Blogging At 4am...This Can't Be Good...

And it's not.  I don't know what my deal is bu 4am is my witching hour the last few days.  It really screws up so much stuff.  Normally I have no problem getting myself back to sleep. Years of insomnia have made me well aware of the tricks and techniques I need to use to send me back to dreamland.

Not so much the last few days.

Even more irritating-it is starting to affect my training runs.  A daughter with some sort of cling-on issue is also causing some huge problems and maybe if it was one or the other this would not be such a big deal .. Both combined however has lead me to being on irritated momma.

It's true I have a lot on my mind-I have honestly five emails that I need to send out that are really important (and as a SAHM that is like 200).  I am blessed with kids so close in age - and in many ways it is a blessing, but when the birthdays hit,  it is an absolute curse! Mental growth hits generally right at birthday times so we get  double the fun here.  In fact in Ryan's case it is fun.  I am a lover of the 3-4 age group.  I do love many other points in childhood, but I am partial to the age range Ry is coming into.  Everyday he slips further from two, and makes it easier  for me to deal with him.  He still melts down right now over some of the slightest things but that is easily overlooked as we are now fully in the throws of the land of pretend.  He loves so many cool things like playing restaurant where he is the worker and I am the customer.  He is a great T-Rex and Iguanadon.  He has all sorts of scenarios and he is more than willing to let me participate.  It is also so easy to talk to him right now-that is if we are doing what I said we would be doing.  He still has a hard time transitioning if things aren't going the way he expected they should - very much like his mother.

You see that is the root of my issue these days and why I am not getting my runs in.  Ryan and I are both blessed with this irrational side that sometimes can't move us past a situation if it doesn't turn out the way we planned it.  It also means that we are frequently frozen into non-action because we can't move on.

It's simple-my runs aren't happening in the time frame I have allocated, so they are not happening. Period.  I can blame it on Ry thinking he wants to drop the nap, but after a few days he is overtired which means that he starts habit waking at 5am (sound much like his mother - poor soul) and can only fall back and stay asleep if I hop in his bed with him.  I don't complain - I realize it won't be long before he is too busy for old mom and he will have no interest in any physical contact let alone snuggling with me in bed. And by snuggling I mean I sleep sideways kind of fetal like and he rests his feet on my thighs.  That is how we non-snugglers like to snuggle.  That whole wrapped up in arms business is for the birds and way to freakin' hot!  And so smothering!  Yes girls-don't plan on Ry being overly snuggly if that is what you are looking for.  We are quite the oposite of the other two family members who I swear would love life just a little more if they could sit like monkeys or lemurs and just hold each other all day long. The idea of a king size bed is totally lost on them.  We own one, but I am not sure why.  Mike always sleeps in the middle encroaching on my side slowly and methodically until I kick him and send him back to where he came from.

Hello-this is the problem with writing in the middle of the time I should be sleeping-far off task.

So I can't adjust.  Morning runs haven't been happening due to sleeping with my boy.  Then I thought I had it figured out.  I could take the young-ins to the gym.  This solved two huge problems - when to run and how to keep them occupied during their crazed witching hours of 3-7.  I thought the distraction of new toys and things to see would solve everything.  Then Elise decides she can't let me out of her site for two minutes let alone the hour I would like to take for myself.  I am hoping this will pass sooner than later, but by then - it won't matter.   I am now less than one month to my race.

Ummm....So I can't adjust.  Good Lord, I need to finish a thought!!!!  All of these curve balls come at me and I can't seem to readjust.  I mentally can't get over the hurdle and say "oh well, I'll just do it after they fall asleep" mostly because I know that by the time the wild ones fall asleep I will be zapped of any energy I once had and will still have to fold three loads of laundry, load the dishwasher, pick up the toys, figure out what I will need for my morning run and set it out (which may or may not happen) take out the trash and any other thing that may need to happen (like adding a word to my 13 Words With Friends games)  You may ask why I don't get these things done earlier in the day - I am a SAHM after all right?  Well the children are at the wonderfully fun age where I can not leave them alone for more than 4min or someone starts crying-ok Elise starts crying- and I am not sure if it is something Ryan has done because she is at the stage where anything - ANYTHING - can make her cry.  She walks 2 ft and doesn't end up where she wants- she cries - she drops something - she cries- her brother hits her -she CRIES -  my God this girl is a tear factory these days.  The Whining.  The Never Ending Whining.  I swear to God most days I am prepared to start drinking shots of Jaeger by 10am.  If I didn't think I would find so much relief I might even really do it.  My fear is it will work and I will be a full blown alcoholic before they get to Kindergarten.  Instead I take the approach of being within arms length of them at all times.  This seems to be the only thing that takes the whining and crying down from a notch 11 to maybe a 9.  But 9 is better then 11 right???  Please say right - I'm dying here!

So what am I going to do here.  My alarm I set last night when I was hopefully asleep by 1030, is about to go off.  I still have the emails to write and I got this all off my chest and of course now I just want to go to sleep.  I don't know.  Logic tells me to put on my clothes and just go run.  I can here Beth goading me to go run.  I can hear Dimity saying Don't Think Just Go.  I also hear all those motivational things that say you will never regret a workout.  But I am mentally tired.  That is the true root of my problem

Marathoning is a mental game I have been told and in fact mentally I am ready to run the damn thing today -in fact, I wish it was today so I can just be done with it and move on.  Right now it is just one more thing on the to do list of things I can't get done.  As a type A that likes to check things off her list, I have had too many things on my list and not enough check marks.  Again I think we are coming up with the real problem to my non-running.  I think the real answer is I am not going to get my runs done until I get other things done that I have put off for too long.

I have loved every minute and mile of marathon training, but the reality of it is this - until the kids are out of the house for at least a few hours each week I won't be training for another one.  The good news is they both will be in pre-school this fall for a few hours on Wednesday and Friday.  I might actually get the chance to explore some more training time then and really for real train for an event.

To Be Continued......