Cheerfully Exhausted; Gratefully Dead-Tired

Babyboy was more excited to wake up extra-early this morning, the day AFTER Christmas, than he was on Christmas. He is only 3 1/2 years old, and he never quite got the the concept of “Santa is coming to town”. Babygirl may have got the idea, but it didn’t stick, and morning of the 25th, I think we were awake before they were.

But at about 5:45 a.m. on this day off from work, Babyboy was wide awake, hopping around our bed, and chatty: “I got a tool box. Daddy has a red tool box. I have a tool box too. I want go downstairs and find my toolbox.” and this went on until Hubby (rather cheerfully) accompanied Little Worker Man downstairs.

I rolled over and dozed… for about three minutes, until Babygirl, likely hearing the remarkably real buzz of the Bosch kids’ power drill, awoke, calling: “Mommeeee? Want milky, mommy!”

And so began another precariously full holiday day… heaped high with the usual workday and childcare responsibilities plus all the holiday fixings: shopping/ wrapping/ preparations/ socializing/ cooking/ cleaning…

I didn’t have to go into the office, but I was on page, and I did need to log in and check over medication requests etc. Somehow between my morning shift at the Animal Shelter, a last-minute gift run, a 25-minute workout at the gym, a shower and getting the kids to my mother’s and helping prepare for a family turkey dinner, I did answer a couple of pages and run the work messages.

It’s been a stretch of events and gatherings of all kinds, and we don’t even do much. It’s been all family, close friends and church stuff… all good, healthy stuff.

We’re lucky, we’re blessed, we’re happy, all that… But have we taken any time to just sit and reflect on that? I do feel the need to escape and take a long, solo run somewhere with water, and just think. Everywhere I’ve lived, there was always a “run to water”, be it an urban river, a deep chilly lake, a burbling brook, a quiet bay, or the mad Atlantic Ocean…

Here, if I have any protected time and can make it the 2 1/2 miles, it’s a nearby pond frequented by dog-walkers and year-round friendly fowl. It’s a favorite of the kids as well, as the aforementioned fowl will waddle up to them and take bits of bread right from their hands as they call and giggle “Duckies! Here duckies!” . Only once when there was a gaggle of greedy juvenile geese did we have a problem. Geese really do bite… amazing that the kids still want to go…

Anyways, I’m exhausted, and it’s been months, months and months since I’ve had a whole free hour to go for a run by myself. Between both kids starting schools this fall, Hubby starting a pretty amazing and totally time-consuming travel job this fall, the preparations for our trip to Guatemala in November, then illness upon illness until the past two weeks, then all this lovely holiday insanity, my workouts have been brief and to-the-point cardio and core bursts jammed in between groceries, bank, kids and shelter cats.

I don’t even know if I could make it 2 1/2 miles running…

Not that one HAS to run in order to reflect. It’s just that that has been sort of my thing in the past. Some people run with music and podcasts… I run to think.

Since that’s not going to happen anytime soon, I pause and reflect… We’re healthy, we’re warm, we’re fed, we’re loved.

And so, so tired….