Pretty much every weekday morning.

As a teacher, I am a creature of habit.

 5:30 alarm, sleep
5:40 alarm, sleep
5:50 wake up
Head downstairs, get coffee and oatmeal started.
Do 8 minutes of abs while waiting for coffee and oatmeal.
Eat breakfast, read emails, check weather, and toodle around feedly and pinterest
6:30 Feed Misha or prep milk, brush teeth, floss, comb hair and get dressed.  Pick out a scarf to wear.
7:15 Bike to work, enjoy the fall colors
7:45 Meet with students about essays, respond to work emails, get ready for classes
8:30-11:30 Teach!
11:30-12:00 Wrap up materials, get ready for tomorrow's classes.
12:00 Bike home, enjoy leaves again!
12:30 Home sweet home!  Cuddle and feed Misha.
1:00 Eat lunch outside on our picnic table and make plans for the afternoon.

Unlike my mornings at work, weekday afternoons have yet to fall into a routine.  Although sometimes I yearn for this, I am okay with no routine with one caveat.  I need to spend some time moving, and preferably, outside.  For me, working up a sweat can make a world of difference in terms of how the rest of the day shapes up.  

Running Update

Since receiving my midwife's blessing to run again, I am taking a balanced approach to regaining fitness.  I am pretty sure that I could sweat out a five miler, but I've decided to ease back into the kind of training that I did pre-pregnancy to prevent injury and potential frustration at not meeting unrealistic expectations.

With that in mind, I am combining walking and running- slowly increasing the running segments and warming up and cooling down with lots of walking.  I've been doing this about every other day.  On my non-run days, I have been following a post-natal strength plan that Olympic runner (and mom!) Carrie Tollefson put together for runner's world.  

So far, I feel energized and strong.  I am proud of myself for adding strength exercises into my routine since, historically, I am bad at weight lifting consistently.  But, Carrie Tollefson told me that I should strengthen my running muscles before I actually start running so I am listening to her. 

As for Misha, he is totally content in the running stroller (as demonstrated in this post-run photo).  I make sure to run only on smooth paths so he bounce around too much.  It's funny; I have noticed he sleeps a lot more when I am running as opposed to walking.  He must love running as much as I do!  

What's motherhood made of?

This is not exactly a Misha Man update.  This is more of a Molly update.  I know; you worried "Duly Noted" suddenly became a full fledged baby blog.  Don't fret.  I am still here.  But, I am experiencing momification.

As I move from stroller to rocking chair to cozy leather chair, I get my first tastes of motherhood. What's motherhood made of?  Milk and music, blankets and books, tea, baths, and meandering walks.

The day is broken into fragments.  Go for a walk (or run!)...go home.  Go to the market...go home.  Sit at the coffee shop...go home.  It is much too risky to pair two outings together- however brief- if the faintest possibility of hunger (mine or Misha's) lingers.

With Mike working, I surround myself with music, blankets, and books.  Blankets hang over armchairs and books pile on end tables.  With Misha curled in my arms, I wrap a blanket around the two of us and pick up whichever book I left there.  Prone to reading a few books at a time, I enjoy the scattered nature of this reading habit.  If my eyes are too tired or my hands too full, I put on some music (Bob Marley, Bach, or Songza) and let it fill the space.

What else?  Cups of earl grey or irish breakfast tea with generous pours of soy milk.  Long baths in herbal connections.  Walks through our Minneapolis neighborhood underneath the flowering trees, smiles at passerbys oogling at baby.  Children playing in the park and visualizations of Misha growing into a little boy.  Runs along river road- at last!- with Rachel the dog wagging her tail.  

These are the sensory, tangible snapshots of my early days of motherhood.

In the children's book, All The Things I Love About You, the mother tells her son, "I love when you hold my hand.  And even when you let go...I know I haven't."  This line stands out in the book because it doesn't fit the pattern of the other lines.  It is the first time that the mother mentions an intangible.  How could she still hold her son's hand if he lets go?

Yet, this intangible is an essential part of momification.  Whether Misha is cradled in my arms or in Mike's as I am out running, he is a constant presence swirling in my headspace.  Appropriately, Mike gave me a locket for mother's day- making tangible the invisible.  So, even when his little fingers aren't wrapped around mine, I haven't let him go.