The Getaway

I’m spending a couple of much-needed days away at the moment while the Lovely Man takes a week’s “Boy Time” in the kids’ city.

As much as I support the Boys getting time alone with their Dad, it wasn’t a plan I was particularly happy about initially – there’s nothing like feeling excluded from what I consider my family (even if the other people in it don’t feel the same way about me!) to reinforce those inevitable stepmother outsider feelings. The Boys actually get a lot of time with their Dad without me there, and the timing of this particular trip certainly hasn’t felt ideal…

But now, looking out of my hotel window at the blue sky and glassy river beyond, I feel very glad to be here, catching up with myself as I am outside and beyond my stepmother role.

Part of the “shutting down” feeling that I get from being depressed (and just as a reminder, stepmothers suffer stress and depression at significantly higher rates than other stepfamily members, mothers without stepchildren or women generally) has included a kind of distancing from spending time with people I love, so it feels like a big step forward to have invited a couple of friends and my sister to each spend a night with me as part of this mini-holiday.

And in between their comings and goings I’ve got hours each day to myself for walking on the beach, shopping, reading and writing. I also carefully chose the cheapest hotel I could find that had a gym so I can keep up with the all-important exercise regimen that’s been so helpful in lifting my mood and cutting the dreaded rumination cycle off at the knees.

I’m very lucky to have this option – lots of other women wouldn’t be able to get away from work, or couldn’t spare the extra cash that three nights in even an inexpensive hotel costs. As much as I love our home, the Lovely Man’s long hours and extra travel to see the Boys without me for two weekends in four means I spend way too much time alone there, so actually being in a different environment is a big part of the self-care investment of this trip.

Especially for stepmothers without children of our own, there’s an enormous benefit in getting away from our usual routine and consciously connecting with the things that make us who we are beyond our partner and his kids.

Common sense tells us there are real benefits to getting away, even if the best you can manage is sending your man and the children out for a day of Dad-Kid time and consciously taking that few hours to do something enjoyable that you have let slide away under the pressure of stepfamily life. Or for some women maybe deliberately setting out to do something new and different might be more nurturing – what about packing a book, a blanket, a sandwich and a drink, heading to the prettiest park you can find and turning your phone off for a guaranteed two hours of solitude? I’ll stow that idea away for the next time the Boys come to visit…

I’ve put so much energy into cultivating my relationship with the Lovely Man and with his kids that the most important relationship I have got neglected. It feels so good to be gradually getting back together with me again.

There’s an app for that – iPhone applications for stepmothers

Ok, perhaps I’m being a trifle silly and self-indulgent with this post. But a bit of frippery is good in the middle of the week, and silly is sometimes surprisingly sustaining.

And for me my iPhone is more than a phone; it’s a family member. One that never complains on long car trips. Which gets it extra bonus points.

And yes, it’s true that probably most of these apps are no more applicable to stepmums than they are to Mothers Who Birthed.

But if you have the care of children (not infants – given that I first menaced into the boys’ life when Boy C was five I’m going to let that aspect slide for want of credibility), and sometimes those children, or you, need distracting/managing/pacifying (point me out either a stepkid or a stepparent that doesn’t!), then these apps come tested and recommended.

Exercise. I already wrote about Couch to 5k, but Gateway to 8k and (especially) Runkeeper are also pretty nifty for those times when you just need to escape. Exercise is one of those self-justificatory, don’t-need-a-reason activities that give you a get out of jail free card when you’re about to throttle someone.

Byline. For reading my stepmum blogs. Anywhere. Anytime. And it will cache them for reading even when I’ve got no reception.

Pzizz Relax. This incredibly useful guided mediation tool allows you to have timed power naps and wakes you up refreshed when your snooze is up. Can be used with optional hypnotic suggestions and “Aurora 3D” effects, also known as “binaural beats”, which are said to help induce a relaxed and suggestible brain state. Give Pzizz a go when you’ve been up late with kids who won’t settle, when you can’t seem to stop ruminating about the difficulties of steplife or just when you need to relax. It really, really works. And it’s great for regular self-care.

Epicurious allows you to search recipes based on one or more main ingredient, meal or course you are catering cooking for, a cuisine type, dietary considerations, the type of dish and the season or occasion. You can search by keywords, save favourites and generate shopping lists.

I’m a keen cook, and the thought of stirring industrial-sized vats of the bland gloop that results from eliminating almost every known ingredient or flavouring because one or other of the boys won’t try doesn’t like it nearly does my head in. Epicurious at least lets me explore a range of options.

The boys also love using it to choose recipes; and when they are involved they tend to try much broader groups of foods.

Another free app with a database of less foodie-type meals and a super cool high-kid-appeal slot/fruit/poker machine-style format for spinning up recipes is Dinner Spinner. I’ll mention that a lot of the recipes it links to seem to include cans of Cream of Mushroom soup and leave you to judge whether that communicates “time-saving homestyle deliciousness” or “gloopy 1970s casserole” to you…

Stanza is a book reader. It’s so well laid out that the format is being adopted by other purpose-built reader gadgets. It’s very pretty, with a page-turning simulation that the boys love. And I love being able to download hundreds of classic books with kid appeal for them to read in random moments of boredom or when we’re travelling. For free!

At the moment Boys C and sometimes Boy B are listening to me read aloud The Wind in the Willows. We can’t find our lovely old hardcover edition amidst the chaotic forest of Lego sculptures at present, so it was iPhone to the rescue. And the benefit is that with the lit screen I can read to them in the dark, helping them to settle for sleep that much sooner.

Games. The Boys looooove playing games on the iPhone and we mostly keep it as a special treat, or to palliate annoying waits and car trips. Enduring favourites include Yahtzee, Flight Control, Doodle Jump and Touch Physics; all of which are non-violent and/or cooperative.

Apologies to non-iPhone geeks, but the little plastic and metal phone thingy really makes a big difference in my time with the kids, and I sometimes, quite frankly, wonder how I’d manage without it.

Self-Care Challenge – Day 7

Ummm, I didn’t walk the dog yesterday.

Bad. Evil. B.

My self-care challenge has been most useful by showing just how much I need to make self-care an active priority. If it’s not actively planned into each day it just doesn’t happen, I’ve found.

And given that we’re about to head interstate for a week with the Boys, becoming aware of the need to plan self-care and getting into the habit of scheduling and doing it before we leave has been good practice for the next few days, when I’ll be in the KidHaus with the chips down and the stakes high.

I think a self-care diary would help me stay on track, even if it’s just a stack of post-it notes on the bedside table. Or maybe I could use my iPhone. Surely there’s an app for that!

Today, for the final day of the challenge, I’m going to bake something yummy with Billie Holiday playing in the background. So soothing!

And (finally) take the dog for a walk.

Thanks to everyone who has followed, commented and been involved in my inaugural Self-Care Challenge Week!

Let’s keep asking ourselves –

What’s one thing I like to do, just for me, that makes me feel good about myself and that I can do today?

Self-care challenge – Day 6

I’ve still got sunburnt legs from surfing on Saturday morning (who’d have thought that the surfboard would rub all the sunscreen off my legs!?), so running is out for today’s self-care. Hot, itchy thighs are not fun!

It does need to be exercised-based, though, so today I’ll plan to take the dog for a walk along the loop where I usually run. There are some steep hills, so we’ll both get to work our muscles a bit, even if not at high speed.

My little sojourn on the front step was really soothing last night; I came back inside in better and less troubled spirits and was able to talk what was bothering me over calmly with the Lovely Man.

That small step of recognising what I needed to do to self-soothe and doing it in turn allowed me to think the situation through and gain access to more adaptive ways of thinking and talking about it.

As a bonus, I got to spend time listening to the night noises, which I love.

How are you going to take care of yourself today?

Self-Care Challenge – day 2

Well, I headed off for my run yesterday as promised, so day 1 of my Self-Care Challenge is therefore officially done and dusted!

I’ve only been a runner for around six months; prior to that time I would have sworn black and blue that there was no way I would ever run for any reason less pressing than having a fair-sized pack of slavering beasties on my tail. Even then I probably would have tried to climb a tree.

There are two factors I credit in my transformation to runnerdom – the Lovely Man, whose base level of fitness and dedication to exercise are inspiring, and the Couch to 5k application on my iPhone.*

C25k works you up oh-so-gradually; the first few runs involve jogging for 60 seconds then walking for 90 seconds, repeated over 20 minutes.

At first even that amount of effort nearly killed me. But gradually, as I followed the plan and scheduled in a short run/walk every second day, a habit built and I found myself looking forward to… not the running itself so much as the high and the massive sense of achievement I got afterwards.

My fitness took a hit over Christmas, and of course it’s very hot here at the moment, but I’ve just given myself permission to step back a couple of stages in the program as I need to, and however much I do it always feels really, really good.

It’s not for everyone, I know, and I’m sure lots of you have your own exercise preferences, but in my experience NOTHING (except maybe 90 minutes of Bikram yoga, which is both expensive and takes ninety minutes!) gets me out of the stepdrama better than a run.

Running is cheap, quick, rewarding, achievable, with minimal equipment required – could it be worth a try?

Today being Day 2 of my Self Care Challenge, I’m committing to taking the dog for a walk before heading out this evening.

It might be a push to fit it in between my work teleconference and various pressing chores, so please keep me honest by staying tuned with the rotten tomatoes…

*(You don’t have to have an iPhone, either – there are similar inexpensive programs that you can download to an mp3 player as audio tracks, or you can Google a Couch to 5k training program and time your own intervals with a stopwatch.)