That Point

Recently, I've been thinking about what I post about on my blog. First it was my dog, then my job, and now my kids. This post is about me.
Johanna is now 3 months old and sleeps completely (like 10 hours) through the night 3-4 nights a week. This is, in a word, tremendous.
I have been off of work for 5 straight days.
During this time, I have reached "that point."
I think most new moms hit "that point," but I'm going solely on personal experience here and not from anything I learned in my training.
"That point," I believe, is a culmination of many things: the lifting of the fog of sleep deprivation, feeling confident in your ability to take care of your child, etc.
"That point" is when you start to feel like yourself again. You are still by all means a mother, a wife, a daughter and all the other hats you wear, but you regain some semblance of self-awareness.
Let me provide some examples. During my recent time off, I have begun to do the things I like to do again. As I sat in Minute Maid Park Saturday surrounded by thousands of people (with my baby on my lap and my sister next to me holding my toddler), I felt one of those tingles of happiness, one of those moments where your heart is so happy because you are doing something you love. Maybe it's not kosher to bring an infant to a professional ball game, but good gracious, it made me feel alive. (And to the guy who wolf whistled at me as I nursed my baby, you're the freak, not me.)
Tonight I went running after we tucked Molly in bed. I love running at night, covered in darkness and worrying more about what I may roll an ankle on than what pace I'm keeping. I ran for 20 minutes straight, clocking 11minute miles. Yes, there was a time when I ran for 90 minutes at a pace almost half that. But there were moments as I ran downhill and was able to let the stroller coast that I was completely free and I felt incredibly alive.
I bought some new clothes today as well. My old ones don't fit yet, but I am so excited to wear something that doesn't have a belly pouch. No, they aren't the size I wished they were but Stacy and Clinton surely would appreciate my attempt to fight the frump!
I hosted 14 women at my house last night and served them a home-cooked meal. It was a fantastic estrogen fest. For the first time ever, there were no children at a gathering at my house.
I am still who I was a month ago, but I feel like I'm wearing another merit badge now as opposed to a sandwich board. It's nice to be a woman with all my hats instead of just a sleep-deprived food source. "That point" is just that-a marker on the journey, a dot on the map. Here's to waking up tomorrow and doing it all again!