so yesterday i posted partly about the great struggle of fitting in exercise in the sleep-deprived life of a woman with a new baby. bolstered by the blog comments (see how important this is to me???) and the absolutely beautiful weather last night - 73* at the end of May is fantastic - i loaded up the baby in the stroller and set off down the road for the 2.5 mile treck there and back. the last time exercised was at the end of april, right before i went back to work (and discovered how tired i could really be). it took me 52 minutes that day in the heat. last night it took me 51 minutes. not a grand improvement, but it's something. and i DID it, even though i had worked for 10 hrs and the baby has been up every 3 hrs the last couple of nights. i left my husband on the couch and took off down the road to push a stroller and stare at my baby while he slept. not bad. go me.
so by the time i got home i was naturally pretty sweaty, the baby was hungry, he needed a bath, i had to make lunches, feed myself, PUMP for the love of all that is holy, and generally prepare for today - while also trying to interact somehow for at least a few minutes with the husband before he went to sleep. so at some point in the litany of chores above, i found myself in the nursery feeding the baby, still sweaty and smelly but holding my freshly-washed child close all the same. (eh, i'll just wipe him down with baby wipes later. he's bound to puke on himself anyway...) this is the time that i have found to really enjoy praying. there's something about holding this gift in your arms, knowing that he is the closest thing to you who has most recently been with God. i can't look into his sweet little face and NOT think about being thankful and blessed. but last night i was thinking about those things and also how gross i was from exercising, and i found myself wondering if mary ever had a similar experience.
did the sinless woman put on too much baby weight? i like to think not. she would not have been a gluttonous person, even if the nazorean equivilant of sonic cheeseburgers and chili cheese fries had been available to her, she would have treated her body well - like a sinless woman would. or would God have spared her from stretch marks because he would figure that she had enough to deal with already? it's not like her clothing would have been form fitting so that people would know that she had a few extra pounds after jesus was born, but ol' joseph would have probably gotten a peek. and HE wasn't sinless, did he give her a hard time about it? but then, she was young, so her body probably bounced back pretty quickly.
then i found myself thinking - how can i be more like mary in this situation? clearly i can't rewind my body 15 years, or even15 months. i have to make due with what i have now. but maybe i can not beat myself up about it so much. yes, i am unhappy with my body, mostly my chin(s). but that doesnt mean that my body isn't awesome. it did make a baby, afterall. so i can be a bit more nice to myself. along the same lines, i can give my nice body better fuel. i don't imagine mary was an unreasonable emotional eater who reached for a snack cake everytime she got into a "discussion" with her husband. not only would it not have been available to her, but she would have been more serene and obedient to her spouse - you know, like a sinless woman. (granted, her spouse maybe wasnt such an asshole sometimes, but still...) emotional eating is just the action of a weak person. i know i'm weak. and i know that overcoming those times is difficult. i'm going to try to think of more ways that i can be like mary though, because i choose to believe that she had herself together a bit better than i do. she had a pretty direct connection to God, but i see no reason why i can't have that too. just something to think about...
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