It is 6am on Monday morning and I have been awake since 1am. Alba was exhausted last night and fell straight off to sleep early but then was up just after 1 o’clock. She usually still wakes up once or twice at night, but soon falls back to sleep after shifting positions. However, when I heard her “hi” and peeked at her using the light on my watch and saw her smiling back up at me with bright sparkling eyes, I knew it was game over.
I recently started ballet classes on a Saturday and was lamenting about how tight my hamstrings are to another student after our last class. She is an avid yoga practitioner and told me that I should approach each session telling myself that I am going to do the stretches with the body I have today. “Oh wow, I love that!” I exclaimed. The concept sounded great, and I pondered it all weekend. I imagined myself sagely telling the next person who complains to me about having a bad run or workout “don’t worry, be gentle on yourself, you ran with the body you have today.” Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?
But how do you implement such a vague concept into your everyday life? Alba finally drifted back off to sleep after 3am. The problem is that she did this right on top of me, and when I finally managed to shift her on to the bed so I could breathe freely, I didn’t want to move for fear of waking her. By then I was also too wound up to sleep, so I picked up my kindle to read for a bit. But then Hasani woke up and I knew it meant it was time for me to get up and start working on a project I had scheduled for this morning.
As I completed my project and was submitting it I thought I'd sneak in a small nap. However, Alba woke up again and wiggled on to my lap where she fell back asleep. I should probably just lift her on to the bed, but that risks waking her whereas like this I get a few extra moments of silence so I decided to write instead.
Needless to say, the body I have today will be a very tired one. But as a full-time mum and freelancer, I may be able to ease up on my workout this morning, but all other duties will have to be done by the grace of coffee and willpower.
This picture was actually taken last Monday morning when things were running a bit more according to plan