#gratefulmom

Now that I am a mom to three tiny humans, people are always telling me how busy and challenging my life must be.  I’ll admit, it’s pretty nice to be able to pull the overwhelmed-mom card now and then.

I can blame my mood swings, messy house, and burnt dinner on this “trying” phase of life. And it is true. You can read this post to see just how real my frustrating moments are.

On the outside, my life may look pretty challenging–especially to people who live in LA with 1.5 children. I mean, “Were they all PLANNED?” I got that question the other day on the walk to pick Coco up from school.

No… I have no idea how babies are made. Please, enlighten me.

I could sit around and list all the ways my life is difficult and less than ideal. Beside the fact that that is totally obnoxious and inappropriate (considering what it is going on in the world at large), I would also be ignoring a very wondrous thing that stares me in the face every morning:

I’m healthy.

I have my health, and that, my friends, makes life SO MUCH EASIER.

If you’ve been with me for long you’ll remember that I experienced a horrendous flare-up of rheumatoid arthritis after I had Chaucer. I had about two years of illness, three surgeries, and managed to get addicted to pain meds during that time.

Being a mom through all of that was probably the hardest phase of life I’ve ever gone through.

So while I now have THREE little dependents, my body is so much more capable. And with a capable body comes a capable mind.

I had an appointment scheduled with my rheumatologist for right after Tenny was born. A big fear throughout the pregnancy was that the RA would flare up again after giving birth. RA often goes into remission during pregnancy and is triggered again by the release of hormones after birth. We all had our fingers crossed for nine months…

Welp, praise God, no flare up here!

So…guess what I’ve been doing?

I’ve been working out! For the last fourteen days I have been doing the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. I even got my husband to do it with me! (oh, to be a fly on the wall–its hilarious).

A twenty-minute workout–not a huge deal, right? WRONG!

This thing is a full-body, high-intensity workout. We are both dying by the end of the twenty minutes. I hate it. I hate every second of it, but afterwards? I can’t help but smile.

I’m doing pushups. I’m doing sit-ups. I can actually do jumping jacks! Its empowering to be able to do this. With every excruciating second where my body is crying from the “pain,” I remember the real pain. The not-being-able-to-open-a-jar pain. Or the I-cant-pull-my-hair-into-a-pony-tail pain. And I-need-to-be-dropped-off-at-the-door pain.

I might not have the Jillian Michaels body. I’m not the #fitmom that you’ll see on Instagram (and kind of hate). What I am is a #gratefulmom who is thrilled to be free of horrible RA symptoms. Thrilled to BE ABLE to do a silly workout video for 14 days straight.

Yes, I want to get fit. I want to look good in a bathing suit–mostly because I live in bathing-suit season year round. I want to see if I can lose this weight and feel good before the year is out. But mostly? I want to enjoy being HEALTHY.

I can push myself because I’m not breakable anymore. At least not for now.

Being healthy is a privilege. It’s a gift. Health is not something that everyone gets to experience, and I am probably more aware of this than some people. It is a gift to be sore from exercise, and I won’t take it lightly.

Thank you, Jesus.