Goals for August and September

Well, the last time I set goals for the month it was early February. I wasn't yet pregnant, we were still living in a small town, and Ellie was much younger. Now it's the middle of August and I feel the need to think out loud about what it is I want to have accomplished in the next 6 weeks. Before I start, I want to take a look at my goals from February and see if any of them are relevant or were accomplished way back then...

• Work on improving Ellie's night time sleep. I'm reading the No Cry Sleep Solution and so far it really resonates with me. I figure if I can get Ellie to the point where she only wakes to nurse a couple times each night, we're golden! This took us a while, but sometime in April or May we eventually went with the crying it out method, and then sometime in June Ellie stopped nursing at night entirely (thus ending our breastfeeding stint). The 12 straight hours of sleep she has each night are absolutely glorious!
• Finish writing the first draft of my business plan. Moving to a new city has completely changed this part of my life. I am no longer planning a business and am instead focusing on finishing a distance education program I started before Ellie was born.
• Go to more baby groups! It's good for Ellie and for my sanity to get out of the house. Driving into town each day isn't so great on our budget, but we'll have to make it work. I have no idea if we did this or not. I do remember working a lot more in February though, so probably not.
• Get more shifts at work. I feel happiest when I have a few hours every few days to do something productive away from home. Done!
• Green smoothies!! My veggie intake is waning again... not good! I feel like I crave sweets a lot more when I'm not getting enough fruits and veggies in my diet. I need to hop back on the green smoothie bandwagon. Maybe I should branch out and try a new recipe? Not sure.
• Get the oil changed in the car finally! I did (with Ellie in the car, nonetheless!), and alas, it's time again!

I'm actually surprised I remember back to February. My brain feels like mush most days. So, with those past goals in mind, and our new lives in mind, here are a few goals for the next 6 weeks:

• I want to get back into drinking more smoothies. It's so hot out these days that they sound super appealing, yet I haven't been bothered. I need to start by adding spinach, bananas and frozen mango to my grocery list.
• Get the oil changed in the car - again! And get the brake pads checked... it might be just about time for new ones.
• Work on my courses. I'm deliberately leaving this goal vague because I don't yet have the course outlines for the 3 courses I am attempting to do before this baby is born. 
• Prepare for the baby's arrival. I have a handful of things I'd like to do: make a mobile, make a baby book, have a baby shower, set up a crib and change station, etc.
• Make Ellie's Halloween costume. 
• Do most of our Christmas shopping.
• Make the baby's Christmas stocking. 
• Make time for fun family activities on our one day off a week that we get all together! 

I have other things I want to do, but I'm going to say that if I manage to accomplish everything above, I should feel great about that! Anything else is extra! 

5 Months in 1 Post

I'm terrible at keeping up with a blog, so in an effort to get back into it without too much of a hurdle to cross first, here's 5 months in 1 post:

• We're pregnant! Baby (girl!!!) number 2 is due to arrive October 28th.
• Ellie turned 9 months, then 10 months, then 11 months, then 1 year! Now she'll be 14 months tomorrow!!
• We took a trip to Vancouver for my birthday in March (Ikea & the Vancouver Aquarium!).
• We decided to move back to our true love, Victoria.
• We moved back to Victoria - Ellie started full time daycare, Adam and I each started new full time jobs. 
• As of 13 months, Ellie is officially weaned. Our breastfeeding journey has come to an end and she is blissfully sleeping 12 hours through the night without waking!!!!!!!!!!! (There are not enough exclamation marks in the world for this one!).
• I am changing my work life up a bit in a couple weeks time to be part time at my current job and part time at a job I've done in the past and love, love, love.
• I'm signed up to do 3 courses in a span of 6 weeks in an effort to establish an actual career by the time maternity leave #2 is over!

Life is good! Here's a few photos to recap the past 5 months, and hopefully in the months to come I will become a little more on top of the blog!

January Outcomes and February Ambitions!

I feel like January flew by! I don't even remember writing my January goals, so I hope I was able to achieve some of them. Let's see how I did:

• Have a date night with my husband. We had a baby-free lunch date for our 7 year anniversary! We both would love to do a dinner, but that will have to wait until Ellie sleeps better at night.
• Try a new recipe. I tried quite a few new ones ~ lentil soup, potato corn chowder, mexican rice, to name a few!
• Take one step forward in my business planning process. Yes!
• Declutter our home. Yes, but I feel like it's a never ending process.
• Contact the company that holds our car loan and arrange for either larger payments or more frequent payments. Yes!
• Go to a Bikram yoga class. Yes! Although I only made it once, I'm still glad I went. It's a shame the classes are so expensive. However, I have signed up for a mom and baby fitness class that starts next week, so that's something!
• Schedule the car for an oil change. Soon...
• Visit friends and/or family. Not yet, but we have a brief trip planned to visit friends next week!
• Get Ellie to nap in her crib.SUCCESS!!!! OMG what took me so long!? 

I think I did great considering I forgot about most of these goals after a week or so! So now I'm ready to set some goals for this month!

• Work on improving Ellie's night time sleep. I'm reading the No Cry Sleep Solution and so far it really resonates with me. I figure if I can get Ellie to the point where she only wakes to nurse a couple times each night, we're golden!
• Finish writing the first draft of my business plan.
• Go to more baby groups! It's good for Ellie and for my sanity to get out of the house. Driving into town each day isn't so great on our budget, but we'll have to make it work.
• Get more shifts at work. I feel happiest when I have a few hours every few days to do something productive away from home.
• Green smoothies!! My veggie intake is waning again... not good! I feel like I crave sweets a lot more when I'm not getting enough fruits and veggies in my diet. I need to hop back on the green smoothie bandwagon. Maybe I should branch out and try a new recipe?
• Get the oil changed in the car finally!

8 Months!

January Goals

In keeping with my New Year's Resolutions, here are my goals for this month:

• Have a date night with my husband. This will probably entail renting a movie and watching it in another room while my mom babysits... but hey, at least it's a start! I would like to come up with a cheap and simple way to make it a little more special though since this month marks 7 years since our very first date! ♥
• Try a new recipe. Technically, tonight's dinner was a new recipe, but since it was just chicken in a different kind of tomato sauce and served over noodles... it didn't truly feel 'new' to us. So hopefully sometime this month we will break in my new cookbook and try something we've truly never had before!
• Take one step forward in my business planning process. I want to start working on my actual written business plan, but I also want to try to interview a current entrepreneur to get some insight into the sector I would be going into. Hopefully someone agrees to be my interviewee!
• Declutter our home. We've already made one trip to the thrift store this month, but hopefully we can continue the trend. We have a desk to sell, I have craft supplies to organize/purge, and we have a kitchen to declutter. And I seem to have totally forgotten about anything we have out in the shed... hmm.
• Contact the company that holds our car loan and arrange for either larger payments or more frequent payments.
• Go to a Bikram yoga class. I am planning on going this Saturday, so this should be an easy goal to accomplish! (After all, I didn't say I had to do well in the class... so even if I lie on my mat feeling like death for half the class, technically, I still went to it!)

So those goals should help me work towards my resolutions, but I also want to add in a couple things just for this month:

• Schedule the car for an oil change.
• Visit friends and/or family. We have a bunch of people we haven't seen in a while and have been meaning to visit, so hopefully we can knock one off the list this month! 
• Get Ellie to nap in her crib. I've had this goal before and totally flaked on it. But it's time. As much as I love our cuddles, sometimes I just really need the 'free' time to get other things done or take a nap myself!

Wish me luck!

Months 1 - 7

I was just reminiscing about how little Ellie used to be and thought it might be fun to do a post compiling all of her monthly photos. So without further ado, watch our magic bean grow right in front of your eyes!

 

 

 

 

 

Resolutions For A New And Exciting Year!

We had a wonderful, family-filled Christmas vacation all the way over in Ontario and are just now settling back into life at home. I've just caught up on reading other people's blog posts about New Year's resolutions, and feel like it's time to put mine out there in the world. Hopefully by sharing them with the vast audience of the internet (ha! more like my 2 regular readers!), I will be more accountable to following through on them. Time will tell!

Resolution #1: Have date nights with my husband once every couple weeks. We're still easing into leaving Ellie alone with a sitter (aka Grandma), but in order to get better at it we have to just do it! So our general plan is to start by renting a movie and watching it in one of the hotel rooms upstairs. Once we get more comfortable with that, we may venture out for the occasional date!

Resolution #2: Try new recipes. I got a cookbook for Christmas with lots of yummy, easy meals in it that I want to try. Not only that, but Adam and I really enjoy cooking together so hopefully this is something else we can do together in addition to date nights. We also really want to learn how to make our own sushi, so that fits in well with this idea!

Resolution #3: Work on my business idea. I'm still not quite ready to share it with the world, but if I can put more time and effort into the idea, I might be ready soon! One thing I was hoping to do was to use a babysitter a couple times a week and devote that time to working on my business plan. I would need to take my laptop and work outside of our suite (but still in the building in case I need to nurse Ellie), but it would probably be the easiest way to make some actual progress.

Resolution #4: Keep our home simple and clutter free. This is a huge challenge, particularly around holidays and events like Christmas and birthdays. Having a baby makes it especially challenging! People are always incredibly generous about giving gifts to babies and children, but what I need to be better at is proactively communicating to our family and friends about what we need/want and what we'd really like to avoid. We're currently in the middle of a big time decluttering of our house, so this is a step in the right direction. We just have to keep it decluttered! Ellie's first birthday might be a challenge!

Resolution #5: Pay off the car loan. Provided we don't have any major changes to our financial situation, this is completely feasible! It definitely means sticking to our budget and might mean forfeiting trips that we had hoped to take, but it would be worth it to have the weight off our shoulders! After the car loan is paid off, we would only have student loans remaining.

Resolution #6: Exercise. This isn't the typical New Year's resolution about losing weight or going to the gym X number of times each week. I simply want the endorphins! I have a hot yoga class coming up this week that I am absolutely DYING to go to. It's not the physical exercise that I care so much about, but the amazing feelings that I can't even do justice by attempting to describe. It's something I can do that makes my soul feel good!

It's always possible to make a million lists of things I want to do or change, but I want to stop there. If I keep it short, it will likely be even more manageable! Next I have to make my goals for January and see if I can work towards some of these resolutions in baby steps starting with this month...

7 Months!

Living In The Moment

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how different my frame of mind is now, compared to a few months ago when Ellie was a newborn. In the 0-3 month phase, I remember constantly thinking 'it'll be easier when...' or 'I can't wait until she's able to...', filling in the gaps with milestones I thought would make my life easier. Having a newborn was simultaneously incredibly challenging and a wonderful blessing.

I feel like my attitude started to shift around the 4 month mark. Ellie started acknowledging and reacting to me (smiles, laughs, etc) and I started to feel like having a baby around was just as much fun as it was work. And even then, some of that 'work' was actually pretty great (breastfeeding, bath time, etc.).

Now, at nearly 7 months, she is such a joy to be around! She laughs, plays, reaches for toys, reaches for me, babbles, sits up on her own, makes funny faces (especially the one she makes when I try to feed her apples or hummous). She brings so much joy to my life and I couldn't imagine going a day without her (the day of my surgery was brutal!). All of this gushing doesn't mean she isn't still a challenge and a lot of work (that's just part of being a parent), but the work is a lot less daunting these days. Here's hoping she's still this much of a joy when she's a teenager ;)

Little Miss Pees A Lot

I love cloth diapers. I love not filling a garbage bin full of diapers or having to run to the store at the last minute (and that store is a 30 minute drive away too!) and fork out a ridiculous amount of cash for diapers. What I don't love is our current struggle with keeping Ellie dry overnight. We've stopped changing her diaper at night because she's just too sleepy and a diaper change results in blood-curdling screams from a child who just doesn't want to be woken up quite that much. Sadly though, we still have to sometimes as we are still figuring out the perfect night time cloth diaper. We have a few options. We have two DryBees fleece night diapers that seem to hold everything in, depending on how many inserts we put in them. The downside is that they are super bulky and for the last half of the night her bum feels ever so slightly damp, since they don't have any plastic lining (PUL I think it's called?). We also have two BumGenius 4.0's that we stuff with both inserts they came with (one long one that folds down and snaps to be a shorter length and one short one that's fairly thin). The downside to these is that we never seem to get the perfect fit around both legs and she ends up leaky about half way through the night. Finally, we have our cheapie CozyKids pocket diapers that we stuff with two regular inserts. This usually works to avoid leaks, but we sometimes have fit issues. The upside is that they aren't bulky, even with two inserts (neither are the BumGenius). Is there a perfect overnight cloth diaper out there? Can anyone recommend one? Something that's not too bulky, fits lots of different sizes, and can hold a whole lotta pee???

Let the Guilt Begin

I knew this day would come. I expected it from other moms, maybe even from relatives, but not from health professionals. Silly me. I thought doctors and public health nurses were meant to monitor your child's health and encourage you to continue healthy practices for your child. Unfortunately, the public health nurse we saw most recently decided to lay on the guilt about how and what I feed my baby and whether or not I'm doing a good enough job. (I seem to have similar somewhat negative experiences with all health nurses, I'm not sure why). See, at Ellie's 4 month shots, she weighed roughly 15lbs. This week, however, at her 6 month shots, she was a couple ounces less than she was 2 months ago. A couple things could have caused this, one being that they weighed her naked this time and fully clothed last time. Another being that she's much, much more active than she was 2 months ago. Adding to that, she's grown longer rather than heavier. At any rate, our doctor (who also saw and weighed Ellie at 4 months and 6 months) saw no reason for concern, yet the public health nurse proceeded to lecture me on my milk supply, what solid foods I was feeding Ellie, and whether or not Ellie was getting fed or nursed enough. Needless to say, as a first time mom, I basically spent the week in super stress mode trying to nurse more often, trying to feed Ellie more solid foods, and stressing out that my milk supply wasn't sufficient. That changes today. After listening to my gut and doing my own research I learned what I had thought all along - that breastfed babies simply don't follow the same growth curves as formula fed babies and that standard growth charts used by health professionals are based on an average of both breastfed and formula fed babies. So while Ellie may seem small when compared to all other babies, when her weight is tracked on a breastfed-babies-only growth chart, she's right on the mean. So I am done worrying and stressing myself out. She eats (often and plenty!), she plays, she sleeps, poos, pees, and laughs. She's perfect and she's doing just fine!

December Goals

I've decided not to make any concrete goals for this month. We have a lot going on over the next few weeks and my only goal for the month is to get through it relatively unscathed.

I started off the month in pretty rough shape because I had my gall bladder removed only a couple days earlier. Suffice it to say, those first few days were a blur of painkillers, no sleep and a lot of lying on the couch with heat packs and ice packs just trying to make it through. Thanks to a lot of help from Adam and my mom, Ellie and I were well taken care of.

I've now made it through my first week of recovery and I'm on to my next challenge. This week I'm putting together a staff holiday party for 20-30 people and then baking 7 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange on the weekend. I'm a little overwhelmed but I still seem to find the time to do fun things like set up a small Christmas tree and bake shortbread cookies.

During the last couple weeks of this month I have to plan and pack for a week long trip across the country with Adam and Ellie. To say I'm nervous/anxious/stressed/worried about all the things I need to remember and deal with along the way would be an understatement. I have no idea how Ellie is going to react to airplane travel, airport transfers, and a plethora of new faces. It may sound negative to some people, but I'm trying to plan for the worst so that I will be prepared for any scenario. Wish us luck!

So that's the month ahead. All while still recovering from surgery. Here's hoping I make it out alive!

A Passion for Pinterest!

The upside to being stuck on the couch recovering from surgery is that I get a lot of baby-free time to spend browsing Pinterest.

I'm trying to decide which recipe to try first - maybe something I can bring to our holiday staff party or as part of a cookie exchange with friends...

 

I'm also trying to decide which DIY project to take on first, likely after Christmas...

How do I decide what to do first???

It's Almost December!

With my surgery coming up on Monday, I thought it would be best to get a head start on evaluating my November goals.

• Take Ellie to a baby group. Nope!
• Continue to eat more veggies. Yup!
• More tummy time for Ellie! A bit, but she's not a big fan.
• Be more consistent with putting Ellie in her crib for naps. I totally suck at this.
• Sit down with Adam and weigh the pros and cons of me finding an outside job. Done, and as it turns out, I got a job and then went from part time to on-call/casual. I think this is the perfect balance.
• Encourage Adam to use the sauna or steam room at least once a week. I totally forgot to do this...
• Do something (anything!) once a week that contributes to my own overall health. Not even once...
• Let my mom babysit more so that Ellie gets more used to her. Done! Ellie LOVES her!
• Get our house clean and sorted. Mostly done, but I feel like it's a never ending task.
• Baby proof! We've started!
• Work on my two big goals.Yes. I've been doing research for both goals. I've determined that if we do proceed with adoption, it would likely be a private adoption as I am just not up for the challenges that come with raising a child with FASD. I completely commend people who take on this challenge knowingly, but I don't see myself going this route any time soon. So now I need to do more research on funding for private adoptions. As for my career goal, I just have to keep plugging along with the research for now.
• Make and freeze a month's worth of baby food! Well, I might not have a month's worth frozen, but I do have quite a bit.
• Pump and freeze milk for my surgery. Done.
• Christmas presents/plans! Everything about this is up in the air, so hopefully we can get some of it figured out soon! Plans are made and I'm just about done with presents!

I'll have to think up some goals for December, but I might not get a chance to post them on time, depending on my surgery. Hopefully it will go well and I'll be posting my December goals on the 1st!

6 months!

Weighing in at 6.85kg and measuring 66cm, our little babe is half a year old!

Housewife Woes

Today I found myself in the midst of a very familiar meltdown. It was the "no matter how much I vacuum I can't get these dang floors clean" meltdown. You see, we have a very, very hairy dog. He's a yellow lab cross but his coat is more like that of a German Shepherd. So he has long-ish wiry hair that weaves into our carpets and a thick undercoat that seems to shed like crazy (I'm talking fist-fulls of hair everywhere!) for months out of the year. For the past 5 or so years, we've gotten by using Adam's beloved shop vac. Well, lately it seems to clog very easily in multiple parts of the hose. My floors are never clean and it's driving me crazy! Normally I wouldn't care quite this much, but with a baby who could crawl any time in the next few months, I just can't take it anymore. I'd like to be able to put Ellie down to play anywhere in the house without worrying about having her covered head to toe in dog hair when I pick her up. Not to mention how much of it she'd likely end up eating!

But that's enough ranting! If anyone happens to read this and has good recommendations of an affordable, yet pet-hair-busting vacuum, please comment!

My First Pinterest Challenge

Inspired by one of my favourite blogs, Young House Love, I decided to take part in the fall edition of the Pinterest Challenge!

A friend of mine had recommended a pin to me that I just couldn't resist. Here is the original pin:

And after a photo shoot of pure awesome fun, here's our end result:

We later cut leg holes and tried that on for size too, but this is my favourite photo because the little hat only stayed on for a few photos!

November Goals

I can't believe it will be December a month from now. I am not even the least bit prepared for the holidays. Looks like I'll have to make up for that in November!

• Take Ellie to a baby group. We've been to it once before, but now I'd like to work it into our schedule more regularly.
• Continue to eat more veggies.
• More tummy time for Ellie! She very much prefers to sit up to play on her blanket, but to learn to crawl, she'll have to do more tummy time.
• Be more consistent with putting Ellie in her crib for naps.
• Sit down with Adam and weigh the pros and cons of me finding an outside job. I have an interview next week, so hopefully we can do this before then.
• Encourage Adam to use the sauna or steam room at least once a week.
• Do something (anything!) once a week that contributes to my own overall health. Whether this is a yoga class, a session in the sauna, some time in the fitness room, etc. It doesn't matter what it is as long as it makes me feel good and is good for me! 
• Let my mom babysit more so that Ellie gets more used to her. This will give me some freedom and help relieve some of the stress of having to leave Ellie when I have my gall bladder removed. Plus, if I do get an outside job, it will help with childcare.
• Get our house clean and sorted. We have bottles that need to go to the depot, a baby swing to return to a friend, computer stuff to organize and put away, a baby gate (or rather, a dog pen) to set up, a playpen to put away, etc. I am looking forward to tackling this to-do list!
• Baby proof! Ellie will only be getting more and more mobile as the months progress, so it may be time to baby proof things like cords, cables, outlets, etc. Then, when she's just about to pull up on stuff, we'll baby proof things like heavy furniture and toilet lids!
• Work on my two big goals.
• Make and freeze a month's worth of baby food!
• Pump and freeze milk for my surgery (I have to keep doing this on an ongoing basis because milk only lasts so long in the freezer and I have no idea when my surgery will be).
• Christmas presents/plans! Everything about this is up in the air, so hopefully we can get some of it figured out soon!

This is a terribly long list, but hopefully with some babysitting by mom, I'll have a little more time to accomplish things!

Who Doesn't Love Halloween??

A Look Back At October

Well, October definitely started out on the wrong foot. After a lot of pain and many doctor's appointments (and one night in the emergency room!), I found out I have gall stones and need to have my gall bladder removed. On top of this, the hotel got much busier and we lost a staff member, so I've been working a little more than I expected. So those are my excuses for failing at some of my October goals! Here are the goals I had set for October and the results of each goal:

• Take Ellie to swimming lessons. We did this. We lasted for 3 lessons before we realized it was silly to keep going. They happen to coincide with nap time, so Ellie just wasn't a very happy camper for most of the lesson. We plan to go to public swim time with her in the future and then try lessons again when she's a little older.
• Continue to eat more veggies. We've been having green smoothies nearly everyday and dinners that consist of a ton of veggies since my gall bladder troubles have me on a very restricted diet.
• More tummy time for Ellie! Yup! Although we're also doing a lot of 'sitting' (while I support her a bit) time because she seems to prefer it.
• Get Ellie to nap without being held. I know this is possible because she's done it a few times and because she naps in the car seat or stroller sometimes too. Now I just need to get her used to napping in the crib. I've been avoiding it because I appreciate the cuddles, but it would be nice to also be able to nap or to get things done while she naps. Yes! She has napped in her crib a handful of days now. I need to be more consistent with it though.
• Apply for jobs. I am able to work at the hotel, with my husband, however, I would like to find some part time work where the pay is a little better. At the very least, I would like to pick up a few more hours at the hotel to supplement our income since I don't get any maternity leave pay. I have sent out some applications, but have also gotten more hours at the hotel. I had forgotten how much I like working with my husband!
• Encourage Adam to use the sauna or steam room a couple times a week to take better advantage of the perks of living here and to relax! I probably haven't done this as much as I intended, but we've been pretty swamped, so free time has been at a minimum this month. However, I did manage to send him off to use the sauna once and he also got treated to a 3 hour massage on one of his days off!
• Do something (anything!) once a week that contributes to my own overall health. Whether this is a yoga class, a session in the sauna, some time in the fitness room, etc. It doesn't matter what it is as long as it makes me feel good and is good for me! I like the sound of this goal already! :) Giant fail. It seems ironic that I wrote a goal about doing things that contribute to my health and then days later found myself in the emergency room. I spent most of October feeling sore, weak, tired and just plain crappy. Hopefully I can do better next month!

I also think I should give myself bonus points for fitting in an overnight road trip. I took Ellie (all by myself!) to visit my parents on their new farm. It was a quick, but successful, trip!

 
Now I'm going to take a couple days to think about what I want my November goals to be!