January Projects

I did not set New Year's resolutions. Nevertheless, January has become a month of improvement projects for me. Mostly because it is freezing outside and there is nowhere to go. And because Jack is busy working 14 hour days, 6 days a week. Might as well keep busy right?

Project 1: Potty training Jackson! 
I've been dreading/avoiding this for awhile, but around Christmas he started occasionally using the toilet by himself. Without telling me. I would just walk in and find him on the toilet taking a leak. So I knew it was time to hop on that train. Luckily it went very well. He had two accidents the first week, two accidents the second week, and since then he's an accident free. He is even wears underwear and stays dry all night! True to his independent nature, he often goes potty without telling me.  Eventually i am sure that will be a good thing, but for now it is causing a messy/stinky bathroom.  I'm so proud of him though!

Project 2: Get healthy

I have not exercised since I started feeling extreme morning sickness when I was pregnant with Jane last year.  Lately I have felt like my body is craving exercise!  So I started a set of workout videos called Insanity.  I have done Insanity every single day this month excluding Sundays.  I have also kept track of all the food I eat on My Fitness Pal app so that I can try to eat healthier and stay below my daily calorie goal.  My real motivation is to lose the extra baby weight I'm carrying around.  So far, I have not lost any weight despite all my effort!  This is something that seems to plague me when I am breastfeeding. However, I can tell I am much stronger and in better shape already.  When I did the first Insanity "fit test" I could barely get through it and was very sore.  Now I can do the fit test nearly without breaking a sweat and can do many more reps of each exercises.  I know health should be the ultimate goal and I will continue to workout and eat healthy even if I don't see the physical changes, but I sure wouldn't mind losing a pound or two.

Project 3: Reading

I would really like Hannah to love reading as much as I do, so we have been reading a lot of children's books together.  It has been something that we both enjoy.  But I also feel that I really benefited from being able to read before I started Kindergarten, and my confidence in being able to read at a young age helped instill my love of reading.  Since Hannah's preschool class hasn't worked on reading at all, I decided it was time to start learning at home.  We do a lesson out of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons nearly every day.  She loves the lessons that make sense to her, but whenever we hit a tougher concept she gets frustrated and wants to give up.  We'll keep working though, I hope that in 100 days I can say she is really reading!

 Upcoming projects: 

Sleep training Jane, somehow.  She has recently hit some major sleep regression.  She no longer naps for very long (45 minutes at the most!) unless I am holding her.  She wants to be held all the time!  In fact, I am holding her now.  Without a good nap, she gets very whiny.  She also has started waking up more frequently at night, which is hard for me since I was quite used to her only getting up once a night to eat.  I am feeling very tired lately, and that needs to change.  I don't really feel ready to let her cry it out at this young age yet, and I don't mind getting up with her in the night if she is hungry.  We really need to figure out this napping thing though!  Any suggestions??

Getting ready to move.  I'm feeling the need to Spring Clean and reorganize my house, but then I remember that we are moving AGAIN in just 4 1/2 months, so maybe I should just start packing again.

Here's to a productive winter...