or walking for an extended period of time or for a set distance. But I need to get this body back into shape, or close to it. So, I've been walking, and I'm going to do a training with other beginner runners starting May 1 for the eight weeks leading up to the 5k.

I need to start running, but I hate it. I don't understand why people love to run. Today I walked to my daughter's school and I ran around the parking lot. The program I'm following says to start with 30 second intervals of running, combined with 90 seconds of walking for 20 minutes, with a brisk five minute walk as a warm up and cool down. I don't have a stop watch or anything, so when I would start to run, I would count the seconds in my head. "One, one thousand, Two, one thousand, Three, one thousand..." so I probably didn't actually run for 30 seconds. Then the first time I did the 90 seconds, I lost count somewhere in the 60s, so who knows how long I actually walked. But I got an idea of how much of the parking lot I should cover in running and walking, and I repeated it a few times. I looked at my phone and less than ten minutes had gone by. But I knew I couldn't run anymore. I decided to finish my regular walking route, to at least get some more exercise.

My heart was pounding in my ears. Like I thought either my heart or ears or head was going to explode. And I was sweating but cold? The inside of my ears was cold, deep inside my ears. While I was walking I put my hood up, but the inside of my ears was still cold. The muscles in my butt were twitching. My legs felt like jello. There was no such thing as a brisk walk. This was a slow, sluggish, I-hope-I-can-drag-my-ass-home walk. Once I was home and had some water I was able to stretch a little. The twitching muscles in my butt and legs continued for a long time afterward. Everyone assured me that feeling like I was going to die was normal. Once the pounding in my ears stopped and my ears warmed up and I stopped breathing so heavily and I stopped sweating, I actually felt good about what I had done. I still question how people do this regularly and look so natural as they run. I'm pretty sure if anyone had seen me they would have thought I was having a seizure, not trying to run. Now I need to make sure I keep up on this kind of Me Time. Incidentally, trying to run made me want to scream and cry at the same time!