4 months!

I'm about 10 days late on bringing you this one... but here it is anyhow:

September Goals

I'm pretty happy with how I did on my August goals even if I didn't achieve all of them. Now it's time to set some goals for September and get started making them happen!

• Take an overnight family trip. We have this planned already, so fingers crossed it goes well! It will actually be a 4 hour trip in the car and two nights away from home - yikes!
• Eat more veggies. My August goal about eating more salads and green smoothies didn't work out. I think it was too specific. I'd like to get more veggies in my diet, but it doesn't have to be through salads or smoothies.
• Continue to exercise regularly. This may only be a walk with Ellie in the stroller, or it may be a half hour stint in the fitness room. I'm okay with either!
• Give Ellie even more tummy time and independent time. We threw caution to the wind and ignored absolutely everyone's parenting advice for the first three months and just did what worked for Ellie. Now, I'm ready to wean her off of always wanting to be in someone's arms. In the next couple months we'll start to work on getting her to fall asleep on her own for naps!
• Go to a mom and baby group with Ellie. There is one very close to our house, so hopefully that will help me get over the trauma of driving alone with Ellie.
• Take the car in for an oil change and to replace our cracked windshield. We've been meaning to do this for a while now, but it requires 'giving up' almost a whole day off, so I've been postponing it inevitably. I'm hoping that posting this here will force me to book it and get it done. I also would really like it done before our road trip!
• Get my bloodwork done to check my thyroid. I had crazy weird thyroid issues early on in my pregnancy with Ellie and was supposed to have it checked again shortly after her birth. Well, I've been putting this off strictly because it's not fun and I often have 'more important' things to do. It's time to get it over with! 

I could keep going, but I think this is a manageable number of goals. I also need to get started on some of them as soon as possible because otherwise there is potential for a lot of these things to all happen within a week of one another. That doesn't sound fun!

August Goal Review

Early in the month, I set some goals for myself and now the time has come to see how well I've done. Here are the goals I had set, and, in bold text, the results!

• Shower while home alone with Ellie. I have now done this about half a dozen times. It totally depends on her mood, but if she's happy in the bouncy chair I get a very enjoyable 3 minute shower! 
• Take Ellie somewhere in the car without Adam. I did manage to drive a couple minutes down the road to meet a friend and her kids at the beach. This was a few weeks ago, and slightly traumatized me (Ellie cried, I got distracted, I ran a stop sign!!!), so I haven't done it since.
• Go back to work part time. I've been working a few shifts here and there, but after much consideration, we decided it was too soon. Because Adam's shift would end at the very minute mine would begin, it required this difficult baby-shuffling routine in addition to the challenge of getting ready for work while entertaining a baby. I have my last shift this Saturday, and then we're going to wait a month or so and try again.
• Take an overnight family trip. Our work schedule made this impossible, however, we have one planned for September!
• Make time for regular exercise at least 2-3 times per week. I haven't made it over to the fitness room once this past month. But I did get out for walks with Ellie in the stroller nearly everyday for the past few weeks. It's a start!
• Eat more salads and/or green smoothies. Ha! I totally bailed on this goal.
• Do more tummy time, diaper-free time and outside in the shade time with Ellie. Success!
• Open an RESP for Ellie. Done! 

Not too shabby! Now I'm going to go think about what I want my September goals to be and hopefully I will get around to posting them in the next few days. 

3 months!

Time Flies...

... when you're exhausted 24/7. I can't believe it's been just over 3 months since Ellie officially entered the world. It's so hard to remember what our lives were like before we had her. Adam and I were talking the other day about what we did with our days off before her birth, and we really couldn't remember. We concluded that we wasted a lot of our baby-free time. Oh if we only knew then what we know now.... Isn't that always the case?

 

This past month has been hectic. We had a two week visit from Ellie's Ontario grandparents. We attempted several outings with Ellie but she just wasn't having it. She also had a few super fussy nights with lots of crying, which lead to a very exhausted mommy! On top of that, she had her first shots which resulted in a full day of crying in her sleep (yup, she slept ALL day after her shots!). We've also had visits from my mom and stepdad, my dad and stepmom, and a whole bunch of our friends (Danica, Shawna, Sven & Kayden). I also started working part time (but that's an entire other post worth in itself!). We even ventured out to Diana & Richard's house for a delicious dinner (and survived with only a short bout of crying!).

Ellie has also reached a lot of milestones over the past month. She had already started rolling from her tummy to her back, but also now rolls from her back onto her side (mostly in pursuit of fingers to suck on). She has also rolled back to tummy a couple times, but I think they were mostly accidental. She also figured out how to bat at her toys and a couple days of doing that resulted in her being able to reach for and grab her toys! Now she's just starting to put her two hands together. It's pretty fun to watch her concentration as she stares in amazement at her hands clasped in front of her! She is holding her head up really well these days, and likes putting weight on her legs when we hold her up. We also just got her a bumbo, which she really seems to enjoy so far!

Well, our life is pretty much all about Ellie! So that about sums up the last month or so. I don't even remember what 'busy' felt like before having a baby!

A Few Clips

Just a few long overdue video clips of Ellie for those of you not on Facebook...

A Few Favourites

These are just a few of my favourite moments from these past 2 months or so. Even though it's been a huge life-altering change, having Ellie is such a blessing!

The beginning of her thumb sucking attempts. I believe this one was an accidental success!

Ellie with her cousin Austin :)

Breastfeeding has gotten so much easier!

Self-explanatory? We couldn't pass up the opportunity to document this special moment!

Some after-bath time cuddles!

  

August Goals

One of my favourite blogs and bloggers does a monthly reflection and sets out her goals for the next month. I really enjoy those posts and have been wanting to do something similar because I think it will help me commit to my goals and hopefully follow through on them. So, as a trial run, here are my goals for August:

• Shower while home alone with Ellie (I usually either sneak in a shower before Adam goes to work, or when he comes home on his break, but getting up at 6am to shower or waiting until noon aren't very convenient options).
• Take Ellie somewhere in the car without Adam. I haven't attempted this yet because she often gets fussy in the car and I like to be the one sitting beside her and soothing her. But I have a friend I haven't seen since before Ellie was born, so I might just use that as an excuse to get over this hurdle! Then we can look at going to mommy-and-me type groups together in the fall!
• Go back to work part time. Luckily, we live at work, so this can be done fairly easily without me having to pump (hopefully). I'm just not sure how I'll handle longer periods of time away from Ellie (my shifts would be 4.5 hours).
• Take an overnight family trip. We will probably either go to visit my parents (depending on their schedules - they have a busy month!) or go somewhere else on the island just the 3 of us.
• Make time for regular exercise at least 2-3 times per week. We have a fitness room on the property, so all I have to do is get dressed and go over there when I get free time. I'd like to lose 5-7 pounds this month. I think this is doable.
• Eat more salads and/or green smoothies. There is a group retreat here at the moment in which the participants subside on nothing but green smoothies for a week. I'm hoping to be in the right place at the right time and score some free smoothies!
• Do more tummy time, diaper-free time and outside in the shade time with Ellie. Tummy time is great for strengthening her arm, neck and chest muscles and it's also the first step to crawling someday. Diaper-free time is good for airing out and keeping diaper rash away. On that note, diaper-free time can be kinda messy, so outside in the shade might be a nice place to do that!
• Open an RESP for Ellie. We actually had intended to do this in July (the appointment was made and everything), but had unexpected guests, so we cancelled it to spend time with them. It should be fairly simple to re-book once we know our work schedules.

I keep wanting to add more goals, but at the risk of overextending myself and feeling stressed out all month (or disappointed next month when I look back on these goals), I'm going to leave it there.

What do you think? Does this list seem realistic? Or is it too much too soon? Do you have any big (or small) goals for this month?

Can It Get Any Easier??

No - I am not talking about this baby business, for a change!

I came across a blog post over at Mama and Baby Love about making slow cooker meals that you freeze. It is the most amazing idea and I can't wait to try it! You simply toss all your pre-chopped veggies, your meat, and some spices into a big ziploc and toss them in the freezer. Voila! A meal ready for the slow cooker!

I know what I'm doing on our next day off!

2 months!