On Keeping Track

Hello, hi and welcome to New Mom Run Club!

I’ve been catching myself having the same thought over and over.

I keep looking at my daughter and thinking, This little person in front of me is a walking-talking living being who was once not a walking-talking living being. As if it’s the first time I’m realizing this.

But it’s been a big week for our household, the end of an era — the daycare era — and it’s made me more aware of how closely happy and sad occupy the same train car.

Every day, she’s astounding me with all the things she can now do — including her ability to absolutely FREAK OUT over a bee flying anywhere near her and jump into my arms, insisting I carry her 40-pound body, her scooter and her backpack all the way home. Who needs strength training when you have the demands of a four-year-old, eh?

It’s all just happening so fast. One minute she was four weeks old; next thing, she’s four going on 14.

Lately I’ve been looking back through the small notebook I’ve kept of some of the funny, or odd, little things she’s done over the years. One entry reads: “Cuppatee” — her word for Christmas tree. Another: Points to a white crayon and says, “That one no working.”

Sometimes I remember to put a date. Other times, I’m lucky if there’s a full sentence.

A little book like this is one of my favourite things to give to new mom friends or first-timers coming to our IRL runs. Sure, I’ve put plenty of these moments in my phone, too. But there’s something about writing them down in ink that makes me feel like I won’t forget them as easily.

I keep a journal too, but this one is different. It’s a contained version of that, a micro-journal just for noting the tiny ways this sweet and stubborn soul is taking shape before my overtired eyes.

Perhaps that’s why the journal that Hilary Oliver, a runner and writer in Montana, has created for new moms is so appealing to me.

How To Stay You When Your Name Becomes Mom grew out of Hilary’s own experience of trying to figure out not only how to be a good mom, but how to still be herself in the process. It’s a guided journal you can dip in and out of, which feels particularly appropriate for the newborn years, when uninterrupted reading time is scarce.

She also cites Lucy Jones’s wonderful book Matrescence, which describes becoming a mother as as a profound biological transformation, akin to adolescence. If you haven’t read it yet, this is your sign. It will help fill in so many blanks

Every new phase of it asks something new of us.

Starting daycare, and then leaving it. The first time they sleep through the night (before the next regression!). The first time they stop needing you to switch on a light for them or open a door. The first time it hits that you’re looking at a person who is becoming, more and more each day, a whole other being, separate from your own.

There’s so much emphasis on tracking a baby’s early development. How great it would be if we were encouraged to track a mother’s more closely, too1 — the ways in which she is changed by the experience and who she becomes along the way.

My journal is one of the things I’ve treasured most as a mom. I think part of that is because it gives me somewhere to put not only what happened, but who I was while it was happening. Maybe that’s what I’m trying to do with the little notebook, too: hold on to who she was as she becomes someone new — and in the process, hold on to who I was, too.

Here we go, from one chapter into the next!

I’ll be giving away a copy of Hilary’s guided journal. All you need to do is be a subscriber — or subscribe — and you’re in! I’ll draw a winner at the end of the month.

And if you’d rather not leave it to chance, you can also get your own copy or send one as a gift to a mom friend here.

The next IRL run is August 22 in Prospect Park. You can RSVP here. We’re planning a special event for September 5 with a Pilates in the Park session, and September 19, hosted by Cybex NY, so stay tuned for more details!

The Haven 5K run/walk is also coming up in September. It’s a fundraiser to support the Haven Midwifery Collective in creating a birth center.

* If you’re a mom who’s looking to run with someone and you’re not in New York, drop me a line with where you are based, and let’s see what we can do.

• Glad tidings all round! Gudaf Tsegay, Susannah Scaroni and, earlier this month, Emily Infeld welcomed their babies. Emily is also the recipient of USA Track & Field Foundation Maternity Grant, made possible through a partnership with Jane’s Mile.

• The Lindsay Clancy trial has put maternal mental health in the news spotlight. As this Women’s Health piece relays, postpartum psychosis is the severe edge of a crisis currently affecting the U.S. Perinatal mental health conditions are the leading cause of pregnancy-related death in this country, and greater care needs to be taken when talking about it. The article also lists important resources — including The Motherhood Center.

• AOC (aka Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) has been taking her IG followers along as she goes through egg freezing, and sharing some really honest debriefs.

• Related: Dr Margie Davenport has been hard at work on new research: Should athletes stop exercising during IVF?

Thank you so much for reading!

New Mom Run Club is a newsletter and community exploring motherhood, identity, ambition, and connection through the language of running. ‘New’ is a state of mind around here, so if you’re evolving and adapting, you’re always welcome.

Because postpartum is forever.

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