Good People Run

Well, some don’t, and probably not all runners are to be found in the good people category either, but that’s not the topic of this post, in spite of the (therefore misleading) title.

Today was a special day. I went for a run. Any chance for a run is good to take these days, following Adam Smith’s principle that what is rare is dear, but what made this run special was that it was a group run. And not any group run, but my first group run in… 4.5 years!

The last 4.5 years, over which we starting to live in Annecy, were not very conducive to being both a social and a running animal, between an ankle still on the mend (year 1), a baby on the way (year 2), a toddler to take care of and a demanding job (year 3), re-a baby on the way (year 4). On a side note, and for those wondering why no group runs in years 2 and 4, you may have gathered from previous posts that pregnant running is not exactly common here (I am actually still waiting to meet another Frenchie who ran while pregnant). I therefore did not want to push my fellow runners in a corner where they would have felt they had to chose between immediately reporting me to social services for acts of torture on un unborn child, or calling 911 for the inevitable premature labour that my run would induce. Hence the lone running.

Until this week that is. Having “met” another runner-cum-blogger-cum-Annecy-dweller online, she suggested I joined the GoodPeopleRun’s Wednesday night group run. First thought was: “small world”. I had actually come across that website only hours earlier while doing some work related (yes, really) research. Second thought was : “thank you, but no thank you”, since the run started at 7pm, which, in Mum’s land, is pretty much the worse time I can think of for a run, between cooking dinner for kid n°1 (everyday), breastfeeding kid n°2 (everyday), giving baths to both kid n°1 and kid n°2 (should also be everyday but is not)… in a nutshell, pick your choice and the chance is it needs to be done in the 7-7.30pm slot.

In spite (or because?) of this the little voice started working: 

 “Sure, 7pm is not very practical a time, but wouldn’t it be nice to run at a civilised time of the day, and with other people, for a change.”

…

 “Actually, if Martin, just that one day, could leave work a bit earlier that he’s supposed to and take over at home, I could probably just about make it.”

…

“… and if dinner is ready and baths taken (or skipped), this should be pretty stress-free for him and consequently pretty guilt-free for me.”

…

 “Well, it is only for 10kms anyway, so it is not like I am going to be away from home for hours.” 

Here the little voice had become so convinced that my going running at 7pm was the best thing since sliced bread that it had switched from conditional tense to infinitive.

The little voice was sold and so was I.

So here am I, on Wednesday evening, ready to fly. Martin has done his bit by being home at 6.15pm on the dot and Meije has done hers by nursing later than she normally does, meaning that I had a chance to be back on time for “dinner” without worrying too much about her being starved. As for Malo, he has cried a bit but only because he “wanted to go running in Annecy by the lake too”, which was not so convenient but made me pretty happy because any signs he may become a true runner, one day, is good to take. 

As I park and jog to the meeting place I am quite curious to see who will turn up, since a group run organised via a social media is not something I would necessarily associate with the French way of doing things. Clearly I have been away too long or am the only one stuck in the 20^Th century, because the buzz has clearly worked, and a good 20 people are there. 

Tips for always being at the front on group photos : be a girl, or better, be a short girl. I am very good at both.

Introductions, on the other hand, are done the way I remembered introductions to work in France, meaning there are none. As we set off, I resort to silently refer to my new running buddies as Runner 1, Runner 2 and so on. As I will eventually gather all my courage to ask his name to the guy running on my left, he will seem a bit shocked.  First group run, and a 50-something guy thinks I am hitting on him. Way to go and make friends, girl… 

The unbreakable Thou-shall-never-ask-your-fellow-runners’-name-on-a-social-run rule aside, some other things will never change. Like... me, for instance. Me being worried terrified I am either going to be the one lagging behind (bad) or (much worse) the one making the rest of the group slow down because I can’t keep up the pace. And I am wearing a skirt, meaning I am at risk of being mistaken for the-girly-chick-who-jogs-but-cares-more-about-appearance-but-performance. Horror.

  “Which pace should I start at if there are several pace groups”, am I debating with myself. “I mean, there is no point in starting too slow, because I can do slow on my own, and today’s group run may be the only one for a while. On the other hand, which pace am I able to hold for 10 kms, these days?”  There I realise that, 4.5 years after moving back from London, I can still only talk about pace in min/mile. This immediately spices up the debate by having me trying to decide the pace I can hold without incurring death nor shame while simultaneously trying to do the miles-to-kms conversion. 

Bottom line is, as things indeed never change, I end up being in the leading pack. At first, we’re only “leading” at 12km/hr (or, as I calculate while running – thanks Dad for all those hours of mental arithmetic - roughly 8min/mile). That’s slow, slower than my usual runs in fact, but I remind myself this is supposed to be a social run, so I refrain the temptation to start like I am running for my life be a total arse and I stick with the other-runners-whose-names-I-still-don’t-know.

At the turnaround point, we suddenly accelerate. I swear I did not do it but truth be told, I am one happy bunny. A check at my watch tells me we’re now doing 14.5km/hr… Quick mental math again. 6.5min/m? Well, it starts looking like my kind of group run. If group run = social run = chatting while jogging along, then I am not the most social runner, but surely we can do the talking later, can’t we?

Obviously, as we speed up, the little voice comes back. “Hey, it is getting faster, and I’ve not done fast for a while. I am going to look really stupid if I can’t hold the pace until the end or make the others slow down.” By now however, a competing little voice is also saying: “ helloooo! I am pushing! I am sweating! My legs are working! I am getting in the zone! I am feeling strong! I AM HAVING FUN!”

It looks like if I finish red-faced, it won't be because of shame anyway, because we're back to our starting point and I have not caved in nor have I held anybody back. I am elated, not dead.  Sure, I have been faster and for longer, but it now feels like it can all come back if I want it and try hard enough... and go to group runs. Which is fine by me, because I am ready for the next one.

And there I realise I have missed them, the group runs.

I love running. On my own. With my man. Trail running for the scenery, the ever-changing pace, the feeling of wanting to throw up when it gets real steep. Road running for the regularity which allows these “meditation runs” by the lake, lost in my thoughts, or even sometimes free of any. But I also love running trying for sheer speed. That, I have missed over these past few years because the “group factor” was missing, and I never push myself as hard as when I run in a group (and am scared of slowing everybody down or being labelled the-slow-girl-in-the-running-skirt). And isn’t that also “social”, after all, enjoying the company of other runners while using each other to push ourselves? Which is probably what the GoodPeopleRun’s “making running a team sport” motto means…

There was a time

There was a time when I knew it all.

I knew I loved running.

I knew I loved travelling.

I knew kids were fun... ish... At least for a while. Actually, only for a while.

I knew lots of running and lots of travelling did not match too well with kids (even not a lot of kids) so I knew I did not want kids.

After a while, I also knew what to reply to people (read "my mother") telling me that was selfish : wasn't making babies who had clearly not asked for it the true selfish thing?

There was a time when I still loved running but could not do it anymore because love hurts, sometimes, and sometimes it even leads to surgery, and to a 9-month running ban.

There was a time when I met Martin, who, against expectations, was probably a bit *mentally impaired* (or drunk?) since he fell in love with me.

There was a time, less than six months later, when I still did not want kids, still loved running, still could not run, when Martin's mind was still not 100% operational, and when we went on holiday in the Southern Alps Ecrins Massif. Since I could not run nor climbed, we biked, and Martin proposed.

One day, after a gruelling day-ride on the Plateau d'Emparis, we stopped by a lake, starring at the magnificient Meije Peak on the other side of the valley. 

We said that if one day we had a daughter, she would be named after that peak, the symbol of our love for the mountains, for each other, and for mountaing biking, of course.Which, of course, was a joke, since I did not want kids.

There was a time where the having-kids joke had become (a nice fantastic) reality. The reality was a boy, whose name brings pictures of rough waters and blue-grey skies instead of mountains. Meije-the-mountain was still in our life though, and running was back into it. By then, having discovered something magic going by the name of Chariot,  I begged to differ when hearing that running did not mix well with kids. And when even Chariot (or our legs) was defeated by the terrain, we could sometimes count on grand-parents to look after our boy for a few hours while his parents had decided to run and get a close-up at the Meije. 

Bless them for understanding the attraction... or maybe had they just learned the painful way how it feels to be next to me when I am run-deprived and realised it was way more pleasant to be baby-sitting Malo instead.  

There was a time, almost five years to the day after our ride in front of the Meije, when we found out I was expecting our second child. Five months later, we were told it would be a girl. Eight and a half months later - having inherited her mum's limietd patience, or heard so much about mountains she wanted to check for herself what the big deal was about, and nine months seemed to long - Meije was born.

It has been four monts now... 

 ... and our life of adventures with the two Meijes is only starting.

Like investment banking. Just worse.

It may have been a great experience but I don't look at my time in investment banking as the most stress-free and balanced time of my life. I can give you a pretty extensive list of all the positives about that job.  But truth be told, came a time when these positives could not any longer outweighs the minuses, the largest of which was how busy, running out of time and juggling with dozens of things simultaneously, I constantly was.

Our daily routine right now is a bit like being back in investment banking.

Just worse.

At the time, life could be summarised to pretty much one thing : work and running. Days would be : get to work between 8- 9am, leave around midnight on a good day, not at all on a less-good one, and fit at least an hour of running on the work gym's treadmill in between. When time became slighly more of a commodity, I just added climbing and yoga to the running. Plain and simple.

Looking back at the last few months, it is amazing how much we managed to put on our plate.

It all started when I left my job last Spring. A blessing, for sure, but one which meant that, quickly, I needed to find a fall-back position, as it seemed we could sadly not omit the fact that, job or no jobs, bills needed to be paid. Shame, I know. 

Then, at the beginning of summer and after 2 years of looking around and probably something close to 40 visits, it seemed we had found a house that 1. we liked enough to consider making an offer on (rare), 2. may be in our price range (even rarer). Cool, but it made the job situation even more of an issue, and, since then, our days pretty busy.  Checking whether we could really afford it.  Convincing mortgage provider we could really afford it. Debating future work to be done. Debating how much to offer. Debating if said offer would be accepted.  Debating, following acceptation of offer, whether we would eventually exchange contracts. Exchanging contracts. Starting dealing with architect, builders, contractors. Feeling we are way out of our comfort zone here. And the list goes on.

Very cool house, and we're very fortunate, but boy, I sometimes wish we

had bought something we could straight in!

Then of course, in the midst of all this, I found out I was pregnant. Not that this came as a surprise (I mean, we did work on it). But unlike the relatively stress-free pregnancy #1, it immediately looked that this one may not only be about sitting running around and watching my belly grow.

First, there is Malo, who may be a super easy-going little Monsieur, but needs his fair share of attention (which I am more than happy to give, being the Mother Hen that I am ). Second there is work. The intent here is to try and get a few clients which could provide repeat business, so that, 1. it pays the bills (see above), 2. I can capitalise of this after the birth of #2, when prospecting and marketing may prove a bit challenging (unless in the space of 3 months it becomes OK to turn up at a meeting breastfeeding a newborn). Let's face it, I think I could have chosen a better time to start my own business. Third, there is the new house, which is eating up a lot of my time. Bottom line is, I am snowed under, even without mentioning my attempts at trying to fit some runs in. I do manage to get outside, sometimes, but comparing my weekly activities with that I had when expecting Malo would make me feel like a lazy b*** if I did not know better.

So yes, the good old investment banking life feels a bit like a walk in the park, these days. Fitting in 18-hour work days and a fair amount of running. Phew, easy. Life today is so much worse...

Except I am lying.

It is not worse.

It is indeed busier, if that's possible. It does indeed get frustrating at times, because I miss my running and also hate the feeling of trying to do too many things at once and not doing a good job at any.

But worse? God, no!

I just need to think at the little one growing in my belly, and imagine him/her running around in our new garden or going up the mountain behind our new home. I just need to think about, how, if things work out alright, working for myself will hopefully give me, in the not too distant future, a job I like, time for my kids and time for sports. And most of all, I just need to think that, if I am lucky, like his/her brother, #2 will tell me, as soon as he/she sees me putting my running shoes on : "moi aussi, Maman, courir", while looking for his own running shoes... and it immediately feel so worth it!

(Now if on top of this I could get a few repeat clients before April, and if getting quotes from the builders could be a bit less of a pain, I swear I would not mind).

Beginning of a new adventure

Almost a year to the day after Malo was born, we are about to embark on a new adventure.

No, I am not talking about Malo's little brother (who in any case will be a girl if Martin has it his way). If anything, our new adventure will delay the brother/sister for a while, since I am about to start a new job.

Fast rewind 32 months back. We had just moved to France, leaving London for a life in the Alps, full of running, climbing, cycling and other fun "ing" things (including, for Martin, learning French, although at the time I am not sure he found it that fun). I had ditched my banker's job and decided to give me a few months to try and find the holy graal: a job as interesting as the old one, but not involving my working nights and weekends, and leaving me with enough free time to make the most of the mountains around. Nine months later, I had the perfect offer. Promptly  (and probably no so legally) withdrawn when it became clear the crisis was here, and here to stay. Add two months to that, and I was pregnant with Malo, and under no illusions I would find a job "in my condition". 

As much as I had been saying, "before", that I so could not see myself as a staying at home mum, that I needed the intellectual stimulation that work brings, that there was no way I could spend all day with a baby or toddler and stay sane, etc, etc, etc... it became obvious this was all nonsense the minute I got to held Petite Boule in my arms. And that was not even because of novelty or because I had yet to experience the sleepless nights.  On the contrary, the strength of that feeling actually grew in perfect correlation with that the size and weight of my son.

Then reality kicked in: I needed to work. Not so much for the intellectual stimulation (which I got from my daily and long conversation monologues with Petite Boule), not so much for the social interaction (thank God for the crisis and the French welfare system: there were plenty of friends around with new-borns and on extended maternity leave). But for the money, oh, yes. It is, I guess, one of the drawbacks of living in a cool place with a lake, some mountains, and 40 kms away from Switzerland (where salaries are three times as high as here): life is here is a bloody expensive bliss. 

I won't go through the ordeal it was to leave Malo in day care once a week to free up time to look for a job: that would take a whole day of describing, and my posts are long enough as they are.  Let 's just say that, while I did not feel guilty for leaving him with a baby-sitter once in a while on a Saturday morning to go running or cycling with Martin (the way I see it, I come back relax and happy, so that's good for him, too), leaving him in the middle of 15 other crying babies was another story, because I am a mother hen, and because I knew that, sooner or later, he would have to be there five days a week, 47 weeks a year. 

Now the time has come. I have found a job, starting in... nine hours.

It took longer than expected (but what exactly did I expect, with only 8 hours a week where work related calls could not be interrupted by a baby requiring food, clean nappies, or simply a cuddle from his mum), which generated quite some stress, but which I am also very grateful for, since it means I got to spend a full year home with Malo. Him getting bigger and clearly enjoying the contact with other kids has not eased my feeling a tremendous guilt at knowing he will spend 50 hours a week in day care, and my missing in anticipation all these fantastic moments with him, his daily progess which will be witnessed by somebody else, his outburst of love. In a nutshell, the life with a one-year old lovely little devil.

Sure, it may actually be easier when I am in the job, busy getting up to speed, discovering a new working environment, meeting new colleagues. Sure, I think I chose the right option: a job not very well paid, for which I am over-qualified, but which seems interesting. I will be managing internal organisation projects, which surely has to be the perfect job for an anal-retentive such as myself. It also has the distinct advantage of being located 15 minutes from home and day-care, and comes with 10 weeks vacation (which, even for France, is a pretty good deal!).

There should also be numerous advantages to being back at work, aside from getting a monthly pay slip, or or so am I at least trying to convince myself.

- As Petite Boule is close to turning from a crawling ball to a walking one, and already using anything he finds on his way to stand up, I am glad I won't be the one witnessing his falls and bruises live, because this currently breaks my heart everytime it happens.

- After 10 hours away, his mum should be more than ever the star of his life, right? (if not right, please do not tell me, I need all the comfort I can get, and will shamelessly resort to lies if that does the job).

- Now that I have a good reason not to be able to do clean up the flat (apparently "I do not enjoy it and do not consider it a good use of my time" did not seem to qualify), we'll at last probably get a cleaning person (other that Malo, who is usually doing the job by crawling on the floor with a freshly washed white shirt).

- I may not have any longer to spend an entire evening, as it recently happened, having to try and convince the guys present that it is not because I am "not working" that I don't have a brain and have read the manual on how to use it (and by the way, regarding the "not working" bit: for what it is worth, I happen to find it much strenous, if pleasant, work looking after a baby full time than going to work five days a week).

- Although, as I said, I am not missing too much yet the intellectual stimulation provided by work, it could be that, in the longer term, my brain would have started to slowly die off, limited to reading about Babar and Elmer and speaking in 4-word-at-the-most sentences.

- My osteopath bills should significantly reduce, now that I won't have to carry Malo several hours a day, lift him from his bed three times daily, and spend what would have been a growing amount of time bent in two because he has decided it is cooler to walk rather than crawl through the flat, but need his mum's supporting hands to do so (and even if I am a bit of a dwarf, I am still more - although not that much more -  than twice his height, meaning that's a lof of bending over).

- Now that my work-outs will have to take place during lunchbreak instead of with Malo in his Chariot, I should be able to fit speed work, intervals and what-have-you in (not that I like them so much, but again, I need to find ways to get excited).

- Working barely a 10 minute run from my usual mountain trails means I may even be able to squeeze a short mountain run from time to time (now, I am getting close to not even having to pretend getting excited).

Of course, these advantages identified and acknowledged, a lot of questions still remain to be answered, which no doubt will have a great influence of whether I will like this job or not.

Starting with a pretty fundamental one: will there be showers at work?

Turning into my (grand) mother

They say that a woman's worst nightmare is to turn into her mother. Well, I am not sure whether it better or worse (not that I think it would be such a bad thing to be like my mother anyway,  bar the fact she prefers playing tennis to going running. Oh well), but I think I am about to turn into my grand mother.

The doubt had been creeping in my head since I became a mum 8 months and a half months ago, but I got official confirmation this week.

This week will be remembered as The Week When Malo Who Was In No Rush Of Having His First Tooth Suddenly Decided To Get Two In One Go. Concomitantly, he straight out refused to eat both his 4pm and his evening meal two days in a row, and did not do much better the third one. This coming from a baby who has always eaten liek there is no tomorrow and is so round that, when seeing Martin, Malo and I together, people think we either adopted, or stole the little devil, because there is no way the two of us could have produced such a plump little one.

Obviously, as mums do (especially when they double up with being congenitally worried), I freaked out. Immediately a picture of Petite Boule so skinny that he would need to be renamed, built up in my mind. Nothing would deter me from feeling devastated at the sight of my son refusing to eat. Not Martin reminding me Malo had two little hams in place of legs and could handle two days with only 2 meals.  Not my own mum saying that, obviously, his teeth were bothering him and surely things would shortly get back in order (and reminding me she spent all my childhood trying to convince me eating is not overrated).

This not eating episode also brought back memories of the only day, when Malo was only 2 month old, where I briefly thought I had not enough milk to breastfeed him properly. At the time tough, a call to  My Hero (ie the wonderful midwife who listened to, and assisted me with the list of my worries and failures as a mum in the first weeks post partum) sorted everything out: this was normal, I should not worry, nurse my baby as often as necessary to stimulate lactation, and things would quickly get back to normal, which they did.

This time tough, things are different. I don't have the comfort of telling me milk will soon be back in stock, or that, if worse come to worst, I can always bottle feed him, since he does not want to eat.

And here comes my grand mother. Mamie, my grand mother, comes from a generation for which being fed properly was not always a given. She lived in poor Brittany with 9 siblings and her Dad a sailor cruising the oecean to bring back home a tiny amount of money. A young adult, she experienced the war, food shortage and vouchers. She then worked hard to provide for her two daughters. Putting good food on the table was a matter of pride. And love.

As kids, spending the holiday with her, we would be treated to pancakes, cakes, French fries, or whatever else she knew we kids loved. The more butter involved in preparing those treats, the better. Growing into a weight conscious teenager, I became fussy and was asking for my vegs steamed, and she would reply that "vegs without a bit of butter, are tasteless, just like water". I guess the main problem was that, to this day, we have a very different opinion on which quantity of butter is involved when talking about "a bit". 

Unlike Mamie, food does not have a huge importance in my life. I like eating, and, as an athlete, care about eating healthily (oh, and before you ask, I'll justify my huge daily chocolate allowance by that fact that I seem to lack magnesium these days). But the only time when I made an effort trying to come up with fancy receipes was when Martin and I started seeing each other and I felt the need to impress.  This stopped as soon as we both felt we had found "the one", which was about three days after our first meeting.

But it looks that this may have changed with Malo's arrival in my life. In the very few weeks he did not sleep through the night, I enjoyed waking up, taking him against me to nurse him, and feeling him fall asleep a moment leter, satiated and content (granted, 6 weeks after he was born, I also enjoy immensly not having to wake up at night any longer, and have not been looking back since then).

I breastfed until a few days ago,  because I liked so much the sensation and because it was such a great feeling to think he  was growing thanks to what my body produced for him. This coming from somebody who, two days after she gave birth, thought she would only nurse for a couple of months because she felt she should, and was telling her husband she did not want to feel like a "milking cow" for too long.

I also worry if he seems not to be eating as much as he normally does. I am pleased to tell people he is such a great eater, and bore anybody who cares to listen about how many pieces of vegetables went into his purée.

And now that he is weaned and eating "real" food, I actually enjoy preparing his daily meals, and before you ask, no, I am not talking about putting formula milk in a bottle. I am talking  carefully selecting organic vegetables, trying to offer a different mix each day, caring about him discovering new tastes. I even bought and cooked fennel for the first time in my life, for crying out loud. Granted, I stole the idea of the receipe for a young mum friend of mine, but still, buying fennel for the first time in my 36 years on this planete, doesn't that say something about how much I care? How much I love him?

 Satiated and content...

Because that was it is about.  Love. Showing it with cuddles, kisses, shared laughs, time together, sharing daily runs. And food. Why, I can't really explain. And probably neither could my grand mother.

Job (and pumpkin) hunting

I am standing in the small meeting room, waiting for my interviewer to arrive. This is my first real job interview for a while, and I am trying not to feel too stressed out. 

After months of living in my running gear, pregnancy clothes, and since Malo's birth, (dirty) jeans and T-shirts, I have put on a suit, reminding me that, once, a long, long time ago, I used to play tough, from the little corner of my cubicle.

Then I see it. No. Them. Several, bright orange stains on my black sweater. PUMPKIN.

Oh, no.

It suddenly comes back to me that I was wearing that sweater yesterday already. Including at lunchtime. When feeding Malo. Feeding Malo with PUMPKIN. Which he loves, but has not yet completly mastered the art of eating without making a big, big, mess.

To make things worse, I am wearing black. Black is in my view the ideal business colour. You see, I am a petite, 5ft2 (on a good day) girl - well, old enough to be called a woman, but somehow, I struggle associating my image in the mirror with that word. And I used to work in the not very female friendly world of investment banking. In that world, playing tough saved my life. That, and wearing strict, black, business suits.

But somehow, now, in this room, in my pumkin-stained sweater, black, which seems to make the orange of the pumkin even brighter, does not seem the ideal business colour anymore.

Instead, it just seems to scream:

- "Hey, look, she is a MUM, who just fed her baby-boy. She is a MUM, and just in case you were not aware of it, she has just decided to wear black, so that you can notice the pumpkin straight away. Now, surely you do NOT want to hire a MUM for that big-dick position you need to fill".

It should be enough that it is reminding Mister Interviewer that surely, if he has two ounce of common sense, he may think twice before hiring a pumpkin-covered mum.  But in case it was not, the vegetable situation also reminds ME that I might not anymore be the tough professional I once pretended to be. Now that the whale-turned-mother hen has made her official coming out, have I still got it in me to play the shark?

I just have time to realise that, given my inflated breast-feeding boobs makes it impossible to  button up my jacket and hide the pumpkin stains, before Mister Interviewer walks in. Either he's blind, or he likes pumpkin, or he himself is not the shark he is supposed to be, because somehow the interview goes decently well, and  I  am told I will have to come back to see the boss.

I will, if only to see how long I can pull it off before they realise I am a mother hen. But not before I have amended my check list of things to do before a job interview:
- put on my I-am-smart-I-am-sharp-I-am-tough-you-know-you-want-to-hire-me mask face.
- bring print-out of my CV.
- Be ready to answer the oh-so-silly "what is your greatest achievement" and other "what would your friends say of you" questions.
AND:
- Check for any pumpkin stains on jumper, suit, oh, and socks, while I am at it. The little devil is never short of ideas of where to splash it.

The runner, the Hen and the Baby

- "boc, boc, boc, I am the Mother Hen" says Martin in an impersonation of, well, me, as we are having lunch.

I look at him, my mouth start quivering, and I burst into tears.


I miss my baby boy. He is in day-care today, while I am job hunting.

He is in day-care, and I miss him so much it is aching.

Not that he seems unhappy there. Not, not at all. Unless babbling and smiling away is a sign of unhappiness. No, nothing wrong with him. It is just me. Aching, and bursting into tears at the sound of a mother hen.

What, is it me talking? Like, the "me" who, only a few days before we produced Malo, was actually still wondering whether she had it in her to be a mother. The "me" who was convinced she herself had been produced without maternal instinct, whathever that meant, because I had no idea.

- " Hard to believe you were actually not that long ago wondering whether you would be able to love him enough", Martin carries on as I, briefly, stop crying. If asked, I would obviously vehemently deny having ever had such an inadmissible thought, but the fact and the matter is, I did.

Pregnancy was OK. I mean, I didn't especially like looking like a whale, - a small one, though, as Martin would always kindly remind me - but I managed to stay active, and therefore sane . Or at least as sane as I could be expected to be, which may not be saying much.

Throughout these nine months, I carried on running, cycling, hiking, swimming, in a nutshell doing all this "ing" things for which we had moved away from London and into the Alps. I even surprised myself being able to cope (and, sometimes, oh surprise, even enjoy) doing sports in a chilled, as opposed to it-does-not-have-to-be-fun-to-be-fun way. Sure, it was sometimes rather frustrating to have to hold back, especially when Martin was triathlon training, and, for the first time, doing his runs faster than me (how did he dare). I also enjoyed beyond saying feeling the "Petite Boule" kicking inside my belly, and not only because that gave me hope these early manifestations of intense activity were the sign of a future athlete in the making.

So there I was, a, on the whole, pretty happy pregnant chick. Pretty happy, but also super scared. What would our life be after his arrival? Somehow, I had the feeling, since then confirmed, that there would not be a lot of night departures to the nearby peak because we feel like a mountain run in the snow, the cold, and the dark. Or last minute decision to go for a 100 -mile bike ride. Or, or , or... And it scared me to death that I might resent my baby for preventing us from doing all this stuff.

But here I am, 6 months after he was born, sitting in my kitchen and crying out all the tears in my body because he is in day-care and I miss him.

Sure, life has changed. Sure, there is no more midnight runs or last-minute 100-milers. But we're still doing plenty of our beloved "ing things". Just differently. We take turns. I devise cute strategies so that my turn comes back more often that Martin's. We plan runs and rides around breast-feeding times. We've discovered the Holy Graal, which goes by the name of Chariot, and going running with the little one provides the double whammy of a harder work-out pushing the stroller and the joy of seeing him laugh when he realises we're getting ready for a run.

And there are all these other things which have nothing to do with sports, sweat, or pain, and yet are - and now, this is a surprise - so much, SO MUCH fun. Witnessing Malo's first smile. That, too, made me cry, proof I guess that Mrs Mother Hen, aka me, is becoming emotional with no hope of redemption. Singing him songs which remind me of my own childhood. Changing nappies (yes, this is fun, too). Getting the bathroom wet from floor to ceiling while playing in the bathtub. Getting peed on while giving him a baby massage (this one never fails). Or maybe are these so fun because they are "ing things", too?

Anyway, gotta stop now. The hell with day-care, the hell with trying to fit a short afternoon work-out: I miss my son and I am getting him back home. Right now.

Little Whale is gone, welcome The Hen.