{Change 1}  Goodbye Jif

I will admit that despite being raised on the good stuff (or perhaps because of it) I have a fondness that borders on addiction to processed peanut butter.  I can eat the stuff on anything and have no qualms about eating it out of the jar just as one would eat yogurt.  Except yogurt does not pack a 100 calorie punch per bite.  Growing up we had natural peanut butter, almond butter, and cashew butter around the house.  It didn’t have salt, it certainly wasn’t processed with hydrogenated whatever, and sometimes we ground it up ourselves at the health food store.  I guess I am returning to my roots, only I cannot stand no-salt peanut butter, so whatever I buy has to have two ingredients.

Otherwise I have to salt my sandwiches, which just looks weird.  When I first considered swapping peanut butter my concern (of course) was for Isaac.  The kid needs calories!  What if he won’t eat natural stuff!  He will starve!  But then I realized that I was really just thinking about myself.  I like having my processed peanut butter available and I know for a fact that I am less likely to want to eat the natural stuff by the spoonful, partly because it doesn’t taste the same and partly because of the price!

{Change 2}  Hello organic eggs

This was pretty much a no-brainer opportunity that fell into our lap.  Some friends have been buying eggs from a woman who raises free-range chickens and we can get two dozen brown eggs a week for less than the non-sale price of regular eggs in the store.  Almost as good as having my own chickens but without the work!

So that’s January for you, two sustainable steps that we are making to eat healthier while still staying on a budget.  I would love to hear about any changes or suggestions anyone may have, including book suggestions that don’t get all weird on me with foods that decrease yin or yang or suggest that I start raising a pig and plant an orchard in the parking lot.

You have gotten so fat at three months that you have developed the most adorable cankles at your wrists.

Only they can’t be cankles, since they involve your wrists and not your ankles.  I like to call them “wrankles” and they are adorable on you.  You are positively Rubenesque,

weighing in at 14 pounds 9 ounces at your doctor’s visit a few days ago.  The same doctor’s visit that involved you drinking something nasty and then getting three shots in those chubby thighs of yours.  I’ve never heard you scream so loud.

So much has gone on for you this third month!  You sustained your first unintentional injury on my part, for one (moms with long hair, be warned!).  We got home from a date to find that the baby sitter had discovered that one of my hairs had somehow gotten wrapped around your middle toe, completely cutting off circulation and cutting through the skin.  It was a three person job as I carefully used a tweezers to unwind the hair from inside your toe.  I felt so.  bad.  Not bad enough to cut my hair, but very guilty and ashamed for causing such pain.

You also received your first visible war wound from big brother.  Isaac still enjoys laying on top of you,

which you usually tolerate with benign smiles and slobber.  A week ago when my back was turned, Isaac lay down beside you and suddenly you were crying.  Isaac got up and walked nonchalantly away.  Ten minutes later we realized that our little culprit had left fingernail prints.  I give you permission to spit up on him any time you like.

You are incredibly smile-y these days.  Hugely beautiful smiles and babble greet me when I get you up in the morning and after naps.  You are also fond of being bounced, which has gotten some huge grins and belly laughs out of you.  I am amazed at the words we use, the tone we say things in, and the things we do to get smiles out of babies.  Utterly humiliating and so worth it all at the same time.

I am torn between feeling like you are all grown up and wanting a newborn again and being amazed at the absolute helplessness of a three month old human being.  Some animals are walking and hunting hours after birth.  Here you are, three months in, and all you can do is devour your hands and willingly open your mouth when big brother tries to feed you boogers.  And instead of wondering why you can’t go catch your own dinner we applaud the fact that you have discovered your hands!  In less than three months!

You are doing great with the sleep.  You have your off nights, of course, but overall, eight hour stretches are pretty common.  And we have learned, with you being the second, that we are no way no how going to waste that first wonderful long sleep stretch.  Which is why you go to bed right before us.  Baby down at 9:45 and up at 6:00 and down again until 9:00 in the morning?  Definitely works for me!  We have moved into the swaddling stage and your father is King of the Swaddle now and part of the reason why you sleep so well.  It is funny, though, to watch your expression as the swaddling begins.  A growing concern creeps over your face as if you wish to say:  Wait!  What are you doing?  You didn’t mean to swaddle me, right?  It’s the other baby you want… the other one!  No!!!!  Where have my hands gone?!?!

You are still loud when trying to fall asleep and loud waking up.  Sometimes you are loud while sleep too.  Maybe you will just always be a loud child, who knows?  You do some serious babbling and responding now, all sorts of sounds and syllables while staring at me.  It is so hard to do things when you are looking at me and talking.  Your eyes dance with an open invitation to converse and interact, I really believe that you are a little people person.

We were at a potluck last weekend and you eyed the enormous line of people waiting for food, your eyes darting back and forth as if to say: All these people?  Just for me?  Really?  I have taken advantage of this fact, sad to say, and in a pinch will leave you with a stuffed animal hanging over your head only to peek back in and see you gabbing away and smiling to Curious George.

You started kicking and grabbing around two and a half months.  You grab fingers and hair, and when you eat, you grab onto me like you’re afraid I’m going to run out of the room and leave you half fed.  You and I have a special hand game that we play now.  I get you dressed in the morning and you startle and swear in baby at the coldness of my hands.  Then I go to nurse you and you get me back.  I settle in with a book and you wait for it…wait for it… COLD HANDS!  Serves me right I guess, but it always surprises me because the rest of you is so warm.  I have made a note to myself to always have a spare baby around for cold Michigan winters.

Your eyes continue to be blue and your hair is growing in brown and soft.  It sort of looks like you have a flat top.  With your hair the way it is and your chunky build you kind of look like a baby bully.

Like your name should be Butch and you should spend your free time beating up smaller babies and stealing their lunch money.

I can’t believe that when I met you three short months ago I thought you were ugly.  I look at you now and think: Oh my gosh, you’ve gone all Gerber baby one me.  What happened?!?

Don’t worry.  I would love you even if you hadn’t made a U-turn from being ugly and squished, because that’s just what mommas do.

Love,

Mom

This is what you need:

Buy a roll of Bounty paper towels (I have been told it must be Bounty but I have never tested this) and find a container that is big enough to hold half a roll.  We had good luck with Meijer coffee containers, once we cut off the inner metal rim with a can opener.  So I guess you have to add in the step: drink lots of coffee.

Saw a roll of Bounty in half.  I will spare you the carnage, but this is my least favorite step as it is the most tedious.  Maybe I don’t have good knives or maybe I should use a hand saw?

Place the half roll in a container.

Mix 2 cups hot water, 2 tbsp baby soap, and 2 tbsp baby oil together.

Pour mixture over the paper towels.

After about a minute you will be able to remove the middle cardboard thingy and put the lid on your wipes.

I mean really, what could be better for early morning diaper changes than homeade wipes that are stored in a large can that smells like coffee?

I am in love!  So easy!  So cheap!  So lovely and warm when you first make them!  And no more last minute trips to the store when I discover, while rummaging through Isaac’s closet, that we are out of wipes again.

I am not.

Ever since I was little girl, my processing has come through writing.  If you want a lengthy thought-out answer, it’s better to ask me to write it down than say it, though after six years of knowing my husband and with the time crunch two small children bring, I am better at the verbal bit than I used to be.  There just isn’t time to jot down everything that I want or need to say.

But I know that I think things through more when I write and I also know that I am more likely to do things that I think through.  That is why I have decided to hash out, at least a little, the why behind my 2012 resolutions.  Thank goodness I only have twelve, right?  (I’m pretty sure I don’t need to think through my resolution to not get pregnant this year.)  It would be different it I had thirty resolutions but this year I was so moderate.

So I’m going to take it from the top with resolution #1:

1.  Find things to do that will make me feel less like a mom.  These days everything from my hair to my clothes to my body to my activities feels blah and, well, mom-ish.  I’m glad I’m a mom but I don’t want that to be the core of my identity.  I would like to find things to do that I love that nurture who I am.  So far all the things that come to mind either demand too much time or money or don’t make sense with our stage of life.  At the same time, I really want to be doing things I love, even if there isn’t as much time to put into those activities right now.

Now obviously there are little physical things that I could do in this area.  I could find clothes that I feel good in, get a nice hair cut, spend less time working out in the morning and more time fixing my hair (I can tell you right now that won’t be happening) apply makeup in the morning, things like that.  I’m sure all of that would feel good to a certain extent, but I don’t think it gets at the right level.  I think that what I’m feeling here goes a lot deeper than wanting a cute haircut and a nice pair of jeans.

Ever since I was little I wanted to be a mom.  When I was in high school I worried that I wouldn’t find someone to marry and wouldn’t have kids.  I worried about the same thing in college, because surely I was supposed to finish college and promptly have children.  (Please insert getting married between the finishing college and child bearing.)  The thing is, even though I am “living the dream” that I’ve had for most of my life, even though I get to stay home with two adorable little boys who are overflowing with brilliance and cuteness, sometimes it’s just plain hard.

I have a friend who, in an email to me, signed off with, “Being momma is hard.”  And it’s true.  What I never would have believed growing up is that having kids is a tough gig.  It’s hard to not have the time I want.  It’s hard to have little people need me all. the. time.  It’s hard to be less selfish.  It’s hard to teach my toddler to handle his crazy emotions while simultaneously keeping a handle on mine.  It’s hard to think that this is a 24/7 commitment, but then it’s equally hard to know that some day my kids are going to grow up and leave.  It’s hard to know an independent person who I kept safe for 9 months is walking around and that something bad could happen to him.  It’s hard to know what to do or say at any given moment and there are so SO many moments during my day.

I grew up watching a variety of responses to motherhood.  Some women seemed able to be mom and still be themselves and others seemed like they got lost in it.  I think I’ve always sworn that wouldn’t be me.  I wouldn’t fall into the mom trap, but I think now that it’s harder than I realized.  It’s not like you smile and say: I don’t plan on doing anything I enjoy for the next 18 years.  It comes on subtly.  It’s the time crunch and the tiredness and the mundane difficulty of keeping up the house and cooking and shopping. Where is it all supposed to fit?  What has to give?  What gets pushed aside?

I think this might be easier if I really enjoyed stuff around the house.  I like cooking and I like a clean house but I’m not all over the sewing and quilting and projects that really seem to do it for some people.  Instead, when I think of doing something interesting or fun I come up with incredibly unhelpful ideas.  Foreign languages.  Ballet.  More time to write.  Choir.  Get an MA or a PhD.  Travel.  Do a two year Spiritual Formation program a few hours away.

Is my personal life really this incompatible with small children?  Or at least small children that don’t come with a nanny?  I’m pretty sure that the answer to that is no.  And even if it was, this is the path we’ve chosen to walk right now.  A path strewn with tiny socks that keep disappearing in the dryer and toy trains that try to cripple me.  I feel in a lot of ways, that getting the chance to blog once in a while and running both help me feel more solid in my identity.  In the last Runner’s World magazine I ran across this quote from a mom who has a son born with some severe medical issues and could identify: “Running is the only thing I have that’s mine.  To go sweat, breathe, cry in the rain, and scream or sing in the woods is why I love running.”  I get that.

I would hazard a guess that not being able to run during most of the pregnancy and after contributed, in part, to feeling down in general.  I was feeling lost and overwhelmed and just didn’t feel like me.  Now that I am running again I have noticed a pronounced shift in how I feel.  That’s great and all, but I just know that there have to be things other than running; fun things, things that I really enjoy that will be there whether or not I am injured.  So this is all a very long way of saying that this resolution is all about discovering those things and finding ways to do them.  After all, we do plan on having more children (child?) and my current ones aren’t college bound any time soon.  It is life with small children for quite a while yet.  I want to enjoy the time and the stages, but I want to feel like I have an identity apart from mom.

Plus it would be nice to find some cute clothes that fit.  That I will not deny.

As I blogged earlier, what I really was hoping for during this past Advent was the ability to embrace the season where I’m at in life, as a mom, to be spontaneous and to embrace the fun of having a two-year old during the season rather than wishing my life were something out of a pristine Christmas card where everything is neatly decorated and in it’s place.  Overall, I think it was a success.

I found one Advent calendar with chocolates inside at Aldi and was a little sad that I had to hand over the chocolates to Isaac.  Especially since these were some beautiful filled chocolates.

It was a little confusing to Isaac, who picked up the fact that we were doing this because of Jesus’ birthday.  So every day he would look up at the top of the fridge at the calendar and ask: “Want down, Jesus?”

This was not the only point of confusion.  Somehow, snowmen, Jesus, and Santa were all really confusing concepts to Isaac and became his Christmas trinity.  He kept identifying the Santa decorations on our tree as Jesus.  At one point, when exiting the mall, he passed a man dressed up as Santa and called over his shoulder: “Bye, Jesus!”  Priceless.

I had a great time dressing Jonathan in the same Christmas clothes over and over.  Someday he will be embarrassed,  but right now it’s so fun!

One of my fond hopes involved potentially being able to decorate cookies with Isaac this year.  Fortunately I was not so into the idea that I made everything from scratch.  I made the cookies from a mix, popped open the frosting, and showed him what decorating looked like.  I then gave him the necessary tools to decorate his own cookies.  He ended up eating all the frosting and licking the remainder off his cookie (No, I did not give that one away!) and eating every candy and sprinkle that I set on his plate.  I ended up decorating everything else.  Oh well, maybe next year!

I think that we lit the Advent candles a handful of times, which is better than we have ever done before.  Isaac particularly loved blowing them out, usually right after they had been lit…  Despite the lack of candle light, Clint and I managed to read a book for Advent, which is the first time we have ever made it through the whole month of readings.  That really meant a lot to me.

The tree, from about 3 feet down, was continually rearranged during the month of December.  There were a lot of “Oops!  How did that ornament fall off the tree, Mom?” moments, but overall, I thought Isaac did well.  And he never figured out the fact that candy canes could be opened and eaten.  I love my son.

We attended the third annual Cheesy Turtleneck Christmas Party at church, and for the first time, managed to not get the entire family in a picture.  But I did find a turtleneck for Jonathan, so that was something of a triumph, though you can’t tell from the look on his face.

We were given the sweetest pair of “Baby’s First Christmas” boots, which makes me feel like we should have several more children so that they will get more use.

I got to do an impromptu baking session when we hosted the Junior team room party at our house at the last minute.  My excuse to make fudge for the Christmas season.

We tried cookie decorating part two with friends, right before Christmas, but Isaac still had not gained the appropriate maturity to not eat the cookies and sprinkles.

We had fun stringing all of the cards and pictures of friends and family across our living room.  For once we could actually see and appreciate all the work people put into their yearly Christmas cards!

Here is Isaac holding the best Christmas present ever on Christmas Eve.  I love how it looks like he is concocting all sorts of devious schemes in that little head of his.  I don’t know what is going through Jonathan’s mind but “incompetent mother” might be somewhere on the list.

I found a train table, some track, and a few trains on Craig’s List, and had to figure out how to assemble the crazy thing on Christmas Eve.  I was pretty proud of myself!  Jonathan stayed up late, helping with his excessive cuteness.

On Christmas morning it was with a little sadness that I got Isaac out of bed.  I realized that this was the first and only Christmas that Isaac would wake up on Christmas morning with no expectations.  From here on out he will always expect something under the tree but for those few moments between waking and seeing the tree he was blissfully ignorant of the nasty consumeristic turn that Christmas can take.  That Christmas innocence didn’t last long.  He soon learned that all the tiny packages held trains and then he went on to try to open every else’s gifts as well.  That led to throwing a tantrum, which landed him in time out about two-thirds of the way through the festivities.

I wasn’t sure what to expect this year as I tried to embrace the fact that life is messy and chaotic but I found that it was really good over all.  I was more relaxed.  I could look for and appreciate the little things.  I could laugh more at the mess and was more present during the beautiful moments.  In an Advent that wasn’t ideal it made me think more about how the original Advent couldn’t have been that ideal as well.  I doubt “have a baby in a stable” or “induce labor with long donkey ride to Bethlehem” were on Mary’s bucket list.  I can say, honestly, that I loved the season, mess and all, and was glad for the moments I took to think and reflect.  Plus there’s nothing like holding an almost newborn to make you think about the strangeness of God choosing to redeem humanity through a baby.  A baby who can’t move and needs to be changed and who smiles before spitting up the contents of his overly full stomach.  I have to admit, there were times that holding and looking at Jonathan was all I needed for Advent reflection.  I would sum up the season with two words: present and thankful!

Not that anything was actually figured out.  Six weeks of physical therapy came and went and on the last day they still didn’t know what was wrong and felt very badly that they hadn’t been able to figure out or totally fix the problem.  On the other hand, did you know that a rolling pin is great for massaging a tight adductor muscle?  My rolling pin has now been used infinitely more for this purpose than for it’s intended use of rolling out cookies or pie crust.  I had tried running a few times by the end of therapy, and though my leg would always hurt a bit during the run it didn’t hurt afterwards, so I was told to just keep running.  I have an appointment with some pain/sports person this week so maybe they will tell me more.  Or maybe this will remain a great mystery forever and will constantly undermine my confidence in ever running another event.

All that to say, I ran a whole 15 miles over three days last week and just ended my first 21 mile week.  I have not run four days in one week since probably March.  It is humbling to start out again.  I have no mileage base whatsoever.  On one of my first 3 mile runs as I was finishing up and felt like I was sprinting towards the house, I found that I was running a 9:15.  Fully three minutes slower than I used to run when I felt like I was exerting that sort of effort.  Sad day.

Last week I ran my first 5 miler in which all my miles were around an 8:30 pace, and that required a good deal of concentration as well.  Mostly I am hanging out around a 9:15 to 9:40 pace.  I worry that I will never be fast again.  I can do 6 miles at a time now, but I am aware, as I wasn’t before, how much effort it takes to run.  Those people who make comments about the difficulty of running really have somethng.  I have to think about it now that I have been off for so long and I really have to talk myself out of quitting some of my runs.

Because I am sometimes quite egocentric, I feel like the lovely warm and clear first half of January was soley for my benefit.  I firmly believe it was a gift to me because I wasn’t able to run at the end of fall so I got a January bonus of clear roads just as I was starting to run again.  People may talk of global warming and fragile ecosystems may be crumbling around the world because of the unseasonable warmth, but I LOVED those few weeks.  I even documented the outdoor conditions with a photo because usually by that point we have an unmeltable accumulation of snow!

It’s hard to jump back into running when it’s snowy outside.  Just the getting ready process is daunting!

Now that I am running again, consistently, I am realizing that I don’t know how to properly ease into things after such a long time off.  Plus I have the half marathon at the end of April that I signed up for last year and then had to defer to this year because of injury, that is coming up.  How do I go from no running to a half marathon in four months?  Especially when I don’t do the whole “easing into” thing very well.  The last time I did this was when I was pregnant and had taken a whole 11 days off.  Then I think I increased my mileage like this:  11, 22, 30, 36, 40.  If I even attempt that I will be injured in no time!  But I still haven’t found any “Just-been-injured half marathon plans for impatient people” floating around out there.  I want to increase mileage and get some speed back and build my weekly base… all at once!  Despite my excessive mental gymnastics as to how I am going to get back to where I was while avoiding the nebulous never-diagnosed pain I am deeply grateful to be running again.  I may be slow.  I may be more tired.  But I am so much more happy when I get out on the road alone and just run.

February:  Yes, Isaac, this little stick means everyone’s life is about to change!

March:  Morning sickness (AKA all day sickness) strikes and hardly any pictures are taken.

April:  We replace the sippy cup.

May:  Grandpa visits!

June:  We find out we are having another boy!

July:  We spend most of the month visiting California, Colorado, and St. Louis.

August:  We run our first ever “all family” 5K that is put together by the teens at our church to raise money to fight human trafficking.

September:  I get larger and Isaac gets his first ever haircut (and sucker).

October:  Jonathan is born on October 24th and Isaac promptly begins trying to squish him.

November:  We adjust to life as a family of four and I wonder if I should have chose a career that allows for more sleep.

December:  We spend our first Christmas in Michigan (after living here over two years!) and it is wonderfully relaxing even though we miss seeing friends and family in California.

And at the end of this full and wonderful year, Isaac is still trying to squish his sibling…  Here’s to 2012!

When I began thinking about making goals and resolutions for 2012, the list maker in me began jotting down all sorts of things.  But it really was more a long list of things that either needed to get done or that I wanted to get done.  I mean, do I really need “find a printer”, “get a cat”, “do more ab work”, and the like as my new year’s resolutions?  I think not.  At the same time I really love lists and resolutions, so I decided to go more for categories and also to choose only twelve things.  Twelve seemed appropriate, since we are, after all, headed into 2012.  Plus twelve is so much more manageable than the thirty-four (!) from last year.  But then I added one more, but I think that’s okay.  My hope in limiting myself is that I will be able to put more thought into the why and how of each one and hopefully make some progress.

The thinking and unpacking each one will have to come later, however, since we are on the eve of the new year and I plan to be asleep by 10:00 PM.  Gotta love New Year’s with two small children!

1.  Find things to do that will make me feel less like a mom.  These days everything from my hair to my clothes to my body to my activities feels blah and, well, mom-ish.  I’m glad I’m a mom but I don’t want that to be the core of my identity.  I would like to find things to do that I love that nurture who I am.  So far all the things that come to mind either demand too much time or money or don’t make sense with our stage of life.  At the same time, I really want to be doing things I love, even if there isn’t as much time to put into those activities right now.

2.  Work on organizing the house and find a way to keep it clean on a weekly basis.  This involves basic things like putting stuff away and doing tasks immediately if they take a minute or less to complete as well as doing a general cleanup at the end of each day.

3.  Enjoy the great outdoors: I would like this to look like growing a garden in the spring and summer and finding time to bike with my family on our nearby trail.

4.  Running:  Continue trying to figure out what is wrong with my leg.  Start building base mileage and hopefully get back to training.  After I am running pain free I can set more goals in this area.

5.  Experiment with meal plans and recipes: I would like to streamline things and set aside a night a week for certain foods.  A meatless night, a chicken night, ground beef, breakfast at dinner, etc.  I find so many recipes that I want to make but I have no focus and I feel like I end up spending more at the store because I buy for one meal and then make another.

6.  Prayer:  This past semester Clint and I have been more intentional about doing different types of prayer at the end of the night.  Lectio divina, the prayer of examen, praying our day in the morning, and discernment have all been rich times for us that have fallen away during the holiday craziness.

7.  Continue the pregnancy weight loss and come to terms with where I would like to be long term.

8.  Financial: We technically paid off our student loans at the end of 2011, but now have to reimburse our savings account.  My goal here is to manage our money better, find ways to save more, and determine where the money we have been putting into the loans should go.

9.  Make two sustainable changes each month that will help us to eat foods that are less processed, more organic, and generally healthier while still trying to keep our grocery bill at $200 per month.

10.  Find a way to write more.  I really enjoy writing but again this feels like an area where I don’t have much of a focus.

11.  Minimize:  Baby and toddler years are maybe not the best times to get rid of stuff, but I would like to go through the house monthly and get rid of things that we don’t need.  We have been given so much but we have a small space and don’t need everything we have around.

10.  Don’t get pregnant!  Enough said.

11.  Find ways to enjoy Isaac’s toddlerhood.  I’m not sure if this involves doing specific projects or going places or just accepting more of his invitations to engage and be present.  All I know is that I don’t do a great job with it.  Staying in the present with a new baby and a toddler can be downright exhausting!

12.  Care more:  This may sounds strange, but I want to care more about the world around me.  The other day, driving out of town I looked again at the discrepancy between the end of a nice housing development and, just over the fence, a trailer park.  Who lives there?  I wondered.  What’s their story?  What do they do?  Where can I be involved in the place I live with the time that I have and in a way that makes sense with being a mom of small children?  What can I do where it will feel like it even matters if I show up?  And when it comes down to it, do I really even want to be involved in the messy world that I see around me?  

13.  I guess the attitude I would like to cultivate in 2012, after looking at the results of 2011 is one that is less frantic and more fun.  I have so much to be grateful for and I would like to remember that on a daily basis.

Cheers to 2012!

I am resolved that in 2012 the list will be (at least a little) shorter, we must get a printer, and I must not get pregnant.

Considering I didn’t have my list in front of me most of the time, I don’t think I did too badly.  Below are the resolutions with the things I did italicized.

Intellectual:

-Finish the last four nursing pre-reqs (Chemistry, Developmental Psych, Microbiology, and Pharmacology) Did well with this, I think, considering I was pregnant with a toddler at home during all three classes.  Kept a 4.0 and microbiology can wait!

-Research and determine whether or not nursing school will actually fit into our life as a family right now.  Does not fit.  Must wait until all current and hypothetical children are in school.

-Read 50 books  I have no idea how many books I read, but it was way more than 50.

Running: Running goals out because of getting pregnant and unidentified pain.

-Start marathon training (knee is still sort of iffy) Do I get points for making it 10 weeks into training?

-If able to run marathon, try to BQ (under 3:40)

-5K under 20 minutes

-10 under 42 minutes

-Half marathon under 1:35

-Stretch more

-Run injury free!

Obviously my running suffered this year (well, was practically non-existent after March) and I am sad about this.  I did have three 20 milers while pregnant though, which was awesome.

Social:

-Try to see friends at least once a week.

-Keep in touch with friends outside the state.

-Learn to use Skype and get it set up on my computer.

-Meet the woman who used to live in our house.

-Go to mom things when offered (and if they fit into the schedule)

I did everything and then some under the social category.  I feel a little bad that a lot of it was prompted by the option of either going and seeing people or being stuck at home with a toddler.  Either way, look at me being all social.

Physical:

-Find a healthier way of eating that is actually sustainable. Didn’t do much more than think about it.

-Lose those same darned 4-5 pounds from last year Gained 26 pregnancy pounds instead.

-Start the New Rules of Lifting for Women book and do the workouts twice per week.  Loved it until I got bored 6 months in.

-Do a pull up. Did one long ago at the beginning of pregnancy. 

Spiritual:

-Observe lent (odd that this actually has to go on a to-do list when you don’t attend a liturgical church…).

-Take a half-day personal retreat three times this year.

-Go on a family retreat.

-Look for a spiritual director for husband and myself.

-Still looking for something daily and sustainable that works for my personality and as a mom.

Did well on all fronts here.

Household:

-Wage war on dust mites so that husband is able to sleep. Now I just need to maintain, which is hard with a baby and toddler.

-Pay extra on student loans. Done!  $700 plus some extra per month.

-Menu plan, coupon, and save better on groceries. This is a hard area for me.

-Try not to kill this year’s basil plant. FAIL!  For the record I failed twice.  Killed a cilantro plant too.

-Make my own laundry soap. Pretty easy!

-Find a bed frame and a toddler bed/crib In storage and waiting.

-Find better ways to organize all of our stuff.  Another difficult area.

Fun:

-Finish 2 photo albums.

-Find time to play the piano.  (How do you play the piano when you have a toddler who wants to play too?)

-Find more time to blog and write

Apparently I don’t do so well with fun.

Unspoken Goal:  Get pregnant and have a home birth.  DONE!

I guess it’s time to drink at little eggnog and ponder what I should do in 2012.