mommy guilt

I haven’t run in a week. I wish I could say the ankle feels better but it doesn’t. It feels really, really tight and there’s this one spot that hurts when I massage it – the spot where the tendon inserts on the calcaneous.

I’m seeing a physiotherapist tomorrow. She helped me a lot when I developed an IT band issue a few months after I started first running.

I really wanted to test the ankle today but when I woke up and looked outside there was about 10-15cm of snow on the ground. Didn’t seem like a very good idea to test the ankle in those conditions. Instead, I got on the exercise bike for 40 minutes. So not the same.

Just when the injury hit, I could run almost 40 minutes straight without stopping. My cardiovascular endurance is the best it’s ever been despite having the extra 15 lbs I’m carrying around. I worry that all of that will be lost when (not if!) I start running again.

My mood has been shit this past week. I thought it was just from not being able to run but I think it’s also hormonal. The baby hasn’t nursed in over a week now. I’ve been more emotional about it but not in the way you’d think. Instead it’s coming out as frustration and impatience, particularly when it comes to the older two kids. And that makes me feel guilty.

Dammit, I just want to run.

I really hope this physio does the trick.

February 28.

I was supposed to be going back to work next week. (Looks around to see if anyone is listening). I kinda wish I was.

I’m bored. I had a feeling this might happen. Baby is fully weaned, enjoying his formula and waking up usually only once a night now. He’s not taking solids all that great but we are getting there.

The weather sucks. I’m not usually to complain about our climate but this has been a particularly long winter. At least it feels that way. I don’t even mind the snow, but the bitter, bitter cold makes it very difficult to go out for walks with the kids.

I haven’t run in a week. My ankle is still sore. I finally got on the exercise bike last night for 45 minutes and worked up a sweat and that felt good. But I miss running. I miss the freedom. I miss that 30-40 minutes of solely me-time.

And that makes me feel guilty. In five weeks I’ll be working 4 days a week and leaving husband with 3 kids. I’ll have all day to be with adults, to be “on my own” and to miss the kids. Yet right at this very moment, I wish I was going back to work next week.

My brain, like my body after not running for a week, feels like mush. I have a stack of New England Journal of Medicine magazines that I need to start reading, but I can’t focus for more than a few minutes without a child demanding juice, or a snack, or a diaper change. I honestly don’t know how parents do this day-in and day-out. I don’t know how my husband does it. I’ve been home for 5 months and I’m starting to go crazy. I knew this would happen but it felt too soon to go back to work in March. Now April feels a million miles away.

Even as I write this the guilt is overflowing – the older kids are watching Sleeping Beauty and the baby is jumping jolly. Lazy parenting at its best.