Adventures of a Mother Runner

November 25, 2015November 25, 2015 / Anna @ Piper's Run / 10 Comments

Sometimes as Mom’s we put ourselves second…okay third. Well, actually we do this more then sometimes. However sometimes we see the value in something we are passionate about and do everything we can to make it happen. And sometimes the stars just don’t align.

For me, being active is a priority and I’ve talked about that on here before. Whether it’s running, playing soccer, skiing or being active with our girls, that is more important than other things in life. Being a mom who happens to run has become more of my identity and that is more prevalent now when my daughters ask to go for a run with me.

After each run, my girls want to stretch with me and Lilly will even ask how many kilometers I ran! I’m confident she doesn’t understand how far an actual kilometer is but she knows that’s the distance I use when running and she too can run a kilometer.

A good chunk of my winter running {now until March} will be on my treadmill, a.k.a. THE BEAST. Not that I don’t want to run outside but it’s easier to run on the treadmill then to find a babysitter when my husband is away. It’s also easier to wake up early on a hot summer day and run outside then it is in the cold of winter.

Last night after spending the day on the road and in a workshop, I desperately wanted to run even though I did a little roller skating at lunch time. During dinner with the girls, I told them that I’d be running when they went to bed. I even reminded them during bath time so they knew I’d be in the basement – they were both excited for me which is fun.

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The girls had other plans for me. It wasn’t intentional but they needed me more then I needed to run. I had my running gear on and was ready to go, all that I needed was to make sure the girls had fallen asleep.

They have been struggling with a cough for a few days and it’s nasty. Both girls couldn’t stop coughing and I felt like I was in a tennis match bouncing back and forth between each girls room and the kitchen. The kitchen was my “happy zone” where I would wait to see if either girl would start coughing again. Just as I thought I could walk down the stairs to my treadmill, one of them would start coughing. It sounded like they were in so much pain and I felt terrible.

With a little medicine, water, pajama change for Hilary and some cuddles and rubbing their backs, I thought I was good to go. After looking at my watch and reading 9:32 PM, I decided to call it a night and just go to bed.

Sometimes we have the best intentions of doing something for our selves only to realized your skills are needed elsewhere. So though this mother runner didn’t run, her girls slept all night and didn’t cough again.

At least with my husband home tonight, I’m confident I’ll get a few kilometers in 😉

Happy Mother’s Day

May 11, 2014 / Anna @ Piper's Run / 6 Comments

Happy Mother’s Day first to my Mom, Elaine and my mother-in-law, Lynne.

I’m so thankful to be a Mom to two beautiful young girls….lucky me :

Lilly, me and Hilary

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s out there.

How are you spending Mother’s Day?

Piper 🙂

Three Things Thursday

January 24, 2013 / Anna @ Piper's Run / 3 Comments

Three Things Thursday.

1. I love winter but not this winter. I’m a winter person. I truly love winter: the snow, the cold, x-county skiing, snowshoeing, downhill skiing, sledding, even winter camping! I even worked outside for 5 winters in Ontario teaching skiing and snowshoeing, campfires at night etc.

But not this winter. This winter I am struggling to find the joys in winter, maybe it’s because I have a newborn and don’t want to take her out in the friggin’ cold weather (-14c, feels like -23c today). Or maybe it’s because I am suffering from Raynaud’s Syndrome but not in my hands and feet like normal. This may be too much information but I have it while nursing my baby, yes in my nipples. And, it’s friggin painful and for that I don’t like this winter.

2. Disposable diapers are more appealing than my newborn cloth diapers. We cloth diapered our oldest starting at 2 months and at first I wasn’t sure I really wanted to but went ahead anyway. I LOVED IT! It was actually really easy. So, I thought I would invest in “newborn” diapers for Hilary and bought 12 really cute cloth diapers. They are great diapers don’t get me wrong but I am just finding that disposable diapers (right now) are easier. The downside to using disposables is the garbage pile going off to the landfill – hate that.

I find that these newborn diapers (for sizes 8-12 lbs) would be better for the smaller babies. As Hilary approaches 11 pounds they are getting a little snug and our “one sizes” diapers are still a little big for those tiny legs.

With that said we’ll use these newborn diapers as long as we can, when we can.

Cute little newborn diapers on Hilary

3. I will do my best to put “technology” second to my children. This morning I had the opportunity to spend some time with 4-5 young girls with babies aged 4-6 months old. The one thing I noticed is that they all had cell phones – no surprise there, right?!

Well, I was a little sad or maybe more disappointed that they would take out their phones and respond to a text and then continue to play on their phone while their baby sat and watched the screen. One even seemed frustrated that their baby was in the way of her phone. I understand if you have to answer a call or return a text but to ignore your child but your spending time playing on your phone isn’t cool (to me).

It was then that I agreed to do my best to put my girls first before using technology. Now, I don’t have a cell phone at the moment (had one for work) but I do have a lap top in my kitchen that I quickly check emails, Facebook and yes, WordPress but I do also use it for finding and then making recipes too.

My oldest know’s how to use an iPod because her Grandfather takes pictures and video’s of her and they look at them together. Which is fine by me. She even has a few “play” cell phones and two real phones that family members are no longer using. She carries one around with her, calling her friends and their parents – talks to them and even tries to take pictures. Monkey see, monkey do!

I guess I want my daughters to know that no email,text or message on my phone is more important than them and shouldn’t take my attention away from them; when really, that’s all they want.

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Those are my random thoughts for today.

And……I may or may not be going for a run this weekend! OMG!

🙂

Anyone hating / loving winter this year?

Do you cloth diaper or use disposables? Or both?

What’s your take on using technology in front of your children?

Guest Post: Molly’s Motivation

November 14, 2012November 14, 2012 / Anna @ Piper's Run / 2 Comments

So today I am your guest blogger! My name is Molly Ritterbeck and I blog over at Miss Molly and I am so blessed to be writing as a guest today!

What I am going to talk about today is motivation. What motivates you? Let me tell you about what motivates me!

I am a working mother who has two beautiful daughters and a husband that serves in the military – that is enough stress in itself isn’t it? Well let me tell you with the bills that come with kids and life in general and job changes to boot I was getting stressed. My tension headaches, anxiety, and sore shoulders (my stress goes straight to my shoulders) I just didn’t know what to do. I was also starting to really lose myself in taking care of everything and everyone else that I was kind of fighting off some depression. I didn’t want to turn to medicine and I knew if I went to a doctor that is what I would get.

My husband told me I needed to get active and change my diet – but I was never going to something because I was told – I needed to do it for myself. I had friends who went back and forth with new diet fads (meal plans, pills, prescription pills, etc) and I saw how they aged, fought self-confidence issues, and more. I didn’t want to be like that. Being a gymnast for over 8 years I thought I was still in shape despite no doing anything for a long time….so I decided one day to run a 5K with NO training. Not one of my brightest moments. I paid for that for a couple of days after.

As I was sitting in pain one of the days after I was mad. I was mad that I couldn’t do it. I was mad that Nick finished in 21 minutes and came back and ran half of it with me again. I didn’t need his help to finish. I didn’t want his help to finish ever again. I was going to do this. I started running little by little and building distance. I found friends to do it with me. I joined a running club. People were motivating me who didn’t even know me. I was not the best but they didn’t care at all. They thought it was awesome to do what I could and so did I.

I also started to notice the pain in my shoulders was gone, the anxiety was gone, and the headaches were gone. I had energy and could get more accomplished in the day. I was happier and was eating better. I was becoming what I had wanted and it was all because I didn’t want to be beaten. My motivation was to not be beaten.

I only had one moment of doubt and that was when my friends started to notice that I was losing weight and asked about it. Since I do not weigh myself very often at all (the gymnast in me swore I would never worry about a scale again), I had no clue – and I honestly said I didn’t think I had lost much so I couldn’t tell them. One of my friends stopped and looked at me and said “Well what’s the point if you aren’t losing weight?” I stopped in my tracks. Wow – what was the point I thought. The best part is – it only lasted a moment and I was able to say “The point is I feel better, and I now know I can do anything I put my mind to.”

I was mad at my friend for asking such a shallow question, but at the same time I was glad that I could answer her with the right answer and not a shallow one.

My motivation is myself and my family. It will never be to get to a number on the scale, but maybe to fit in my jeans better. It will never be to in the “in crowd” and be skinny because let’s be real – strong is the new skinny. I will be strong for myself and my family.