Hobbies and Motherhood
As I mentioned in another post, I started playing indoor volleyball again. It’s a lot of fun and it’s a super-competitive league. I feel like I’m doing well enough – my hitting and blocking is coming along and my defense is spot on (served up another short stack of pancakes last night). Playing a double header made me realize that I really do need to start actually working out again. Like consistently..not just twice in one week and then not again for another week. I am SORE today. Though I’m not sure that workouts could actually prevent that, as there’s no gym workout that can prep your muscles for serving, blocking, hitting, and diving for 2 hours.
Unfortunately, Jenson isn’t a good sleeper right now – meaning, he’s only happy sleeping when he’s curled up against me like a spider monkey in our bed. He wasn’t sleeping well since he had a cold, and then when we were at my parent’s house, he always ended up in the bed with me by 1 or 2 a.m. (tried to keep him in the pack-n-play, but it was a no-go). Sunday night we got home late after an extra-long drive home (thanks to some crazy traffic jam in the middle of nowhere). We were both tired (I was actually going to bed before 11:30 p.m.), and we didn’t expect him to sleep well, so I just put him in our bed from the start. I thought maybe I’d move him later in the night, but we all slept pretty hard. Monday night he went to bed like normal around 8, and we tried to get him settled around 12:30 when he woke crying. By 1:30 we gave up and to bed with us he came. He calms and falls asleep as soon as we pick him up, but if we lay him down (not in our bed) he freaks out and immediately sits up and starts crying hard.
I had a double-header on Tuesday, so Lo had to handle bedtime. We did what we could to make sure he got to nurse before I left, but when Lo put him to bed later, he wasn’t having it. He tried for 45 minutes and Jenson just wasn’t settling, so I came home after my game and gave it a shot. I took the advice of our sitter and tried to keep him laying down because once he sits up, he just keeps crying. After nursing him and him falling asleep in my arms, I laid him on his side/stomach (how he prefers to sleep) and kept one hand on his side and the other rubbing his back. He woke and cried and tried to roll a bit, but with some “shhhing” and back rubbing, he soon laid his head down and fell asleep. I started lightening up my touch so he wouldn’t notice a sudden lack of touch, and eventually took my hands off of him and held my breath. It seemed to work, so I backed out of the room and went to the bar, lol. Our volleyball team sponsor is a sports bar just down the road and the team went because we were getting our shirts that night, so I wanted to go for a bit because the manager likes to meet us and say hello. Jenson woke at some point in the night (around 3?), and I just grabbed him and brought him to bed because I was too tired to try to settle him and assumed he’d end up there anyway (baby steps).
Next week I start another league, so I hope we can get him in the habit of going to sleep easily again. Lo approved me playing in the second league, and I have a sub that I can use sometimes if bedtimes are still rough and conflict with game times, but I wonder if I didn’t take on too much. While a lot of the games will be after J’s bedtime, it still cuts into my evening hours when I get things done, hang out with Lo, and relax (ie blog, edit pics). On the other hand, it’s good for me to get out and do something I enjoy. Someone asked me the other day what I like doing (it was an odd question in an odd situation, but whatever) and I hesitated with how to answer. Normally I would have said things like travel, read, go out to eat, yoga, play volleyball, drink wine with friends, etc. My answers have changed since I’ve become a mom because those things aren’t as easy to do anymore (without careful consideration), and I knew that hanging out at home with Lo and Jenson can’t really be considered a “hobby”. I feel like a lot of people go through a stage of redefining hobbies/interests after having a baby. My only automatic answer (once I discounted saying “being a mom”) was “play volleyball”. So I guess since volleyball was one of the first –and only -things that popped into my mind (other than motherhood), it’s probably good that I’m taking time for myself to play. Plus, my volleyball time is somewhat limited. If we end up having another baby, I’m out for a year during pregnancy and after I have the baby. And who knows what life will be like after that point…volleyball may not fit into the equation anymore. If that’s the case, I think I’ll be fine with that. I’ve had to miss time here and there for my elbow tendon tear and then pregnancy, and I wasn’t dying without it. The volleyball world in Columbus has been good to me…it’s provided me with about 75% of my friends in Columbus, kept me in shape, has filled my tshirt drawer, and given me TONS of amazing memories. So for this next session, I’ll focus on the fun and try to not feel guilty for doing something that I love while Lo holds down the fort at home.
(and by the way, even though I was home tonight, Lo handled bedtime and was able to get him to sleep fairly easily)