All posts filed under: Parenthood

adventures in parenting

This is Thanksgiving and My Dad

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Given I mostly use this blog for my business, I have been hesitant to post more personal stories lately. But that is what this blog was orginially for in the first place. I am not one to just go on in business as if things are the same or as if I am the same. In that regard, we are at an interesting space in the post-pandemic world where we are all different. We have all experienced a collective grief and loss and to think that we can go on the way we were, spending most of our waking hours trying to keep personal and professional separate, denying humanity for the sake of….I don’t even know. I also think sharing real life is important in business. It often explains a lot about one and another. We are all only human after all. So here is what is on my mind this Thanksgiving.

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms

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Like all mothers whose babies arrive early or with complications that send them to the NICU there is an eyes-wide-open moment when you are faced with how vulnerable we all are. The gift of becoming a mother to a baby born too early is that you will never take even the simplest of moments for granted. My 26-weeker just passed his eye exam at the DMV while applying for a driver’s permit. My heart is full.

Someday Is Now

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Being a present and available parent for my kids drives my ambitions and choice to live and work on my own terms. December tenth is a special day, a milestone day in my journey with my husband as a parent. It is a day that I hold close. Some day is today. Thirteen years ago my Mom sat by my side in the hospital. We were sitting next to the incubator. Actually it is called an isolate. Incubators are for chickens, not people. This very special bed held my very special son, Eric, at a weight of one pound fourteen ounces. ( He now weighs ninety pounds and would be so embarrassed that I wrote this.) Those who knew us then, know this story well. I went into labor on Labor Day and two days later, after loads of magnesium and other drugs, the doctors couldn’t stop the contractions, I was nine centimeters dilated, and Eric was born at twenty–six weeks and two days gestation instead of the full-term forty weeks. I was teeth-chatteringly frightened. …

Running Out of Gas

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The last two months have been a practice of going inward and reflecting on everything from career, parenting, running, and relationships. This has resulted in no recent posts. No apologies necessary. This is just a time of year I go inward. My career coach, mentors, and long-top therapist have all said in separate instances that ” it is time to get out of your head and into the world.” Nothing proved their point more than the circumstances that brought about this photo! Let’s just get to the point. My car ran out of gas thirty-five miles outside of my mountain home. I was returning home after my weekly working-in-the-office-stint in the Bay Area, listening to Jenny Blake’s Pivot Podcast, and reflecting hard on my next career move when they car began decelerating up the mountain pass. I quickly realized that the car was dying still, with no idea why, pulled over, called my husband and said, “Something is wrong with the car.” He says, “How? It is a brand new car.” It was then that I …

Adventure Mamas Must Adapt

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Day-pack stocked with provisions, water bottles filled, sunscreen on, hats, helmets, Xtracycle loaded, scooter in too! Adventure is on for me and my seven and eleven year old sons.  What is adventurous is relative and, as kids grow from infant, toddler, to school age adventure mamas have to learn to adapt. Things that previously were far from a challenge or an adventure suddenly become so when adding kids’ wheels and human power. A casual bike ride down an asphalt trail turns into an epic day with active “big kids” heading to Soccerfest followed by bike park. The xtracyle ( a cargo bike that can carry both my boys on the back) is both back-up when they poop out AND strength training for my self-care day of mountain running. My boys and I know that the journeys we take are not going to be cake walks. Talking with them ahead of time prepares them when things are inevitably difficult or tiring They have come to expect challenges like big climbs, tired legs, hungry tummies, and short …

Eleven

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Eleven. My first born son is eleven years old. Everyone says it goes by so fast. That statement always makes me sad and anxious.  I want to savor moments, take deep breaths, and hold on so I feel and experience the miracle of this child before me. It is true that time can not slow down; and it is also true that time does not speed up. It is constant. None of that changes the fact that Eric is and eager early bird in just about everything. Mornings he is especially bright, cheery, and early. On the morning of his birthday he was so eager to get to school he asked to walk over early and play on the playground (which I can see from my back window). Little did I know that he would head to his classroom where his teacher told him he can’t arrive an hour before school starts. His early arrival in life is just who he is. It certainly has presented challenges, particularly at his birth when he arrived fourteen …

Ultra Running to Ultra Moving

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Communities exist that are centered around being active outdoors, in nature, everyday.  I have longed to move our family away from the increasing congestion of the urban home to one that values and embraces the outdoors as a way of life. This summer  we did it. We didn’t plan on it being this summer. It just happened. More serendipitous activity fell into place than didn’t and we now find ourselves living the mountain life in Truckee, California, where there are mountains, elevation, and trails for days. In June, I was in Tahoe supporting the super bowl of the ultra-running world, The Western States 100 Mile Endurance Race. It is a spectacular feat. While not a one-hundred mile endurance run through the mountains, I did just accomplish what feels like a massive ultra-endurance feat of strength, relocating. Relocating a family while still taking care of the emotional and physical well-being during such a time of change is a huge feat.  This was done while also holding down a full-time job, pivoting a career, emptying a house, …