1) Exercise for 20 minutes per day. I did not rock this one this month. I worked out 23 out of 31 days. Still hovering around 160lbs. Excepting the week we were on vacation I did manage to run and lift once each per week. And we did a ton of walking while we were in Memphis, so I don't feel too bad about it. At the moment I'm feeling sick so I'm not going to be ambitious and change anything.
2) Send one letter per week. This is getting easier and easier. Mail begets mail, apparently. Once you send a letter to someone, they usually respond with a letter, and the cycle just keeps going. I also sent another cake for my father-in-law's birthday.
3) Bake and decorate one thing outside of work per month. My brother is engaged! So I made him a cake! It is a delicious chocolate fudge cake with white chocolate butter cream icing covered in ivory vanilla fondant. I made the bow with fondant and a little bit of gumpaste to make it a little bit stiffer. This isn't the greatest picture, but on top there are two small birds with a heart in the middle, like those old folk art stencils.
4) Stop comparing myself to other moms. I had an epiphany this month. I am a mom who goes and who does. I LOVE LOVE LOVE to take Lily places. Because we live so close to excellent public transportation, we've become members at most of the Chicago museums so we can go whenever we want for however long we want. And now that she's getting to be a more reliable walker, I can even leave the umbrella stroller at home making the bus all that more easy. Lily really enjoys taking the bus, too. She likes to flirt with all the passengers, look out the windows at the tall buildings, and when there's enough room she gets to feel very grown up sitting in her very own seat. We usually go somewhere fun at least once a week. We also just randomly go outside for a quick walk to the big park near the lakefront most days. Lily prefers the big open green space where she can chase the birds and squirrels and hug the trees to the play lot. Although if there are some little kids playing on the playground, she'll run over and join in. But left to her own devises she's a little nature girl I think. I love it.
And I've come to terms with my impatience with play. I'm happy to get down on the ground and play with Lily for a finite period of time, but I just can't do it all day. And I'm not good at planning activities or crafts together. My obsessive need to clean and cook and do laundry, just generally DO THINGS, won't let me just entertain her for long periods of time. So now that she's big enough, it's getting easier to simply include her in what I'm doing anyway. If I'm washing the dishes after breakfast, she usually runs over to her kitchen to make me a second breakfast. She gets it all set up at her little table and chairs, and when I'm done with the first set of dishes, then I go sit at her little table and we have second breakfast together. Then while I finish cleaning up the rest of the kitchen, I give her a plastic tub of soapy water so she can wash her dishes, too. Everyone is entertained, and things are getting done. Same with cooking in the evening. She's pretty good at scooping and stirring so I can have her help me measure things. And don't get her started on laundry, it's her favorite thing in the whole wide world. Maybe I'm turning her into a tiny little housekeeper, but that's okay. We play and have lots of fun in between getting done what needs to get done.
So I'm settling into a groove, and it feels good. Hooray for a little bit of self-confidence.
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