I'm a mommy, not a marathoner (for now.)

Irresistible baby cheeks - good for pinching and kissing.

Allow me to introduce you to the tiny love of my life, Wolfgang Wilhelm...his friends call him Wolf. 

As I type this, he's quietly napping on my lap while we listen to sleepy hipster music from the early 2000s. He seems to like it. And I like this arrangement, too; there is nothing quite like having the weight of your baby on your chest. My life is a whole lot of this lately - the two of us sitting on the couch, getting to know each other while he eats, sleeps, cries and starts the cycle over again. It is a wonderful way to spend my days - and this is all I am cleared to do for three more weeks.

I ended up having a very complicated labor and delivery which resulted in an emergency C-section and a cocktail of drugs that left me loopy for about a week after Wolfie was born. I am genuinely thankful that my six week recovery period is only six weeks, because it could have been much worse. I am being a good girl, not over-doing anything - I don't want any more complications. I'm just giving my body the time it needs to get its shit back together (literally back together.) I am so glad I have the company and entertainment of my little buddy while I heal.

That face. Those eyes.

Tomorrow is Milwaukee's Lakefront Marathon - my favorite race. I have been feeling a little jealous of the people I see posting about it. I really wish I was running (although the forecast does not look ideal.) But there will be other races and I have to remind myself that I am doing something else that's super important and special right now - I'm being a mommy, not a marathoner. I think it is that shift in identity that I haven't fully realized and it feels like a blow to my ego to even type those words: not a marathoner, not a runner, not the thing you're known for being. It probably sounds so selfish - and it is in some capacity - I just haven't completely accepted the degree of change that has happened in my life. I am not the person that could dedicate 60 miles a week to training. I am not the person that had no commitments to anyone but herself. I AM the person that has a tiny, little monkey completely dependent on her and her time is best spent on a couch making goo-goo faces at him.

I can get back to working out in THREE WEEKS - no time at all. My current fitness goal is simply to run Lakefront Marathon in 2015. I won't put a strict time goal on the race, but I want to be in good enough shape to complete the distance in a year's time. I can definitely tell that I have lost a lot of my fitness over the last few months, so I have to give myself time to get back to where I was - lots and lots of time with my baby in his fancy BOB jogger. I can't wait for our quality time to shift from the couch to the roads.

GOOD LUCK, LFM RUNNERS!