No One Even Noticed That I Was A Little More Selfish

Now that my Tough Mudder is over and my wounds have healed, I’m contemplating my next fit adventure. Although it was great just going with the workout flow for a long time, I really loved having a goal and training for such an intimidating event. Being slightly terrified of something was just the kick in the pants I needed to really make my workouts a priority. Before, I’d fit in workouts if and when I had the opening in my day. But when I was training, my days got worked around my workouts. And making myself a priority for a few weeks taught me a valuable lesson: no one was worse for the wear. The world did not crumble when I made time for myself.

As a mom it’s way too easy to let kids and being busy get in the way of time for ourselves. Their needs are at the forefront 24/7. It’s not like, as moms, we don’t want to make time for ourselves and make ourselves a priority. We would like to, really. It’s not that we don’t think ourselves important. But we’re not screaming and crying in our own faces (usually); you tend to pay the most attention to the ones screaming and crying and demanding food. Sometimes, at the end of a tough day, there just isn’t much left over.

It’s really, really hard to walk out of the gym daycare when your toddler is crying. It’s really hard to go for a run when your kids and your dog all go berserk the moment you try to gather your things to head out of the house, with your poor hubby left to deal with the chaos of humans and pets you leave behind. I’ve been watching The Walking Dead lately, and I’ve been comparing my kids to zombies. They swarm around me, attacking me, hungry for attention. Never mind that I’ve given them attention all day; they want attention now and they will fight for my lap, literally.

But I’ve had to push all that aside, and I’m getting better at it. It’s taking some practice to try to make time for myself again. I know that the little zombies are being taken care of by my husband or by the gym daycare, and that they’ll be just fine. And they are. They only make a fuss for show, I swear, and once I’m gone they carry on with their little lives like, “No biggie. Not sure why we were going so crazy there.”

My son has adapted to the gym daycare, which took a lot of trying. So now that I want to keep up with doing a few miles on the treadmill, I’m able to without having to return to the daycare center. The staff has gotten really good at distracting him as soon as I leave, and he’s been happy for longer and longer stretches. I still feel weird when I’m able to get in a full 45 minutes; it’s like I’m out of practice having alone time. But I’m going to keep practicing.

Do you find that being by yourself feels like a foreign concept now that you have kids? —Erin